Live As If… A Teacher’s Love Story
Negative Capability Press 2020
“If love had a voice and could tell us its story, it would be this one… As Gaillard recounts the extraordinary life of his wife, Nancy, he … offers us a peek into a life so well-lived, so full of courage and generosity, that it changes us just by reading about her.”
– Patti Callahan Henry, Novelist, Winner of the Harper Lee Award

The Slave Who Went to Congress
With Marti Rosner; NewSouth Books 2020
Foreword Magazine Book of the Day, January 2020
“A powerful chapter in American history to share with young readers. This book is a gem.”
– Rita Williams-Garcia, 3-time Coretta Scott King Author Award winner

A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s
Our Decade of Hope, Possibility and Innocence Lost
NewSouth Books 2018
NPR Great Read of 2018; winner of F. Scott Fitzgerald Museum Literary Prize
“With graceful prose and a storyteller’s eye, Frye Gaillard captures the hope and tragedy of the 1960s… A masterwork.”
– Morris Dees, Co-Founder
Southern Poverty Law Center

Journey to the Wilderness:
War, Memory, and a Southern Family’s Civil War Letters
NewSouth Books 2015
Adapted by Dragonfly Public Media as Public Television documentary
“… A lens through which we can better see the inner lives of those who made the terrible choice in going to war to preserve the institution of slavery… a cautionary tale that directs us to embrace the sacredness of all human life.”
– Sena Jeter Naslund, novelist, winner of the Harper Lee Award

The Books That Mattered:
A Readers Memoir; NewSouth Books 2013
Southern Literary Review Read of the Month
“Written with warmth, a scholar’s attention to detail, and genuine insight, (this) is a gift to readers everywhere.”
– Novelist Michael Knight

Alabama’s Civil Rights Trail
University of Alabama Press 2010
“The hundred-fifty mile stretch along U.S. Highway 80 stretching through the Alabama Black Belt from Phenix City to Demopolis became the epic center of the most important human rights movement of the Twentieth Century… Frye Gaillard has now provided a guidebook worthy of the events that transpired there…”
– Wayne Flynt, Professor Emeritus, Auburn University

With Music and Justice for All:
Some Southerners and Their Passions
Vanderbilt University Press 2008
The Progressive Book Club, 2-time selection
“Frye Gaillard tells the truth at all costs, confronting racism head-on, explicating Southern music better than anybody else in the world… Rigorous integrity and generous, graceful writing characterize this fine book.”
– Lee Smith, Novelist

In the Path of the Storms
With Sheila Hagler & Peggy Denniston
University of Alabama Press 2008
Adapted by Alabama Center for Public Television as a documentary film & winner of a regional Emmy
“In the Path of the Storms is a vivid and touching tribute to a community caught between a reeling economy and a devastated landscape. Frye Gaillard puts his ear to the ground and listens…”
– Patricia Foster, author of All the Lost Girls

Prophet from Plains: Jimmy Carter & His Legacy
University of Georgia Press 2007
Foreword Magazine Book of the Year finalist
“…a rich-in-anecdotes account of how Jimmy Carter struggled with mixed results as an unpopular president, then pressed ahead with striking success in tackling international problems to become one of the world’s most popular statesmen.”
– Jack Nelson, former Washington bureau chief, Los Angeles Times

The Dream Long Deferred:
The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, N. C.
1st ed. 1988, University of North Carolina Press
2nd ed. rev. 1999, Briar Patch Press
3rd ed. revised 2006, University of South Carolina Press
Winner of the Gustavus Myers Award
“Gaillard offers thorough research, perceptiveness, balance, and an engaging style that leaves room for one’s own conclusions… A compelling account.”
– New York Times Book Review

Cradle of Freedom:
Alabama and the Movement That Changed America
University of Alabama Press 2004, paper edition 2005
Alabama Library Association Nonfiction Book of the Year & Winner of Lillian Smith Book Award
“Frye Gaillard writes with the grace and craft of a first-rate novelist.”
– Dan Carter, historian, author of The Politics of Rage

Watermelon Wine: The Spirit of Country Music
1st ed. 1978, St. Martin’s Press; 2nd ed. rev. 2004, NewSouth Books
Selected by Kurt Vonnegut & Tom Wicker for inclusion in
America Through American Eyes International Book Exhibition, Moscow, 1979
“Watermelon Wine stands with Peter Guralnick’s Lost Highways and other master-works as a vivid, incisive and compelling book … a stunning success.”
– Peter Cooper, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

This Old Wheel Will Roll Around Again, photographs by Don Sturkey, essay by Frye Gaillard, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Mobile and the Eastern Shore, with Nancy Gaillard and Tracy Gaillard, Arcadia Publishing.

The Quilt: And the Poetry of Alabama Music, coauthored with Kathryn Scheldt, NewSouth Books.

The Greensboro Four: Civil Rights Pioneers, Main Street Books.

The 521 All-Stars: A Championship Story of Baseball and Community, photographs by Byron Baldwin, text by Frye Gaillard, Black Belt Publishing; featured on CBS Sunday Morning.

As Long as the Waters Flow: Native Americans in the South and East, photographs by Carolyn Demeritt, text by Frye Gaillard; John F. Blair, Publisher.

If I Were a Carpenter: Twenty Years of Habitat for Humanity, John F. Blair, Publisher.

The Heart of Dixie: Southern Rebels, Renegades and Heroes, Down Home Press.

Southern Voices, Down Home Press.

Voices from the Attic, Down Home Press.

The Way We See It: Documentary Photography by the Children of Charlotte, coauthored & edited with Rachel Gaillard, The Light Factory/Down Home Press.

The Catawba River, text by Frye Gaillard & Dot Jackson, photographs by Don Sturkey, Gardner-Webb University Press.

Race, Rock & Religion: Profiles from a Southern Journalist, East Woods Press/Globe Pequot.

Spacechimp: NASA’s Ape in Space, coauthored with Melinda Farbman, Enslow Publishing.

Through the Eye of Katrina: The Past as Prologue, Oxford University Press/Journal of American History.

The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, University of North Carolina Press.

Discovering North Carolina: A Tar Heel Reader, University of North Carolina Press.

Conversations with Will D. Campbell, University Press of Mississippi.

The Remembered Gate: Memoirs by Alabama Writers, University of Alabama Press.

Close to Home: Revelations and Reminiscences by North Carolina Writers, John F. Blair, Publisher.

Literary Mobile: 10^th Anniversary Edition, Negative Capability Press.

No Hiding Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Charlotte-Area Writers, Down Home Press.

American Crisis, Southern Solutions, NewSouth Books.

Chronicles of American Indian Protest, Fawcett Books.

Educating the Disadvantaged: 1971, AMS Press.

The North Carolina Century: Tar Heels Who Made a Difference, Levine Museum of the New South.

The History of Mobile of Mobile in 22 Objects, the History Museum of Mobile.