In which Mr. Rick Bragg parks his butt at his mamma's kitchen table; her ladyship, the editor ruthlessly weeds out her bookshelves, Ms. Bailey White writes to be anybody she wants to be, and a wise woman explains that gardens, like life, are about balance.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Do you know how some people will say that they are weeding out their book cases, getting rid of books that they no longer want or won't read again? Her ladyship, the editor, almost never did this. Books would continue to be shelved, or stacked, or piled, or crammed, into all available spaces. Only rarely did she release any back into the world, and then often only because she had found herself a better copy. A nice hardcover, to replace a worn paperback. A special edition, to replace an old remainder. A signed copy, to replace an unsigned one.
No doubt there is such a thing as a "critical mass" of books and it is possible her ladyship is in danger of reaching it. When one begins to resent the space the refrigerator is taking up that could be used for bookshelves, one has perhaps passed some critical point of no return.
Therefore her ladyship, the editor, has steeled herself and begun to make an effort to weed out the overloaded shelves in her library. Always one to be logical, she began first with the books she has in multiple copies. Because really, how many sets of the works of Samuel R. Delany does any one person need? Surely not three or four. Surely two sets are sufficient.
Books that she pulls, and then weeps quietly over, are destined to go to her Little Free Library at the end of her driveway. There, they may or may not be picked up by one of its regular visitors (the gentleman who collects her ladyship's trash every Monday morning, she has discovered, is an avid reader of American history).
After a lifetime in the book business, her ladyship's library is quite extensive, so this project of weeding out is about as daunting as the weeding that needs to be done in her actual garden. But she has diligently persevered, and already six or seven of her 8000+ books have been pulled to put in the library at the end of the drive.
Her ladyship is quite proud of herself. She is going to a bookstore later today to reward herself.
Read independently. And shop local.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. her ladyship, the editor
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#ReadSavannah! with Liane Moriarty
#ReadSavannah is a ticketed event open to the public, a Readers' Afternoon Delight that will include lunch with authors, panels and other programs to allow readers to meet and mingle with presenting authors.
The Hilton DeSoto Savannah | September 18, 2016 | 12 noon - 5 PM
Noteworthy poetry and prose from her ladyship's bedside reading stack.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.White calla lilies meant forgiveness. That was what Emma Jennings had read somewhere in a a magazine. Well, if there ever came a time when she needed to show someone she forgave them, she had plenty of flowers for the occasion. From just three bulbs, they had multiplied to spread around her gardenias and now threatened to invade her bed of lantanas. The creamy whiteness of the lilies with their deep golden throats blended nicely with the sunshine-yellow lantanas, at least in this particular place. Balance. That was the secret to good gardening. There had to be the right balance of colors, textures, shapes, sizes, and fragrances. Otherwise, a garden could get out of whack as badly as the rest of the world.
--Sandra E. Johnson, Flowers for the Living (Texas Review Press, 2016)
"Writing is very private and I think it is a good job for a shy person, somebody who is not comfortable in the public eye, because you can go into a room and write anything you want, and you can be anybody you want." --Bailey White
At first I worried for Miss Jane, then I rooted for her, but by the end of her story I simply admired her. Brad Watson's writing flows beautifully as he tells the tale of a life lived fully by someone who had reason to be ungrateful and unhappy. A believable and interesting cast of supporting characters rounds out a really satisfying read.. -- Jamie, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
Since it's Cursed Child week, I'll try to sell you on this classic Russian novel through the lens of Harry Potter. Okay: remember the uncomprehending and indignant way that the Dursleys reacted to magic? In The Master and Margarita, we see the Devil himself messing with the elites of 1930s Soviet Russia as they try their best to explain away the presence of the supernatural in their lives. There's a tomcat that does card tricks, a witch that rides a giant hog, and a writer who knows the real story of Pontius Pilate. And at the heart of the book, there is love story that's one of the most moving I've ever read. --Travis, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From Donald Ray Pollock, author of the highly acclaimed The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff, comes a dark, gritty, electrifying (and, disturbingly, weirdly funny) new novel that will solidify his place among the best contemporary American authors.
It is 1917, in that sliver of border land that divides Georgia from Alabama. Dispossessed farmer Pearl Jewett ekes out a hardscrabble existence with his three young sons: Cane (the eldest; handsome; intelligent); Cob (short; heavy set; a bit slow); and Chimney (the youngest; thin; ill-tempered). Several hundred miles away in southern Ohio, a farmer by the name of Ellsworth Fiddler lives with his son, Eddie, and his wife, Eula. After Ellsworth is swindled out of his family's entire fortune, his life is put on a surprising, unforgettable, and violent trajectory that will directly lead him to cross paths with the Jewetts. No good can come of it. Or can it?
In the gothic tradition of Flannery O'Connor and Cormac McCarthy with a healthy dose of cinematic violence reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah, Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers, the Jewetts and the Fiddlers will find their lives colliding in increasingly dark and horrific ways, placing Donald Ray Pollock firmly in the company of the genre's literary masters.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Martha Cinader is a writer and recording artist. She is the author of several published and unpublished books of poetry and short stories, and a performance artist crossing boundaries between print, music, poetry and storytelling. Creator of the long running performance series Listen & Be Heard that got started in New York City, she brought it along when she moved to California in 1999. There she met her husband and together they opened L&BH Poetry Café and published the award winning L&BH Arts Weekly. She continues to publish the web version of L&BH Arts News where she invites people to post there arts related announcements and reviews. Currently living in Greenville SC, with her husband and three sons, she blogs about being a virgin homesteader, among other things at cinader.com. Her forthcoming novel, Marvelina, is a fairytale for grown women.
Dreamscape
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Did You Know? Einstein was a high school dropout. Josephine Baker was a secret agent for the French Resistance during World War Two. Sacajawea was the only woman who traveled with Lewis and Clark’s expedition, and carried her baby the whole way. The Supreme Court decided in 1962 that Nicola Tesla was the real inventor of the radio. Philipp Reis invented the first telephone. The medical symbol of the python dates back to the brave ancient African Queen Mella. (Listen to the story of Mella for free.) These fascinating facts and more are contained in Dreamscape: Real Dreams Really Make a Difference. A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.
For the week ending July 31. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Girls Emma Cline, Random House, $27, 9780812998603 2. Truly Madly Guilty Liane Moriarty, Flatiron, $26.99, 9781250069795 3. The Black Widow Daniel Silva, Harper, $27.99, 9780062320223 4. First Comes Love Emily Giffin, Ballantine, $28, 9780345546920 5. The Woman in Cabin 10 Ruth Ware, Gallery/Scout Press, $26, 9781501132933
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. White Trash Nancy Isenberg, Viking, $28, 9780670785971 2. Hamilton: The Revolution Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jeremy McCarter, Grand Central, $45, 9781455539741 3. When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi, Random House, $25, 9780812988406 4. Crisis of Character Gary J. Byrne, Center Street, $27, 9781455568871 5. Grit Angela Duckworth, Scribner, $28, 9781501111105
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.9. Underground Airlines Ben Winters, Mulholland, $26, 9780316261241 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.9. Dimestore: A Writer's Life Lee Smith, Algonquin, $24.95, 9781616205027 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.11. Go Set a Watchman Harper Lee, Harper Perennial, $15.99, 9780062409867
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which there's a man in a bookshop that has probably read every book on the shelf, .Parnassus Books teams up with Killer Nashville to create a killer book convention, and her ladyship offers a gentle warning for the forthcoming election season: poets are never silent, and what they say tends to be remembered far longer than a campaign speech.
Last week her ladyship, the editor, recounted how she was in the midst of weeding out her bookshelves of material unwanted and unneeded. To date, the count of books she has banished from her shelves remains in a numerical range that can be tallied upon a person's fingers without having to rely upon the addition of a couple of toes.
But there is silver lining to such a doubtful and doomed project; indeed, more than a lining, a great broad cloth of shimming material. In the act of individually taking down and contemplating the intrinsic necessity of each book on her shelves, she has "rediscovered," so to speak, many an writer and many a work that she had long since put at the back of her failing memory.
And thus this weekend she found herself with a battered copy of a book of poetry from Frank X. Walker in her hands: Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York.
The book is over ten years old now, and her ladyship still remember her excitement when she first read it back in 2003, in the years before, in fact, she became "her ladyship, the editor." A cycle of poems that recreates the voice of York -- William Clark's slave and manservant who traveled with Lewis and Clark for their entire length of their famous expedition. There is some evidence that York, at the end of the journey, simply refused to return to a life of slavery, and disappeared into the west.
Walker's book gives a fierce and present voice to the man who was part of history, but erased from it. But one of her ladyship's favorite poems in the book is near the end, when York, who had rarely seen his wife while he was a slave because she was owned by another man, and had no choice but to leave her when his master set out on his grand endeavor, returns to her after the journey is done:
On that first night back me an her move like turtles unwrapping the old, the news an each other.
We outlast the candle an the moon laughing an talking an crying then pretends we are earth an sky hunger an fruit, a black mountain ana all-skiin-quilt a snow.
Salty and sticky an wet we knows all we have is this here, so we unshackle us clothes become one with the night an be free.
In the serendipitous way that the universe sometimes decides to deliver its messages, no sooner had her ladyship sat down to revisit the journey of York than the name of his poet floated across her news wires: "Affrilachian Poets reject Bevin arts award" suddenly appeared in headlines, posts and twitter feeds. The group, founded by Walker and the poet Nikki Finney to highlight the work -- the existence -- of African American writers and in what the rest of the country thinks of as "Appalachia" apparently has serious objections to the current Kentucky governor's policies and did not hesitate to make them known.
A lesson to every politician in this election season -- the poet is never silent. And the poet's words will outlast your campaign speeches, your promises, and most probably your tenure in office. In fact the poet's words, like Walker's words for York, may still be read and ringing in our ears long after even the memory of you fades from the halls of government you wanted so badly to walk.
It never does to underestimate the poet. Especially in the South.
Read independently. And shop local.
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Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.#ReadSavannah! with Liane Moriarty, author of Truly Madly Guilty
#ReadSavannah is a ticketed event open to the public, a Readers' Afternoon Delight that will include lunch with authors, panels and other programs to allow readers to meet and mingle with presenting authors. Including:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The Hilton DeSoto Savannah | September 18, 2016 | 12 noon - 5 PM
James Murphy made a deal with himself, and it worked for a while. During the increasingly long periods of time when his wife rebuffed his attempts at intimacy, he permitted himself to peruse lingerie shows on YouTube or surf through the PG-13 submissions on Mygirlfriendsbikini.com, just so long as he did not dip his toe into the cesspool of hardcore porn. He rigorously kept this promise, but as a volunteer deacon in the First Baptist Church of Clarkeston, Georgia, he was not supposed to indulge lustful impulses under any circumstances, so each click to a teasing bikini girlfriend came with a tug of guilt. Nonetheless, he carried on, regret never quite managing to divert his eyes from the computer monitor nor his hand from his manipulable mouse.
