JUNE OBX SPECIAL
BUY ANY 2 Outer Banks books
GET “Uncle Jack’s Outer Banks“ FREE
Plus FREE mailing
Yes, it’s true. Buy any two of our award-winning Outer Banks books, and you get the latest, the hilarious Uncle Jack’s Outer Banks, absolutely FREE — all with FREE mailing, too.
Make your selections below, and Uncle Jack’s Outer Banks will be automatically added to your order. (Note: Do not add Uncle Jack’s Outer Banks to your order unless you intend to receive multiple copies.) June special ends soon. Available only at this site.
The OBX Books
all in hardcover, all award winners:
- Hatteras Island: Keeper of the Outer Banks, by Ray McAllister (signed copy).
For a remote patch of real estate with a year-round population of little more than 3,000, Hatteras has witnessed extraordinary history. It may have been the destination of the Lost Colony. Blackbeard likely hobnobbed with the locals. The Monitor went to its watery grave nearby. Radio towers on the island made history’s first transmission of music and received the distress call from the Titanic. Billy Mitchell proved the ascendancy of air power by sinking a pair of mothballed battleships offshore. Bodies washed up on the beach following U-boat attacks during World War II. The surfmen of the island’s lifesaving stations made some of the most heroic rescues ever. And the coastal icon, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, has stood watch. But Hatteras Island: Keeper of the Outer Banks is more than a history. It is rather, as author Ray McAllister says, “a conversation with an island.” It tells of a vacation paradise that can change instantly into a storm center, of a resort island kept largely free of development — but hardly of controversy — by a national seashore park. It tells of the hardy few who brave the Hatteras winters, those who come to catch record-sized fish from the piers, those who travel disaster-prone Highway 12 and who drove the bare sand before it, those who stood and watched as a 208-foot lighthouse was moved half a mile. “Pull up a chair,” McAllister says. “Have a listen.”
- Ocracoke Lighthouse and The Old Salts, by Ellen Fulcher Cloud.
Two Outer Banks classics about Ocracoke by the late Ellen Fulcher Cloud, long almost impossible to find, have been published as Ocracoke Lighthouse and The Old Salts. First published 25 years ago as Ocracoke Lighthouse, Part 1 shares the history of the oldest lighthouse in North Carolina and the second oldest on the East Coast. Cloud also includes her personal story and that of a few public-spirited friends who engaged in the rollicking “Great Window Heist” to keep the historic light- house from being irreparably damaged by government officials. Part 2, first published as the award-winning Old Salt, introduces Ocracoke’s “men of the sea” – pilots, fishermen and shrimpers, men of war, shipbuilders, surfmen of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, and even her own father. Cloud’s unparalleled research, little-known stories and own family tradition make Ocracoke Lighthouse and The Old Salts a must- read for any lover of the Outer Banks.
- Ocracoke: Pearl of the Outer Banks, by Ray McAllister (signed copy).
Ocracoke Island is a vacation paradise, beautiful and often serene. It has rarely been entirely safe, however. Treacherous storms, pirates and even German submarines have taken down ships offshore and made the onshore lives of islanders uncertain. It was at Ocracoke that America’s most famous pirate, the ruthless Blackbeard, met his end in a ferocious battle with naval authorities. There is, of course, a gentler side to Ocracoke. The island is home to the iconic 1823 lighthouse that is only 75 feet tall and a photographer’s favorite. Here, too, are ferries full of visitors and throngs of bicycle riders, a legendary herd of once-wild ponies and miles upon miles of national honored beaches, the charmingly unpaved Howard Street and the poignantly serene British Cemetery. Author Ray McAllister explores them all, then goes further in search of the soul of Ocracoke, discovering what it is that pulls visitors back year after year.
- The Senator’s Son: The Shocking Disappearance, The Celebrated Trial, and The Mystery That Remains A Century Later, by Charles Oldham (signed copy).
On Monday, February 13, 1905, eight-year-old Kenneth Beasley walked to the back of his school’s playground and into the melting snow of the woods beyond. The son of a North Carolina state senator was never seen again. A year and a half later, a political rival was charged in what became one of North Carolina’s biggest trials ever, receiving coverage up and down the East Coast. The eventual verdict and stunning aftermath would rip apart two families and shock a state … yet leave a mystery unsolved. Now Charles Oldham, attorney and author, has reopened the case, along the way investigating not only it but the state’s political, racial, lynching and liquor cultures. The result is an absorbing must-read story.
- Portsmouth: The Way It Was, by Ellen Fulcher Cloud.
The Outer Banks classic, Portsmouth: The Way It Was, by the late Ellen Fulcher Cloud, tells the true story of “the ghost village of the Outer Banks.” A small, now uninhabited island southwest of Ocracoke, Portsmouth was once a thriving seaport serving the North Carolina coast. In the award-winning Portsmouth: The Way It Was, first published in 1996, Ellen Fulcher Cloud recreates the island’s early history based on previously undocumented information: records of storms, wars, and Federal occupation during the Civil War, along with numerous personal letters and photographs. Here, too, are the stories of America’s first marine hospital, established on Portsmouth in 1820; of Dr. Samuel Dudley, the wealthy physician later in charge; and of John Wallace, the businessman “Governor of Shell Castle.” We meet the brave members of the Life-Saving Service, the island’s one black family, and Mrs. Mattie Gilgo, whose daylong interview describes Portsmouth life a century ago. We go inside the island’s mail service and village school – and learn why this flourishing village emptied out after two centuries of existence.
- Uncle Jack’s Outer Banks, by Jack Sandberg.
Long the funniest, and savviest commentator on North Carolina’s beloved Outer Banks, “Uncle Jack” Sandberg is back with the ultimate collection of hilarious — and on-the-mark — observations, supplemented by the work on great cartoonists. Sandberg dispenses stories, advice, criticism, annoyance, warnings, insight, and always laughs, about this narrow strand of islands that has become one of America’s premier vacationlands. From Corolla to Hatteras Island, with stops at Manteo, his beloved South Nags Head, and all spots in-between, Uncle Jack does indeed own the Outer Banks. UNCLE JACK’S OUTER BANKS: The Ultimate Collection, now is available up and down the Outer Banks for beach season. But you can get yours now, and for FREE. With 69 essays and 22 cartoons, this is the perfect gift or memento for anyone who loves the Outer Banks or just likes to laugh. It is, as Uncle Jack says, “a pretty funny book.”