Book Highlights Interesting Arkansans

I read a lot. And as a result of my job, I’ve become intrigued with Arkansas history. One book on my to-read list is Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics by Tom Dillard. Below is part of an article from the University of Arkansas newswire about the book in case you might want to check it out or get a chance to read it before I do!:

Tom W. Dillard keeps a list of interesting people in Arkansas. He researches information about these people in his leisure time, which is skimpy, considering his demanding job as head of the special collections department at the University of Arkansas Libraries and his many other obligations to projects and organizations throughout the state as the unofficial advocate of Arkansas history.

Dillard’s list often serves as a starting point for his column, published weekly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which Dillard has written since 2002. Roughly, that’s 350 columns composed of 280,000 words. Seventy-three biographical sketches from that column have been collected in Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics: A Gallery of Amazing Arkansans, published by the University of Arkansas Press.

The book was called “a series of brilliant profiles of scores of the state’s most interesting people” by Roy Reed, who wrote the foreword.