James sat in his study on a quiet Sunday afternoon, ignoring that morning's sermon on the tenth commandment and working his way through the week''s newest swimsuit posts. Sondra was out shopping, and he clicked idly for almost a half hour before an unexpected image froze his restless finger and his hand fell to his side. He shook his head slowly and murmured an obscenity, unable to take his eyes from the familiar face smiling from the high-definition screen. He had never met her, but their relationship was truly intimate. Her eyes called out to him and his whole body went limp, initial shock giving way to failure and impotence. He had let her down, and now she was back and he was shaking.
"Victorian. London. Supernatural. Great juxtaposition to the beach, which is where I sucked the life out of this book like Dracula." -- Adam at Square Books, Oxford, MS
"The tale of an obsessed young man who visits every worldwide storefront of the emblematic street clothing brand Supreme. What the hell is Supreme and why would anybody do such a thing? Read on and find out. Sharp and witty." -- Sam, at Square Books, Oxford, MS
"Repino asks what the world would be like if your house cat turned into a warrior and the his answer is surprising." -- Al, , at Square Books, Oxford, MS
I wasn't much of a mystery reader until I read Ace Atkins! Quinn Colson is a such a great character-- equal parts John Wayne, Elvis, and Clint Eastwood-- but it's the supporting cast that really brings his books to life. Gritty and violent, but also charming, the Quinn Colson books are must-reads for fans of the genre. -- Colin, at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
Benjamin Alire Sáenz's stories are of the knock-you-over-powerful variety. These seven stories-- set in the border towns of Juárez and El Paso, with many of them touching on the wave of violence that engulfed Juárez in the '90s-- all have a connection to the Kentucky Club, a venerable Juárezinstitution. Winner of the PEN/Faulkner award and a Lambda Literary award, this book deserves a wider audience. -- Elese, at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.When new evidence arises in a cold case, can Professor Hopkins refrain from delving into a newfound world of corruption, vice, and danger?
Stanley Hopkins cannot resist the invitation from a honey-voiced US attorney asking him to track down the source of photographs of a young dance major abducted five years earlier from her apartment in Clarkeston, Georgia. A journalist has stumbled across newly posted pictures of Diana Cavendish on the Internet, apparently taken just days before she disappeared with her boyfriend.
While Stanley deals with vexing personal problems and scrambles to identify the owner of the website that acquired the photos, small-town journalist James Murphy and federal prosecutor Melanie Wilkerson uncover new evidence of the crime—and the cover-up—that ranges far beyond the confines of the victim’s quaint Georgia college town.
This second installment of the Clarkeston Chronicles presents new challenges for Hopkins that take him far from the California base he established in Death in Eden and introduces him to a fascinating group of collaborators who will anchor him in small-town Georgia.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.As a writer, Clay has written articles, poetry, essays, novel adaptations, TV series, feature films, nonfiction books, live theater, book & film reviews, and newspaper articles. He sold his first short story when he was ten for a whopping $15. Since then, his retellings of American children’s classics released through Dalmatian Press have sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone. His films and literary works have been released in over 14 languages. He has written for PBS, NBC, CBS, ABC, and Esquire Magazine, among others. His latest deal was with Sony Pictures for a new nighttime TV drama. He is currently working on several literary projects, including a screenplay based upon Pork Pie Hat by bestselling horror / mystery author Peter Straub. As an editor, he has edited several PBS companion books that accompanied national series and is currently editing a mystery/thriller anthology with new stories from bestselling authors such as Jeffery Deaver, Jefferson Bass, Donald Bain, Heywood Gould, and Robert Dugoni. A voracious reader, he reviews an average of one book per day for Killer Nashville’s Featured Book of the Day series. Because of all his activities, Publishers Weekly named Clay as one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.” (Source: Publishers Weekly, June 10, 2013) Though he has made money from writing his whole life, he has had a double profession as an actor before becoming a producer / director and still retains a certain amount of residual celebrity status from his appearances on such shows as the daytime soap Days of Our Lives and TV specials such as Clue: Movies, Murder, and Mystery with Martin Mull.
Killer Nashville Con! August 18-21, Franklin TN An Interview with Ginger McNalley at Parnassus Books
Clay Stafford and Killer Nashville has developed a close working relationship with their neighborhood bookshop, Parnassus Books. The store has been an integral partner of the Noir Literary and Writers' Conference, Killer Nashville.
How did your partnership with Killer Nashville come to be?
Ginger: We have done several events with Clay Stafford for his Killer Nashville compilation. Clay sat down with us after one of these events to see if we could work on a partnership for Killer Nashville. We have several conference type events that we do regularly - SCWBI, Southern Festival of Books, and The Nashville Food and Wine Festival, so it just makes sense for us to be a part of this too.
Is this the first year you’ve worked with Killer Nashville?
Ginger: Yes it is
You're working with Killer Nashville to host some first-ever lunch and dinner events with bestselling authors Janet Evanovich, Anne Perry, Kevin O'Brien, Robert Randisi and more during the Killer Nashville Writers Conference. How did the ideas for these events develop?
Ginger: The people behind Killer Nashville had these ideas in place when we came on board.
Do you see this partnership extending into the future?
Ginger: We do. It is exciting to see where it leads.
Killer Nashville Noir: Cold Blooded
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Bestselling authors Jeffery Deaver and Anne Perry join rising stars like Dana Chamblee Carpenter and Paula Gail Benson in a collection that proves Music City is a deadly place to be when your song gets called. Featuring stories by: Donald Bain, Robert Dugoni, Jefferson Bass, Mary Burton, Jonathan Stone, Steven James, Maggie Toussaint, Clay Stafford, Heywood Gould, Jaden Terrell, and more… Every year, some of the biggest names in the thriller world converge in Tennessee for the Killer Nashville conference, an event where stars of the genre rub elbows with their most devoted fans, where the bestsellers of tomorrow pick up tricks of the trade, and where some of the best writers of today swap dark tales of good deals gone bad, rights made wrong, and murder in all shades... This collection of new stories features some of the biggest names in suspense, from bestsellers to ferociously talented newcomers. Grouped around the classic theme of murder, KILLER NASHVILLE NOIR: COLD-BLOODED is a first-class collection and a must-have for fans of the genre.
For the week ending August 7. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Black Widow Daniel Silva, Harper, $27.99, 9780062320223 2. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 3. All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr, Scribner, $27, 9781476746586 4. The Nightingale Kristin Hannah, St. Martin's, $27.99, 9780312577223 5. Truly Madly Guilty Liane Moriarty, Flatiron, $26.99, 9781250069795
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Spartan Fit!: 30 Days. Transform Your Mind. Transform Your Body. Commit to Grit. Joe De Sena, John Durant, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24, 9780544439603 2. White Trash Nancy Isenberg, Viking, $28, 9780670785971 3. American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst Jeffrey Toobin, Doubleday, $28.95, 9780385536714 4. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up Marie Kondo, Ten Speed Press, $16.99, 9781607747307 5. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.13. Above the Waterfall Ron Rash, Ecco, $15.99, 9780062349323 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.7. Raymie Nightingale Kate DiCamillo, Candlewick, $16.99, 9780763681173
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which Ms. Karin Wilson has a new job, Mr. Tunde Wey invents discomfort food and Mr. John T. Edge thinks we are ready to eat it, and Ms. Ann Patchett thinks working in a bookstore is like being in a sitcom. Such is life.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.It is official. Ms. Karin Wilson, the owner of Page and Palette Bookstore in Fairhope, Alabama, is now mayor of her fine city. There is something of a rising tradition of booksellers stepping into political office -- Mr. Richard Howorth, owner of Square Books, also served as mayor for his town of Oxford, Mississippi. Other owner-mayors include the owner of Bookshop Santa Cruz, the owner of the Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Mr. Tom Lowry of Lowry's Books in Michigan, and the co-owner of Bank Street Book Nook in New Milford, Connecticut.
Perhaps the earliest bookseller-mayor was Sir Thomas Davies, who was Samuel Pepys's bookseller and who became Lord Mayor of London in 1676. But he is rare among Lord Mayors, there being some speculation that bookselling, as satisfying a calling as it may be, is nevertheless not a known as a career likely to the kind of income needed to support a campaign for political office. Sir Thomas only managed it by virtue of a lucky inheritance.
It is traditional to think of booksellers as rather cantankerous, mysterious types. Presiding over their little shops of arcane knowledge with little regard for the bustle of the world outside their doors. But that is not what a bookseller looks like in the South, where shops are often town centers, meeting places for the community, and where their owners, like any and every small business owner, are intimately acquainted with local politics, local ordinances, local concerns. Far from being retiring, they are often active, visible, (and opinionated.)
Her ladyship has a great affinity for the bookseller-curmudgeon buried in his cavernous den of rare and odd literature. Truly. More at ease with books than people, it was an early childhood desire of hers to grow up to be just such a person.
But she must admit, the Southern incarnation, passionate and opinionated, is rather more interesting to know.
Read independently. And shop local.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. her ladyship, the editor
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Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.#ReadSavannah! with Liane Moriarty, author of Truly Madly Guilty
#ReadSavannah is a ticketed event open to the public, a Readers' Afternoon Delight that will include lunch with authors, panels and other programs to allow readers to meet and mingle with presenting authors. Including:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The Hilton DeSoto Savannah | September 18, 2016 | 12 noon - 5 PM
Because it was Leeta, just Leeta, she didn't bother putting the jeans back on.
As soon as she twisted the lock, she started to sneeze.
Leeta had no sympathy, no pity.
"Serves you right, living in the middle of a cornfield."
She'd rented the trailer because it sat in the middle of a cornfield--not despite. Anyone who came looking for her had to, first, know the way. When the corn was high, the trailer couldn't be seen at all from the secondary road. Once the corn had been picked, a hedge of overgrown bay bushes hid where she slept.
Leeta jiggles a square of newsprint.
"Did you see this ad?"
"At the speed you're jiggling, I can't see it now."
"Okay, smarty pants. I'll be brief. Sales and gobs of them. At the mall. Jackson City. Get dressed."
"Sales on what?"
"Bunches of stuff."
"Bunches of what kinds of stuff?"
"Shoes, clothes, pocketbooks, sundresses, the works."
She hadn't stepped aside; Leeta squeezed into the trailer sideways.
"Hurry up!" Leeta harangued. "We're on a mission."
--Kat Meads, In This Season of Rage and Melancholy, Such Irrevocable Acts as These (Mongrel Empire Press, 2016) 9780997251746
Recommended reading from Southern Indie Booksellers
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Jesse Ball’s novel, How to Set a Fire and Why (Pantheon $24.95), features Lucia, a character with everything working against her. Her mother is in a mental institution, her father is dead. She lives with her aunt who is always in need of some cash. Her most prized possession is her father’s Bic lighter. She’s fascinated by fire and joins a group of like-minded teen arsonists. Though the novel spends a great deal of time talking about her desire to burn things, she is a sympathetic character with deep moral fiber. Through her conversations with her aunt, her manifesto on setting fires, and her visits to her mother in the institution, I came to care deeply for this unusual character. --Mamie, Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, NC 9781101870570
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.I love to be scared--big Stephen King fan for decades. In Hex(Tor $25.99), author Thomas Olde Heuvelt outcreeps the King, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. I'm also from the Hudson Valley area (where the American version of Hex is set). Heuvelt nails it, getting the feel of a region where you sense something very old can still exist not too far away from your modern world. Social media versus a centuries-old curse--it sounds as though it'll be a lark, but you'll be keeping the lights on long before you finish Hex.(signed copies available) --Rosemary, Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, NC 9780765378804
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.A kids' book that the world needs to read, Ms. Bixby's Last Dayby John David Anderson (Walden Pond $16.99), is an affirmation of the immeasurable difference that the 'Good Ones' can make in a life. Told in alternating chapters by Steve, Brand, and Topher, it is a story about friendship, the power of a teacher, and the challenge of facing grief with strength and hope. With touches of humor, each boy reveals elements of himself and Ms. Bixby's imprint, as the trio responds to her illness. A perfect choice for fans of Rob Buyea's Because of Mr. Terupt, this book will spur you to profess and practice the doing of 'good things' and to leave your footprint on the paths of those with whom you are making the journey of life. For readers age 11 and up. --Cindy, Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, NC 9780062338174
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Two from Jim: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan (Penguin $17, Pulitzer Prize for Biography, 2016). This book was a very pleasant surprise! I bought it because it sounded novel and it received very good reviews. What I didn't expect was such a thorough indoctrination into the surfing world: its jargon, culture and life philosophy. Finnegan is an excellent writer, but how he ever developed the skill while spending most of every waking moment chasing the perfect wave is beyond me. His story is the epitome of the Surf Bum's life, tramping round the globe surfing, living on almost nothing and usually the kindness of people he meets in foreign lands. --Jim, a Quail Ridge Books customer in Raleigh, NC 9780143109396
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner $32). This is the follow up to Mukherjee's 2011 Pulitizer Prize winner, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Again, he makes complicated science very readable for a layperson, starting at the dawn of creation and incorporating numerous personal stories to emphasize the momentous milestones in genetic science. It's an insightful read for anyone whose family has been touched by a genetic disease, or who simply wants to understand genetics better. It comes in at almost 500 pages--but is well worth the time invested. --Jim, a Quail Ridge Books customer in Raleigh, NC 9781476733500
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“Fires destroy things…burns them up…makes ashes for us all…But fires also keep us warm…give us a glow to sit by…
to tell ancestry stories to the children against the rhythmic crackle of history…to make love to against the glow. The generation of segregations gave us The Fire Next Time…we broke down those walls…The generation after segregation gives us the water to mix with the ashes to build…something…anything all…in the words of Margaret Walker…our own. This is a book to pick up and tuck under our hearts to see what we can build.” —Nikki Giovanni, poet
National Book Award–winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin’s 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.
In light of recent tragedies and widespread protests across the nation, The Progressive magazine republished one of its most famous pieces: James Baldwin’s 1962 “Letter to My Nephew,” which was later published in his landmark book, The Fire Next Time. Addressing his fifteen-year-old namesake on the one hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Baldwin wrote: “You know and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon.”
Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward knows that Baldwin’s words ring as true as ever today. In response, she has gathered short essays, memoir, and a few essential poems to engage the question of race in the United States. And she has turned to some of her generation’s most original thinkers and writers to give voice to their concerns.
The Fire This Time is divided into three parts that shine a light on the darkest corners of our history, wrestle with our current predicament, and envision a better future. Of the eighteen pieces, ten were written specifically for this volume.
In the fifty-odd years since Baldwin’s essay was published, entire generations have dared everything and made significant progress. But the idea that we are living in the post-Civil Rights era, that we are a “post-racial” society is an inaccurate and harmful reflection of a truth the country must confront. Baldwin’s “fire next time” is now upon us, and it needs to be talked about.
Contributors include Carol Anderson, Jericho Brown, Garnette Cadogan, Edwidge Danticat, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Mitchell S. Jackson, Honoree Jeffers, Kima Jones, Kiese Laymon, Daniel Jose Older, Emily Raboteau, Claudia Rankine, Clint Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Wendy S. Walters, Isabel Wilkerson, and Kevin Young.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“I’m not scared about writing that or making those people mad, because I know for a fact that no one who lives there has ever read a book”
Inkwood Books discovers Amy Schumer thinks people in Tampa don't read, by reading it in her new book.
John T. Edge thinks Americans are ready for Tunde Wey's discomfort food.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."For a novelist, for somebody who is used to working alone all the time, it's incredible to dip in and out of that world. They are my dearest friends, and it's like being in a sitcom."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Ann Ipock is an award-winning Southern author, humorist and speaker whose writings have appeared in Sasee Magazine, Salt Magazine, Georgetown Times, Columbia County Magazine, and others. She lives in Wilmington, N.C., with her husband, Russell. Ann has published three humor books: Life is Short, I Wish I Was Taller, Life is Short, So Read This Fast! and Life is Short, But It’s Wide. Ann’s hobbies include gardening, cooking, walking, dancing, painting, decorating, and traveling. In addition she— • Was a featured speaker at “The Best of Our State,” Our State Magazine • Was a featured speaker at the Southern Women’s’ Show in Raleigh, Charlotte and Savannah • Performed in community theatre productions of Steel Magnolias, Other People’s Money, Annie, and Life Is Short, a three-act, one-woman play • Was the first Sasee Magazine hat recipient • Was selected as cover/feature story for Grand Strand Magazine • Was chosen Woman of the Month, for S.C. WOMAN Magazine “Ann Ipock’s writing is at once hilarious, and in the next breath, poignant…” —Dorothea Benton Frank, NY Times best-selling author of All the Single Ladies and 15 other NYT best-selling novels
Life is Short, I Wish I was Taller
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."Ann Ipock’s writing is at once hilarious, and in the next breath, poignant…" —Dorothea Benton Frank, N.Y. Times best-selling author of Lowcountry Summer
54 stories, 2-minute escapes from an award-winning Southern humorist, previously published in Georgetown Times, Sasee, Myrtle Beach Herald and Columbia County Magazine. This book completes the "Life is Short" trilogy, joining "Life is Short, So Read This Fast!" and "Life is Short, But It's Wide"
For the week ending August 14. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 2. The Girls Emma Cline, Random House, $27, 9780812998603 3. Truly Madly Guilty Liane Moriarty, Flatiron, $26.99, 9781250069795 4. The Woman in Cabin 10 Ruth Ware, Gallery/Scout Press, $26, 9781501132933 5. The Black Widow Daniel Silva, Harper, $27.99, 9780062320223
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. White Trash Nancy Isenberg, Viking, $28, 9780670785971 2. Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates, Spiegel & Grau, $24, 9780812993547 3. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 4. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics Carlo Rovelli, Riverhead, $18, 9780399184413 5. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up Marie Kondo, Ten Speed Press, $16.99, 9781607747307
Also of note - debuts on the list:
10. Bright, Precious Days Jay McInerney, Knopf, $27.95, 9781101948002 12. The Muse Jessie Burton, Ecco, $27.99, 9780062409928 6. The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen, Grove Press, $16, 9780802124944
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which Mr. Pat Conroy never says anything in less than 200 pages, a bookseller suggests books perfect for our bewildering times, a bookshop in Montgomery, Alabama is looking for someone hungering to own a little bookstore, and a little boy in Ms. Barbara O'Connor's class says his grandmother loved soccer, ballet and fighting.
One of the most common, and wistful, comments her ladyship used to hear in her days working as a bookseller, was from the person who would come to the counter hugging an armful of books, and sigh and say "I would love to own a little bookstore someday."
Who wouldn't?
In truth, it was the kind of statement that one could wholly sympathize with, but always looks a little different from the other side of the counter. Working around books all day is a kind of dream job, but that dream includes things like negotiating leases, working out payroll budgets, analyzing profit and loss, establishing credit histories, predicting inventory demand. In fact, it is remarkable how little time one has to read when one works in a bookstore.
And yet, working in a bookstore is indeed a dream job. For not only can you read any of the books you'd like on the shelves, but you are expected to read them, it is part of the job. Even better you are expected to be able to talk to people about the books you are reading, and the books they are reading, and the books you each want to read. In truth, this is the aspect that her ladyship loved most about being a bookseller. Access to any book she wanted to read was, of course, wonderful. But talking to people all day about what they are reading? That was the very best part of the job.
Seeking: Someone hungering to own their own bookstore
If you are one of those people who have sometimes, or often, thought how wonderful it would be to own a little bookstore, then you should know New South Books in Montgomery, Alabama, is seeking an owner:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Seeking equity partner for bookstore in Montgomery, Alabama with tremendous growth potential
For 16 years, NewSouth Books, an independent publisher of mostly Southern history and culture, has operated The NewSouth Bookstore as a low-key sideline to our main business. Our 4,500-sf building—we own it—is in historic downtown Montgomery, Alabama, at the epicenter of Civil War and civil rights history (Rosa Parks sat on the couch in our bookstore). The recent closing (the owners retired) of Montgomery’s beloved independent bookseller, Capitol Book and News, along with increased tourism (300,000 history tourists a year and growing) and a revitalized downtown (1,000 new lofts since 2009) creates a unique opportunity for a successful destination book retailer. NewSouth Books lacks the specific retail bookselling expertise to exploit this opportunity, and we are wholly preoccupied with running our publishing house. We seek an equity (could be sweat-equity) partner with management experience and an entrepreneurial spirit to take over the retail side. The ideal partner will have seven to ten years experience in frontline selling, buying, events coordinating, and more, and will be hungering to own their own store. We offer a turnkey operation with a lot of potential. For more information, please email suzanne@newsouthbooks.com. Serious inquiries only, please, and no phone calls at this initial stage.
That dream you have had about opening a little bookshop? It may be closer than you think.
Read independently. And shop local.
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Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.#ReadSavannah! with Liane Moriarty, author of Truly Madly Guilty
#ReadSavannah is a ticketed event open to the public, a Readers' Afternoon Delight that will include lunch with authors, panels and other programs to allow readers to meet and mingle with presenting authors. Including:
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The Hilton DeSoto Savannah | September 18, 2016 | 12 noon - 5 PM
Noteworthy poetry and prose from her ladyship's bedside reading stack.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From the beginning, Ligeia’s ability to appear or disappear seemed magical. The first time, forty-six years ago, was at Panther Creek the summer before my junior year in high school. On Sundays after church and a lunch at our grandfather’s house, my older brother, Bill, and I changed into T-shirts and cutoff jeans, tossed our fishing gear into the ’62 Ford pickup Grandfather had bought us,
and headed west out of Sylva. We’d cross the interstate, turn onto national forestland, and drive a mile down the gravel road bordering Panther Creek, rods and reels rattling in the truck bed as Bill veered onto an old logging trail. Soon tree limbs and saplings raked the hood and windshield. Then there was no longer a road, only a gap in the trees through which Bill wove until skidding to a stop.
Recommended reading from Southern Indie Booksellers
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.How to Set a Fire and Why: A Novel by Jesse Ball (Pantheon, $24.95, 9781101870570). "On page one of Ball's new novel, 16-year-old Lucia Stanton gets kicked out of school for stabbing the star basketball player in the neck with a pencil. Lucia is a delinquent, a philosopher, a shard of glass. She's also an aspiring arsonist and an iconoclast, who is vibrant, alive, and charming in a misanthropic way. Ball's prose is precise and deceptively spare, his message dynamic in what he doesn't write. Enlightenment thinkers used the symbol of the flame to represent the power and transmission of knowledge. It's in this tradition that How to Set a Fire and Why becomes Ball's pyrotechnic masterpiece." --Matt Nixon, The Booksellers at Laurelwood, Memphis, Tenn
Colson Whitehead will probably win the Pulitzer for this and boy does he deserve it. The Underground Railroad transforms a fugitive slave narrative into a phantasmagorical odyssey, taking a Swiftian look at the various forms racial discrimination has taken through American history. Mythic and more than a little strange, Underground Railroad seems perfect for our bewildering times. -- Hank, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
Amy Krouse Rosenthal is an utterly charming and undeniably talented artist. I've always loved her clever and heartfelt picture books but Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal is another category entirely. Her singular wit and unique outlook on her life and the world shine through in lovely ways within Textbook. Rather than become gimmicky or overwrought, the interactive elements feel like sincere connections between author and reader - or even reader and reader. This is an engaging piece of creative non-fiction perfect to hand to all kinds of readers, especially those exploring the artistic process or looking for new ways to find depth or brightness in their everyday lives. -- Johanna, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“The Risen” is an important novel – and an intriguing one – from one of our master storytellers. In its pages, the past rises up, haunting and chiding, demanding answers of us all. -Dannye Romine Powell, The Charlotte Observer
New York Times bestselling author Ron Rash demonstrates his superb narrative skills in this suspenseful and evocative tale of two brothers whose lives are altered irrevocably by the events of one long-ago summer—and one bewitching young woman—and the secrets that could destroy their lives.
While swimming in a secluded creek on a hot Sunday in 1969, sixteen-year-old Eugene and his older brother, Bill, meet the entrancing Ligeia. A sexy, free-spirited redhead from Daytona Beach banished to their small North Carolina town until the fall, Ligeia will not only bewitch the two brothers, but lure them into a struggle that reveals the hidden differences in their natures.
Drawn in by her raw sensuality and rebellious attitude, Eugene falls deeper under her spell. Ligeia introduces him to the thrills and pleasures of the counterculture movement, then in its headiest moment. But just as the movement’s youthful optimism turns dark elsewhere in the country that summer, so does Eugene and Ligeia’s brief romance. Eugene moves farther and farther away from his brother, the cautious and dutiful Bill, and when Ligeia vanishes as suddenly as she appeared, the growing rift between the two brothers becomes immutable.
Decades later, their relationship is still turbulent, and the once close brothers now lead completely different lives. Bill is a gifted and successful surgeon, a paragon of the community, while Eugene, the town reprobate, is a failed writer and determined alcoholic.
When a shocking reminder of the past unexpectedly surfaces, Eugene is plunged back into that fateful summer, and the girl he cannot forget. The deeper he delves into his memories, the closer he comes to finding the truth. But can Eugene’s recollections be trusted? And will the truth set him free and . . . or destroy his damaged life and everyone he loves?
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.These young people have great insights into what they read and it’s interesting that they can take away something completely different," from an adult's perspective
The Seed of an Idea: Monika Schroeder talks to Barbara O'Connor
Monika Schröder interviews Barbara O’Connor, author of WISH (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Children’s authors Monika Schröder and Barbara O’Connor have been friends for years, brought together when they shared the same editor, Frances Foster at FSG. After communicating by email for a year or so, they finally met in person at a librarians’ conference in Washington, DC. But their bond grew closer when Barbara moved from Boston to Asheville, North Carolina, a short distance from Monika. Now they enjoy chatting all things book related while walking their dogs once a week in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Making the bond even more special is the fact that they each have new children’s novels being published just days apart.
Barbara is the author of award-winning novels for children, including How to Steal a Dog, The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis, and The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester. Her latest novel, Wish, is published this fall by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Visit her at: www.barbaraoconnor.com
Monika is the author of Saraswati's Way, The Dog in the Wood and My Brother's Shadow. Her latest novel for middle-grade readers, Be Light Like a Bird, will be published by Capstone on September 1st. Visit her at: www.monikaschroeder.com
Monika: You’re known for your novels with Southern settings. Why did you decide to exclusively write books with Southern settings and tone?
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Barbara: As a new and inexperienced writer, I was struggling to find my writing voice. Then I read Missing May by Cynthia Rylant and had a light bulb moment. I adored her voice in that book and I realized how much voice and setting were intertwined in her work. That’s when I began to write books set in the South, where I grew up. My childhood memories are closely connected with the South: the kudzu, the steamy summer weather, the boiled peanuts and collard greens, the great Southern folks with their accents and phrases like “I’m fixin’ to go” and “I like to died.” By drawing on those memories, I found my writing voice.
Monika: I have a feeling that your recent move to the Blue Ridge Mountains had an impact on the setting of Wish. Am I right?
Barbara: Absolutely! I grew up at the bottom of those beautiful mountains and have many happy memories of day trips up the winding roads. The woods were lush with ferns and cool, damp moss. The creeks were icy cold with giant boulders warm from the sun, perfect for a barefoot little girl to jump on. After 26 years in snowy Boston, I headed back to the Blue Ridge Mountains. I felt so at home again that I knew I had to set my next book there.
Monika: I know that often stories start with the seed of an idea. What was the seed for Wish?
Barbara: I was teaching a writing workshop to a class of fifth graders at an elementary school in Massachusetts. The students were given a set of questions to use to interview a relative. The next day, they brought those interview questions back to class and I would work with them on writing a short biography of that person. (Many people don’t know this, but I actually started my career writing biographies for children.)
“What were some of your favorite activities as a child?” His grandmother had answered, “Soccer, ballet and fighting.”
I asked the students to share with the class one of their favorite questions from the interview. One young boy had interviewed his grandmother and he chose to share the question, “What were some of your favorite activities as a child?” His grandmother had answered, “Soccer, ballet and fighting.”
I now had a character to plunk down into those mountains. Her name is Charlie Reese, a feisty, troubled child with a bad temper.
Monika: I love the character of Howard, who tries so hard to befriend hot-headed Charlie. Can you shed any light on the creation of Howard?
Barbara: Howard was actually a character in a manuscript that I abandoned (something I almost never do). The story wasn’t working, but I liked Howard so much that I snatched him out of that story and knew he’d be a perfect friend for Charlie. He is very much the yin to her yang.
Monika: Wish tells the story of a child displaced from her home due to dysfunctional parents. You’ve also written about a homeless child in your novel, How to Steal a Dog. Your books are geared toward readers aged 9 to 12. How do you handle such tough issues for young readers?
Barbara: I’m a strong believer in not sugar-coating the world for children. Some families are dysfunctional. Some children are homeless. To never write about those things doesn’t make them go away. And by writing about them, some children will see themselves and relate, while others will learn more about the world around them and perhaps gain more empathy.
On the subject of protecting children from the harsh realities of life, I like to quote Phyllis Fogelman, the editor of Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. She says, “It is generally knowledge, not a lack of it, that arms children and helps to prepare them for the world as it is rather than what we would like it to be.” To which I reply, “Amen.”
Monika: What do you see as the main difference between writing for children and writing for adults? For instance, do you ever write in order to teach a moral or a lesson? Do you make a point of keeping vocabulary more simplistic?
Barbara: I never write to teach a moral or a lesson. My main goal in writing for children is simply to entertain them. If they learn a bit along the way, that’s a good thing, too.
As far as vocabulary, I never think about it. Maybe that means my brain is stuck in fourth grade. I definitely don’t “dumb down” the vocabulary.
Monika: Any advise for aspiring children’s writers?
Barbara: The obvious: read. Read as many books as you can, particularly book written in the genre and style of your own writing. It’s important to read new books to stay abreast of the market and to see which publishers are publishing which types of books.
Also, I always recommend that aspiring children’s writers join the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (scbwi.org). That organization provides a wealth of information and support. If possible, attend one of their regional conferences. You’ll come away informed and inspired.
Lastly, your writing process will very likely be different from others. Some writers write every day. (I don’t.) Some writers keep journals. (I don’t.) Some writers outline. (I don’t.) Do what works for you.
For the week ending August 21. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 2. Truly Madly Guilty Liane Moriarty, Flatiron, $26.99, 9781250069795 3. The Woman in Cabin 10 Ruth Ware, Gallery/Scout Press, $26, 9781501132933 4. The Girls Emma Cline, Random House, $27, 9780812998603 5. The Last Days of Night Graham Moore, Random House, $28, 9780812988901
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 2. The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo Amy Schumer, Gallery, $28, 9781501139888 3. When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi, Random House, $25, 9780812988406 4. Armageddon Dick Morris, Eileen McGann, Humanix, $24.99, 9781630060589 5. The View From the Cheap Seats Neil Gaiman, Morrow, $26.99, 9780062262264
Also of note - politics:
9. How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything Rosa Brooks, S&S, $29.95, 9781476777863 4. Armageddon Dick Morris, Eileen McGann, Humanix, $24.99, 9781630060589 12. Clinton Cash Peter Schweizer, Harper, $16.99, 9780062369291
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which her ladyship, the editor, reads by flashlight, Ms. Monika Schroeder contemplates the meaning of a landfill an new collection of Natchez literature is unveiled to the delight of all, and readers leave tokens of affection at Mr. Pat Conroy's grave.
This past week while Hermine threatened people's holiday weekend plans, her ladyship, the editor, spent the time with very little change to her usual routine. She has learned, a doubtful benefit of unwanted experience, exactly how to, shall we say, "weather" an oncoming storm and its subsequent inconveniences. She does every scrap of laundry she can, while she can. She empties the freezer of ice cream (such a chore), and fills it with bags and containers of water until it is solidly packed with frozen things. She fills the bathtubs with water, washes all the dishes, cleans the counters and vacuums the floors. She puts clean sheets on the beds and clean towels in the bathrooms, and fills more gallon jugs and pitchers with water and places them strategically around the house. She charges her phone, checks her flashlights, makes sure that both candles and matches are accessible, and takes down her deck umbrella.
Most importantly, she collects a stack of books that will last her through an extended power outage. Because when a hurricane makes landfall and the power inevitably goes out, the books are the only things in the house that will work as intended.
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This time, her ladyship only spent about four hours without power -- the ice cream would have been safe -- and she spent the time curled up on her couch with her dogs, reading by flashlight even though it was only early afternoon. Through the back porch door Hermine dumped enough rain to leave standing water in her ladyship's yard, which is impressive since her ladyship happens to live at the top of a hill made from a pile of sand. The dark, roiling storm clouds shrouded everything in perpetual gloom and the wind found its way through the cracks around doors and windows, guttering the candles. But the roof held, the batteries in the flashlight were brand new, and the books were very good, so as storms go, this one was relatively painless. Her ladyship managed to finish Jane Alison's wonderful, strange and inescapably intimate novel, Nine Island, it's sunny Miami setting contrasting oddly against the dim light outside her ladyship's windows.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.A story of a woman wondering whether or not to give up on love, and also an exploration into the satisfactions of being alone, served with a sharp sense of humor, it was perhaps an odd choice to read while the winds were whipping around the house at 60 miles per hour, but in truth her ladyship barely noticed the time passing. It was not until a series of clicks and the hum of electric things turning back on made her look up to see that the storm was nearly gone, and the power had been restored, and her clocks were all now off by about four hours. The book, however, was not quite finished, so she went back to reading.
Read independently. And shop local.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. her ladyship, the editor
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Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.#ReadSavannah! with Liane Moriarty, author of Truly Madly Guilty
#ReadSavannah is a ticketed event open to the public, a Readers' Afternoon Delight that will include lunch with authors, panels and other programs to allow readers to meet and mingle with presenting authors. Including:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The Hilton DeSoto Savannah | September 18, 2016 | 12 noon - 5 PM
Noteworthy poetry and prose from her ladyship's bedside reading stack.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.What are Robert Quinlan and his wife feebly arguing about when the homeless man slips quietly in? Moments later Robert could hardly have said. ObamaCare or quinoa or their granddaughter’s new boyfriend. Something. He and Darla are sitting at a table in the dining area of the New Leaf Co-op. Her back is to the man. Robert is facing him. He notices him instantly, though the man is making eye contact with none of the scattered few of them, the health-conscious members of the co-op, dining by the pound from the hot buffet. It’s a chilly North Florida January twilight, but he’s still clearly overbundled, perhaps from the cold drilling deeper into his bones because of a life lived mostly outside. Or perhaps he simply needs to carry all his clothes around with him.
9781936787128
--Robert Olen Butler, Perfume River (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2016)
This is long-form poetry. Rich, complex, dark with notes of longing, shocking as a flood of serotonin. Danler has flayed her prose, revealing the marbling and texture of syntax taut with awareness, sensual with tension. You will smart like knuckles after learning a voice can rap like rulers. Pay attention. -- Amanda, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC
Published adjacent to the similar-in-some-respects The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, Underground Airlines takes a more speculative approach to America's original sin. Winters imagines an alternative America where the Civil War never happened and slavery persists in four Southern States. The main character is a fugitive slave turned fugitive slave-catcher, living in the North and struggling to reconcile his morally compromised existence. It's a fascinating set-up for a deeply relevant work of noir fiction. -- Hank, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC
I cannot decide what part I love best about this tale. The standouts include: The poetic language and the imagery, the characters and their struggles, and being transported to an entirely new world. It completely defies genre--blending fantasy, fairy tale, horror, and historical fiction. Finally, it seamlessly jumps around between various times, places, and points of view without ever losing the reader (not an easy task). If you read one stand-alone fantasy book this year, it has to be this one!-- Banshion, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC
Michelle Cuevas with Erin E. Stead is a perfect match! The whimsy, heart, and artistry from both talents makes for a lovely reading experience. I'm sure the textured watercolors and imaginative story will win your heart just as it won mine! -- Johanna, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC
Core delves into the wonderful strangeness that is the human mind. These characters--and the relationships they form--can be funny, unsettling, irritating, and are always entirely captivating. If you want to read about the complexities of love and sex, read this. If you want to read a book you can't put down, read this. - Elizabeth, Avid Bookshop, Athens, GA
This is the story of Beth, a woman who moves to DC when her husband Matt gets a job campaigning for Obama during the 2008 election. For Beth, the city never feels like home until she and Matt become friends with Ash and her husband Jimmy, who also works in the administration. The rest of the novel is a sometimes comedy, always careful study of these four people, and how their friendships, relationships, and professional lives entangle and constrict. The backdrop of the Obama administration and Texas politics are fascinating, and Close's dry humor and sharp observations make The Hopefuls an "open it and realize four hours have gone by" novel. - Tyler, Avid Bookshop, Athens, GA
"Until now, now that I've reached my thirties; / All my Muse's poetry has been harmless." This line, from the poem "Desired Appreciation," speaks to the shock that aging into "a brain born into war" can bring; it's this shock, this coming-through-the-numbness, that drives Solmaz Sharif's masterful Look. These poems do not offer narratives of aging beyond trauma. Instead, they are prayers of the most desperate and urgent order. Look is made to break us. It drowns us in the language of war and devastates. It will also, likely, be the boldest, most masterful collection to be released in 2016. Do NOT turn a blind eye to it. " - Will, Avid Bookshop, Athens, GA
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From one of America’s most important writers, Perfume River is an exquisite novel that examines family ties and the legacy of the Vietnam War through the portrait of a single North Florida family.
Robert Quinlan is a seventy-year-old historian, teaching at Florida State University, where his wife Darla is also tenured. Their marriage, forged in the fervor of anti-Vietnam-war protests, now bears the fractures of time, both personal and historical, with the couple trapped in an existence of morning coffee and solitary jogging and separate offices. For Robert and Darla, the cracks remain under the surface, whereas the divisions in Robert’s own family are more apparent: he has almost no relationship with his brother Jimmy, who became estranged from the family as the Vietnam War intensified. Robert and Jimmy’s father, a veteran of WWII, is coming to the end of his life, and aftershocks of war ripple across their lives once again, when Jimmy refuses to appear at his father’s bedside. And an unstable homeless man whom Robert at first takes to be a fellow Vietnam veteran turns out to have a deep impact not just on Robert, but on his entire family.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."People have come to the quiet place and left objects of affection: a little basketball, conch shells, a Mason jar of sea water, money from Hong Kong weighted down by a metallic cricket."
Co-Lin unveils unique collection of Natchez-inspired literature.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."The importance of the land, the music, the language, the food, the family heritage, all play a part in making Robicheaux the fascinating, appealing character that his readers find him to be."
Finding our way through grief: Barbara O'Connor talks to Monika Schroeder
Barbara O’Connor interviews Monika Schröder, author of Be Light Like a Bird (Capstone)
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Children’s authors Monika Schröder and Barbara O’Connor have been friends for years, brought together when they shared the same editor, Frances Foster at FSG. After communicating by email for a year or so, they finally met in person at a librarians’ conference in Washington, DC. But their bond grew closer when Barbara moved from Boston to Asheville, North Carolina, a short distance from Monika. Now they enjoy chatting all things book related while walking their dogs once a week in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Making the bond even more special is the fact that they each have new children’s novels being published just days apart.
Barbara is the author of award-winning novels for children, including How to Steal a Dog, The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis, and The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester. Her latest novel, Wish, is published this fall by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Visit her at: www.barbaraoconnor.com
Monika is the author of Saraswati's Way, The Dog in the Wood and My Brother's Shadow. Her latest novel for middle-grade readers, Be Light Like a Bird, will be published by Capstone on September 1st. Visit her at: www.monikaschroeder.com
Barbara: You grew up in Germany and have lived all over the world. Your previous books have been set in Germany and India. What made you want to write a book set in the United States?
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Monika: I often start a book with setting. The 'seed idea' for Be Light Like a Bird came to me the first time I saw a landfill. My husband and I had cleaned out the cabin my husband inherited from his father in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I couldn't believe it when he drove all the stuff to a landfill nearby, a big hole where people bury unwanted items. In Germany we recycle or incinerate most of our garbage, so it left an impression on me when I saw a guy dropping a vacuum cleaner, a book shelf and an entire carpet into the landfill. . .a cemetery for junk.
I learned more about this landfill and read about the people in the community who had fought its expansion. Then I asked myself a "What if...?" question: What if there were a girl who loved birds and whose bird watching was threatened by the expansion of the landfill? Once I had that girl in my mind, I found myself asking more and more about her life. How did she get to Michigan's Upper Peninsula? And why was birding so important to her? I learned that her father had recently died and that her mother had more or less dragged her up north. She was grieving and lonely and once she arrived in Upper Michigan she came up with a plan to make her mother stay. From there the story of Wren developed.
In Germany we recycle or incinerate most of our garbage, so it left an impression on me when I saw a guy dropping a vacuum cleaner, a book shelf and an entire carpet into the landfill...a cemetery for junk.
Barbara: The characters in Be light Like a Bird grieve in many different ways - tears, anger, detachment, moving on, not moving on - and it is hard for Wren to know how to deal with her loss. What do you want readers to understand about grief and mourning?
Monika: Grief and mourning are difficult and hard emotions to go through and, while there may be similarities in the ways people deal with the loss of a loved one, I don’t think there is “one right way” to process those emotions. That’s why I wanted to create characters who show a variety of reactions to their pain.
Barbara: There are several references to burial in your book. Wren's father is lost at sea without the chance for the family to conduct a proper burial. Wren, feeling the need for such closure, buries road kill instead. 'Burying' unwanted items in the landfill. The un-burying of Native American sacred objects originally intended to accompany the dead on their journey to the afterlife. And one could even say Wren's mother is trying to 'bury', to hide and forget her feelings for her dead husband. Could you talk a little about this aspect of the book?
Monika: That's an interesting question. Perhaps it wasn't a coincidence that the first title, the working title of my novel was 'Buried'. In a way your question already may provide the key to what was going through my mind as I was working on the book. I can't say that I intended to illustrate some grand theme but perhaps my subconscious tied these instances of burial together in the different subplots of the story.
Barbara: Tweens and teens can have complicated relationships with their parents, even when a major life-changing event (such as a death in the family) doesn't occur. What can readers learn from Wren's changing relationship with her mother?
Monika: It takes a long time for Wren to finally learn what causes her mother to act the way she does. It was only in my twenties that I realized the reason for my longstanding conflict with my mother. That understanding enabled me to see her with more empathy, and be less judgmental. It may not be possible for a 12-year old to see past her own emotions when judging a parent, but I hope that reading about Wren and her mother helps young readers to realize that adults have their own struggles to deal with, and this might cause them to act in a way children might find inexplicable.
Barbara: Theo is a great friend and the developing friendship between Theo and Wren helps her to get through the conflict with her mother. Did you have a model for their friendship?
Monika: Kids that age may have to go through some mocking or bullying since at that age girls like to stay with girls and boys with boys. But I used to teach fourth grade for many years and I remember a few of these boy-girl relationships among my students and they helped me to create the relationship between Wren and Theo.
Barbara: What are you working on next?
Monika: I am working on two projects, a middle-grade mystery novel set in Calcutta 1832, and I have recently submitted a manuscript for a picture book about my dog, Frank, whom we adopted from the streets of India. In it Frank exchanges a series of letters with a dog-friend back in Delhi, describing his new, spoiled life in the US.
For the week ending August 28. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 2. Truly Madly Guilty Liane Moriarty, Flatiron, $26.99, 9781250069795 3. All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr, Scribner, $27, 9781476746586 4. The Nightingale Kristin Hannah, St. Martin's, $27.99, 9780312577223 5. The Woman in Cabin 10 Ruth Ware, Gallery/Scout Press, $26, 9781501132933
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 2. The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo Amy Schumer, Gallery, $28, 9781501139888 3. 2 Chairs: The Secret That Changes Everything Bob Beaudine, Worthy Publishing, $20, 9781617958014 4. White Trash Nancy Isenberg, Viking, $28, 9780670785971 5. Crisis of Character Gary J. Byrne, Center Street, $27, 9781455568871
Also of note - new on the kids' lists:
5. Baby Peekaboo Kate Merritt, Workman, $5.95, 9780761181811 9. Baby Babble Kate Merritt, Workman, $5.95, 9780761168805 8. The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase Wendy Mass, Little Brown, $18.99, 9780316089197
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which her ladyship, the editor, packs for a trip, a lady wears a polka-dot bikini and contemplates give up on love, Mr. Fred Thompson teaches us what we need to know about cooking bacon, Ms. Cynthia Graubart teaches us what we need to know about cooking chicken, and The Lady Chablis has left the stage.
This week finds her ladyship, the editor, preparing for her trip to the SIBA Discovery Show in Savannah, Georgia -- the annual book trade show hosted by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. It is a weekend spent with a gathering of some 700 people in the book industry: publishers, booksellers, and about 150 different authors whose new books will be in everyone's hands in the upcoming months. Her ladyship always comes home from this event with several boxes of books that she believes will be of interest to her readers. Or simply of interest to herself.
So naturally, the big dilemma that faces her ladyship at the moment is....what books shall she pack to read?
One can't pack for a trip without taking at least a couple books. It is like packing an extra change of clothes or tucking away an emergency twenty dollar bill in one's wallet -- there just in case. Emergency reading for unexpected layovers or to gratify a sudden impulse. Her ladyship has always carried emergency books with her, even when she was a little girl. She is physically incapable of going anywhere, even to the supermarket, without having a few of books to hand -- indeed, the propect of being without something to read tends to make her feel anxious.
So some of the precious space in her ladyship's suitcase is taken up by two or three books she thinks she may want to read, or has been trying to find the time to read, or were simply at the top of her teetering to-be-read stack. This time these are the books that are coming along with her to Savannah:
She may even luck into an "emergency" that allows her the time to read them.
On a side note, although the Discovery Show itself is for members of the book industry, there is a part that is open to the public: #ReadSavannah -- featuring keynote speaker Liane Moriarty. So if you have some free time on Sunday, the 18th, why not spend it with other book lovers and writers?
Read independently. And shop local.
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Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.#ReadSavannah! with Liane Moriarty, author of Truly Madly Guilty
#ReadSavannah is a ticketed event open to the public, a Readers' Afternoon Delight that will include lunch with authors, panels and other programs to allow readers to meet and mingle with presenting authors. Including:
Noteworthy poetry and prose from her ladyship's bedside reading stack.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.After thirty years of disaster with men and fresh from a spanking-new heartbreak, I’m back in Miami, back in my dilapidated condo in paradise, to decide if it’s time to retire from love.
Even my mother thinks I should. When I called to tell her of the latest disaster, she sighed and said, Maybe, darling, you should give up on all that. Maybe it’s just time.
Okay, I’ve got other loves, after all. My broken-down mother. My blind old cat. A love poet who’s been dead two thousand years whose words I’m being paid to translate. A friend or two via text.
Who needs more?
Every morning I arise full of vim, crawl around wiping up Buster’s puddles, slip thyroid and seizure pills into his food, and re-diaper his skinny black haunches. Then I put on my faded polka-dot bikini and ride the elevator down twenty-one floors to swim twenty laps in the hourglass pool, ride back up, translate thirty lines of Latin, ride back down to walk three miles, then drink a solo toast or two to chalk up another day done.
Recommended reading from Southern Indie Booksellers
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.I started reading Julia Franks’ debut novel, Over the Plain Houses (Hub City $26), after devouring three books by award-winning authors. I was delighted to find that Franks can compete with the best of our contemporary writers. The novel is set in the North Carolina mountains in the late 1930s, and contains many of the themes of our best Southern literature: religious fervor, longing for a better life, trying to make a living and a life in a sometimes unforgiving climate. But Franks writes so beautifully--I found myself rereading passages--and has such particularly drawn characters that the story seems new. I loved the wife, Irenie, who is trying to find some identity and independence while her husband, Brodis, heaps suspicion and threats on her. Yet even the husband, for all his erratic behavior, comes across as a fully realized character. A great beginning from an author I feel certain I’ll be reading again in the near future. -- Mamie, Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Just out is Louise Penny's new Chief Inspector Gamache mystery, A Great Reckoning (Minotaur $28.99). Penny is not only one of my favorite authors, but my real estate agent. I want a home in Three Pines. This may be the most personal Armand Gamache novel to date, as we learn more about the Chief's family history--and even more about his character. In Reckoning, old characters and new combine in Gamache's new endeavor as head of the Sûreté's training academy. Along with a deeply satisfying 'whodunit', it's always a pleasure to return to these villagers. -- Rosemary, Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.This Must Be the Place: A Novel by Maggie O'Farrell (Knopf $26.95). A linguist happens upon a once famous actress, thought to be dead, but is actually a recluse--so starts the story of Daniel and Claudette. Theirs is a story of loss--whether it be loss of love, freedom, family or the life they create. They are always looking for the place where they should be. Through twists and turns of time and place, Maggie O’Farrell tells this story most skillfully with her lyrical and graceful words. -- Sandra, Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Bad Kitty Scaredy-Cat by Nick Bruel (Roaring Brook $16.99). Bad Kitty returns in a fabulous 'throwback' to the original Bad Kitty picture book--with four fun, wild, imaginative tours through the alphabet. The setting may be Halloween, but this Bad Kitty can be enjoyed anytime. No type of monster, no kind of candy escapes her notice. Great fun, as always, for ages 4+. And yes, Puppy just may get the last laugh. -- Rosemary, Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The Risen by Ron Rash: A really satisfying read of young men coming of age in 1969 far from the urban areas that usually define that time. Of course, Rash's great way with language paints a vivid picture of the small NC mountain town Sylva, and the inner workings of a complicated brotherly relationship complicated further by a visit from an exotic girl their age. -- Jamie, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The Hike by Drew Magary: Fun. Well-paced. Imaginative. Unusual. In a modern-day Odyssey, Drew Magary writes what is essentially a hilarious horror tale. Ben (our protagonist) finds himself everywhere he is not supposed to be, battling monsters and barely surviving. The brilliance of this novel is the two-fold aspect of its horror. Battling monsters is one thing, but being separated from one's family, and deprived even of the faces of one's children is an entirely different (and arguably worse) fate. The journey and growth of Ben on the path is superbly paced and yet lacking nothing. It's a difficult balance that Magary pulls of deftly. -- Banshion, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“Nine Island is a crackling incantation, brittle and brilliant and hot and sad and full of sideways humor that devastates and illuminates all at once.”--Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies
Nine Island is an intimate autobiographical novel, told by J, a woman who lives in a glass tower on one of Miami Beach’s lush Venetian Islands. After decades of disaster with men, she is trying to decide whether to withdraw forever from romantic love. Having just returned to Miami from a monthlong reunion with an old flame, “Sir Gold,” and a visit to her fragile mother, J begins translating Ovid’s magical stories about the transformations caused by Eros. “A woman who wants, a man who wants nothing. These two have stalked the world for thousands of years,” she thinks.
When not ruminating over her sexual past and current fantasies, in the company of only her aging cat, J observes the comic, sometimes steamy goings-on among her faded-glamour condo neighbors. One of them, a caring nurse, befriends her, eventually offering the opinion that “if you retire from love . . . then you retire from life.”
We aim for our bookstores to be third places in the community where you can meet someone casually and have an intellectual discussion, or even take someone on a date.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Cynthia Graubart is a food writer, James Beard Award winning cookbook author, speaker, former cooking show television producer, and most-recently the co-author with Nathalie Dupree of Mastering the Art of Southern Vegetables (Gibbs-Smith 2015), as well as the best-selling (and James Beard Award winning) Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking (Gibbs-Smith 2012). Her seventh cookbook, Chicken: A Savor the South™ cookbook (UNC Press) debuts September 1, 2016 and is a treatise containing essential information for the home cook, humorous anecdotes, and 53 wonderful recipes for both southern and international chicken dishes.
Chicken: A Savor the South Cookbook
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."While fried chicken may be the South’s iconic dish, when it comes to southern foodways, there are a lot of ways to love America’s most popular fowl. Preparations range from Country Captain to Carolina Chicken Bog to Chicken and Parslied Dumplings and more. Here, Cynthia Graubart celebrates the bird in all its glory, southern style and beyond. This little cookbook packs all the know-how that cooks need to make irresistible chicken dishes for everyday and special occasions, from shopping and selecting to cutting up, frying, braising, roasting, and much more. Ranging in style from traditional southern to contemporary to international, fifty-three recipes are organized to help easily match the cut of chicken to the perfect recipe. Be assured that Graubart includes instructions for making the best fried chicken ever--seven different ways.
For the week ending September 4. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 2. A Great Reckoning Louise Penny, Minotaur, $28.99, 9781250022134 3. The Nix Nathan Hill, Knopf, $27.95, 9781101946619 4. The Last Days of Night Graham Moore, Random House, $28, 9780812988901 5. The Jealous Kind James Lee Burke, S&S, $27.99, 9781501107207
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 2. The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo Amy Schumer, Gallery, $28, 9781501139888 3. When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi, Random House, $25, 9780812988406 4. White Trash Nancy Isenberg, Viking, $28, 9780670785971 5. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up Marie Kondo, Ten Speed Press, $16.99, 9781607747307
Also of note - finalist and winners of the 2016 Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.15. Rogue Lawyer John Grisham, Bantam, $17, 9781101967669 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.11. Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta Richard Grant, S&S, $16, 9781476709642 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.5. Rogue Lawyer John Grisham, Dell, $9.99, 9780553393484
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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{About every four to six months I'd dream I'd killed somebody.}
In which her ladyship, the editor, has a new apron, Ms Deshanta Hairston thought something was missing in her community so she did something about it, and Mr. Ron Rash wrote a book because he kept dreaming that he'd killed somebody.
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,— For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
--William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Her ladyship has returned from her trip to Savannah, where she spent a week at the SIBA Discovery Show -- the annual trade show for people in the book industry in the South. It was a week filled with great fun, many authors, many books, and many many many cups of room service hotel coffee. Also, a fare number of literary-themed gifts. Here's her ladyship trying out what will be her official fall apron, inspired by one of the more famous, if alarming, recipes in literature. She especially likes the books on Shakespeare's cookbook shelf: "The Joy of Haggis," " Banquets by Banquo," and of course "Cooking with Reptiles." Ask your local indie bookshop if they carry gifts from "Shakespeare Sez"
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But of course one really attends a book show for the books -- of which her ladyship ended up with plenty (photo). The Discovery Show is all about books that that just come out, or are being released this fall, or will be coming out in the spring. Here are a few titles her ladyship is especially looking forward to:
And yes, her ladyship, the editor, knows that last book is not a "Southern" story, per se. But in Savannah Elizabeth Kostova stood up in front of a roomful of people and sang a Bulgarian folksong that was so wild and beautiful and sad that her ladyship can still hear it even now. So she is absolutely compelled to read that book.
Read Independently! And shop local.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. her ladyship, the editor
Noteworthy poetry and prose from her ladyship's bedside reading stack.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.It was nearing midnight when one of the new lampposts on Auburn Avenue achieved the unfortunate fate of being the first to be hit by a car. Shards of a white Buick's headlight fell scattered across the sidewalk below the now-leaning pole.
Locusts continued their thrum in the thick July air. Windows were open throughout town, the impact no doubt waking many. The lone pedestrian on that block, an old man on his way home from sweeping the floors at a sugar factory, was no more than ten yards away. He had stepped back when the car jumped the curb but now he stopped and watched for a moment, in case the pole should come crashing the rest of the way down. It didn't. At least not yet.
The Buick reversed, slowly, the front wheel easing off the curb. The movement caused the pole to lean the other way, too far, and then back again, a giant metronome.
The pedestrian could hear a woman's voice, shouting. Something about what on earth do you think you're doing, just take me home, that sort of thing. The pedestrian shook his head and shambled off before something worse might happen.
“Sisters Stasha and Pearl are accustomed to the imaginative interior life they share as twins, but in Josef Mengele's 'Zoo' at Auschwitz they must find refuge in that life in order to survive. Readers descend into the violence and despair of the Holocaust as experienced through the eyes of the twins but are protected by an innocence that is also urbane and by a sardonic playfulness that does not shy from horrors but transforms them into fortitude and resilience. Konar has achieved the unlikely -- Mischling simultaneously haunts and inspires.”
—Kelly Pickerill (W), Lemuria Bookstore, Jackson, MS 9780316308106
“The most overused cliche in the book business is 'page-turner,' so I will ask indulgence when I declare that The Risen by Ron Rash is a page-turner in the truest sense of the phrase. The Risen explores a young boy's coming of age, sibling rivalry, a decades-old mystery, and extreme life choices. It is an exciting read for all who appreciate literature at its finest.”
—Jake Reiss (M), The Alabama Booksmith, Birmingham, AL 9780062436313
“Silver turns the oral tradition into fine literature with Little Nothing, a masterful work of fairy tale and folklore. Pavla, a dwarf born in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, is a survivor who magically adapts time and again in order to overcome cruelty. Danilo loves her and is obsessed only with protecting her. This is a story of the power of transformation and the gift of finding the love we need, if not the love we seek.”
—Maureen Stinger, The Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, VA 9780399167928
“Filled with poignant, heartwarming insights into the incessant demands of marriage and motherhood, Leave Me brilliantly shows readers that sometimes you really do have to run away from it all in order to discover what really matters. In her adult debut, Forman provides a frank and moving story about losing and finding yourself by embracing the power of forgiveness, the inevitability of growth, and the stubbornness of love.”
—Anderson McKean (W), Page & Palette, Fairhope, AL 9781616206178
From Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, North Carolina
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Sarah: There is a hypnotic quality to Jacqueline Woodson's Another Brooklyn (Amistad $22.99), her beautiful new novel of four girls navigating Brooklyn in the '70's. Their confidence and bravura, vulnerability and fear, their loyalty to and love for one another, are told by August, in real time and flashbacks, as she tries to find her own way through. I couldn't help thinking of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, that other wonderful girl-coming-of-age story set in the same place in the early 20th century and touching on some of the same themes. I'm grateful to Jacqueline Woodson for this lovely and haunting story. Others on our staff have fallen in love with it, too:
From René: Do not be fooled by the length of this book--it is short but powerful. It brought me right into the world of a young African-American girl and her friends in language that is both compact and lyrical. Publishers Weekly gave Another Brooklyn a well-deserved starred review and said: “Woodson...combines grit and beauty in a series of stunning vignettes, painting a vivid mural of what it was like to grow up African-American in Brooklyn during the 1970s...[she] draws on all the senses to trace the milestones in a woman’s life and how her early experiences shaped her identity.” It is a book that will stay with me for a long time. 9780062359988
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From Mamie: A few years ago I finally got around to reading Sandra Cisneros’ book, The House on Mango Street. Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.It was beautiful, and as soon as I finished it, I left it on my bedside table so I could pick it up and read excerpts from it like a daily reading. What that book was to the coming-of-age Latino community in Chicago, Jacqueline Woodson’s new book is to African-Americans in Brooklyn. Flashing back to an August in the seventies, Another Brooklyn follows four friends as they leave their childhoods behind. I was particularly struck by the dangers and challenges that young girls and women face from men--on the streets from strangers, from peers, and in their homes from father figures who are absent entirely or present in unhealthy ways. Woodson won the National Book Award for her Young Adult book, Brown Girl Dreaming. This is her first adult novel in many years. 9780679734772 9780147515827
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From Carol: Along with the miracle of baby birds last spring came a big, beautiful book about them, Baby Birds by Julie Zickefoose (HMH $28). The subtitle, “An Artist Looks into the Nest,” led me to pick this up and peruse the extensive information and wealth of drawings. Thirteen years ago Zickefoose began observing and sketching nestlings once a day until they fledged, noting and recording in word and watercolor, the details of development. Beginning with the Carolina wren, she portrays many familiar species and a few that are less common here. Fine writing and an artist’s flair communicate her vast knowledge and deep affection for these feathered wonders of nature. A felicitous combination of science and art, this book is a treasure. 9780544206700
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From Bill: Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech? by Mick Hume (William Collins $19.99). A "trigger warning" is that ubiquitous statement placed at the beginning of any communication that someone thinks might contain something that would offend somebody somewhere. Hume uses this as a symbol of the constantly eroding right of free speech in Western Civilization. He posits that groups who insist on 'politically correct' speech either have no confidence in their own arguments, or they believe their fellow citizens are too stupid to make up their own minds if allowed to hear some offending idea. He makes a pretty good argument for the "indivisible" right of free speech. 9780008126407
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The award-winning author of The Last Town on Earth delivers a riveting and elegant police procedural set in 1948 Atlanta, exploring a murder, corrupt police, and strained race relations that feels ripped from today's headlines.
Responding to orders from on high, the Atlanta Police Department is forced to hire its first black officers, including war veterans Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith. The newly minted policemen are met with deep hostility by their white peers; they aren’t allowed to arrest white suspects, drive squad cars, or set foot in the police headquarters.
When a black woman who was last seen in a car driven by a white man turns up dead, Boggs and Smith suspect white cops are behind it. Their investigation sets them up against a brutal cop, Dunlow, who has long run the neighborhood as his own, and his partner, Rakestraw, a young progressive who may or may not be willing to make allies across color lines. Among shady moonshiners, duplicitous madams, crooked lawmen, and the constant restrictions of Jim Crow, Boggs and Smith will risk their new jobs, and their lives, while navigating a dangerous world—a world on the cusp of great change.
Set in the postwar, pre-civil rights South, and evoking the socially resonant and morally complex crime novels of Dennis Lehane and Walter Mosley, Darktown is a vivid, smart, intricately plotted crime saga that explores the timely issues of race, law enforcement, and the uneven scales of justice.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."Groovy Joe is inspired by optimism and a multi-sensory approach to early literary. I love books that weave music and story together."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Donna Everhart grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina and has lived close to her hometown for most of her life. For several years she worked for high tech companies, specializing in project management and product introduction. She carries a Bachelor of Science in Business Management. She lives in Dunn, North Carolina with her husband, and a tiny, heart stealing Yorkshire terrier, named Mister.
The Education of Dixie Dupree
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.In 1969, Dixie Dupree is eleven years old and already an expert liar. Sometimes the lies are for her mama, Evie’s sake—to explain away a bruise brought on by her quick-as-lightning temper. And sometimes the lies are to spite Evie, who longs to leave her unhappy marriage in Perry County, Alabama, and return to her beloved New Hampshire. But for Dixie and her brother, Alabama is home, a place of pine-scented breezes and hot, languid afternoons. Though Dixie is learning that the family she once believed was happy has deep fractures, even her vivid imagination couldn’t concoct the events about to unfold. Dixie records everything in her diary—her parents’ fights, her father’s drinking and his unexplained departure, and the arrival of Uncle Ray. Only when Dixie desperately needs help and is met with disbelief does she realize how much damage her past lies have done. But she has courage and a spirit that may yet prevail, forcing secrets into the open and allowing her to forgive and become whole again. Narrated by her young heroine in a voice as sure and resonant as The Secret Life of Bees’ Lily or Bastard Out of Carolina’s Bone, Donna Everhart’s remarkable debut is a story about mothers and daughters, the guilt and pain that pass between generations, and the truths that are impossible to hide, especially from ourselves.
For the week ending September 18. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. Commonwealth Ann Patchett, Harper, $27.99, 9780062491794 2. Razor Girl Carl Hiaasen, Knopf, $27.95, 9780385349741 3. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 4. Nutshell Ian McEwan, Nan A. Talese, $24.95, 9780385542074 5. A Great Reckoning Louise Penny, Minotaur, $28.99, 9781250022134
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 2. Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard, Holt, $30, 9781627790628 3. The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class Edward Conard, Portfolio, $29, 9781595231239 4. Hustle: The Power to Charge Your Life with Money, Meaning, and Momentum Neil Patel, et al., Rodale, $26.99, 9781623367169 5. Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland Dave Barry, Putnam, $27, 9781101982600
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.8. The Risen Ron Rash, Ecco, $25.99, 9780062436313 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.4. Raymie Nightingale Kate DiCamillo, Candlewick, $16.99, 9780763681173
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which Mr. Pat Conroy describes his ideal writing day (which includes Mr. Doug Marlette being in a terrible bad mood), a family road trip does not include any time to stop and pee, and Ms. Jill McCorkle takes liberties with her hometown.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
How can summer already be behind us? Her ladyship knows it is so -- she sees the subtle seasonal indicators that mark the changing of the season; children standing on corners waiting for the school bus. Pots of mums for sale outside the supermarket. And most significantly... the newest crop of seasonal Okra Picks has just been announced!
Here are the books you'll be reading over the next few months:
Here's the down south story we didn't tell you: sixteen hours in and Jack can't feel her feet bu we never stop. Our uncle asleep at the wheel and we that closer to death with each mile. Turned around again and again before GPS, we learned North Carolina is a long state: tobacco taller than us, the fields and fields of it, no washing it out of our clothes, the air so wet and thick of it, choking us.
Jack won't fly. Full grown with a dead granddaddy and still she won't fly, she tells us I-95 has always been the way back home so we gun it. Straight through, no stopping, sixteen hours and Jack doesn't care how bad we need to pee, she says Hold it. Sixteen ours till we say the palmetto trees and smelled the paper mill and knew Savage Road was in sight.
Georgie 'n' em got Grandaddy laid out in the front room like a piece of furniture and ushers fanning the top of Grandmama's head. We couldn't find our place in the business of departing: hams out the oven, lemon cake iced, organ tuned, tea made, napkins folded, the children's black patent leather shoes set out for the dirt road come morning.
Kima Jones, in Jesmyn Ward's The Fire This Time (Scribner Book Company, 2016) 9781501126345
Recommended reading from Southern Indie Booksellers
Quail Ridge Books, in Raleigh, North Carolina
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From Kent: I never stop recommending Thad Carhart's memoir of the second time he moved to France, The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, which is a primer on the workings of pianos, and a sheer delight to read. Now, in Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Finding Fontainebleau: An American Boy in France (Viking $27), Carhart goes back to 1954, when his family of seven moved into a charming old mansion near the Château de Fontainebleau (his father was a NATO official), and immersed themselves in a France still recovering from WWII. His rich experiences as a kid alternate with chapters on the history of the chateau and the assorted French kings who inhabited it. And when he has returned to Fontainebleau as an adult, he gets to share in a restoration of the chateau, and retrace the steps of his childhood in a way we all sometimes wish we could. A perfect book for a summer escape to a very different place and time.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From Sarah: I haven't had this much fun reading a book in a long time! In A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Viking $27), Count Alexander Rostov, one of the great characters in modern fiction, reads like he leaped off the pages of a Tolstoy novel and landed in 1922, where he is placed under house arrest in Moscow's grand Metropol Hotel. The Count is elegant, sophisticated, erudite without being stuffy, wickedly funny, and in love with life. Towles takes you through 32 years of Russian history with a wonderful cast of characters, and a delightfully suspenseful plot. After 480 pages you will still mourn when you reach the end. Even better than his delightful debut, Rules of Civility. We've got a limited number of signed copies available.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From Mamie: Don’t be put off by the strong sexual language at the beginning of Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux $28). It leads you to the skillfully told story of Jacob Bloch, his wife Julia, and their three sons. The growing tension and a destructive earthquake in the Middle East parallel the deterioration of the Blochs’ marriage. Having waited over a decade for a novel by Foer, author of two of my favorites--Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything is Illuminated--I realize that Foer has only become a more eloquent and empathetic storyteller, willing to take on the difficult issues of our time.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From Rosemary: I'd be happy to read Ron Rash's grocery lists. Rash stays centered in western North Carolina in his new novel, The Risen(Ecco $25.99). But he moves from the sweeping forest vista of Serena and the moral issues of WWI (The Cove) to a more intimate setting. Two brothers have taken very different paths. When the events of a long-ago summer literally rise up, their family history and dynamics come bubbling up, too.
From Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Tyler loves The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead: This is the story of Cora and her escape northward from a plantation in Georgia. Her means is the Underground Railroad, a literal underground network of tunnels and rails. Each time she surfaces, Cora finds herself in a different cultural landscape, all strange and dangerous in their own ways. It is a narrative built on true horror, spun into a fascinating but awful dystopic alternate history. Completely brutal, ingenious, and powerful.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Janet loves Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett: Interesting, contemplative, lovely, and full of exquisite prose, Pond is hard for me to define. It's low on plot but high on character development and imagery, and I appreciated how the lead character was revealed little by little through her actions and not-necessarily-reliable brand of honesty. Also: THAT COVER! #swoon
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Caleb lovesFour Roads Cross by Max Gladstone: Gladstone's Craft Sequence is the most finely-crafted Urban Fantasy I've seen in years. When money is your soul and corporations are gods and all-powerful skeleton men, who looks our for the little guys? (Magical necromancer lawyers.)
The eye of this whirlwind of narcos, chance, mezcal, fate and the opposing wills of la Virgen Guadalupe and Santa Muerte takes place in Oaxaca, Mexico. In a wild chase for Montezuma's funerary mask, these characters forge and recombine alliances as easily and often as a kaleidoscope. The world of posh art collectors clashes with the underbelly they rely on to supply their expensive tastes. Sultry and serrated as a desert landscape, punctuated with humor and polished one-liners. All business, all personal. -- Amanda
A Song to Take the World Apart is immersive, engaging, and full of teenage emotion. Romanoff explores ancient folklore and the way our pasts impact our futures, all through Lorelai's imperfect teenage mind and body. This novel is about the beauty of magic and uncertainty in one girl's family and the daily struggles and singular experiences everyone faces as they come of age.-- Johanna
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“Boyer delivers a beach read filled with quirky, endearing characters and a masterfully layered mystery, all set in the lush lowcountry. Don’t miss this one!” – Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times Bestselling Author of A Lowcountry Wedding
“Boyer writes with humor, grace, and Southern grit in this charmer of a Carolina tale.” – Gretchen Archer, USA Today Bestselling Author of Double Knot
“The authentically Southern Boyer writes with heart, insight, and a deep understanding of human nature.” – Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha Award-Winning Author of What You See
“Boyer deftly shapes characters with just enough idiosyncrasies without succumbing to clichés while infusing her lighthearted plot with an insightful look at families.” – Oline Cogdill, South Florida Sun Sentinel
Somebody pushed Shelby Poinsett out her second-floor library window and it wasn’t her husband. At least that’s what Charleston’s most prestigious law firm wants Liz Talbot to prove. Liz must run the spectrum of Southern society, from the local homeless shelter where Shelby volunteered to the one-hundred-year-old book club where Charleston’s genteel ladies are dying to join, to bring a killer to justice.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“My fictional town looked a whole lot like Lumberton,” she said. “I’ve just taken the liberty of moving it about 30 miles toward the coast.”
Several years ago, her ladyship, the editor found herself driving up and down unfamiliar country roads, occasionally trapped by men driving slow moving farming equipment, and in general feeling more and more uncomfortable in her fancier-than-usual outfit. It had been a long drive, especially in high-heeled shoes. But it was a warm fall day and her ladyship's destination was the beautiful Weymouth Center in the Piedmont area of North Carolina, where the biennial induction ceremony of the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame is held among the gardens of the historic house, shaded by the old long leaf pines. A beautiful place to honor the best of North Carolina literature
On October 16, the NC Literary Hall of Fame will again gather to induct new members into the hallowed halls (actually, the warm and inviting study of Mr. James Boyd, friend and patron to many writers, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner to Sherwood Anderson). This year's inductees are each already well loved: Clyde Edgerton (Raney), Margaret Maron (Bootlegger's Daughter) and Carl Sandburg (American Songbag):
Announcing the 2016 North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame Inductees
Clyde Edgerton, Margaret Maron, and Carl Sandburg will join the fifty-seven inductees currently enshrined, in a ceremony at theWeymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines.
The North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame celebrates and promotes the state’s rich literary heritage by commemorating its leading authors and encouraging the continued flourishing of great literature. Inductions are held every other year. A list of inductees, as well as samples of their work and video clips of past inductions, can be found online at www.nclhof.org.
Clyde Edgerton, raised in the Bethesda community near Durham, is the author of ten novels, a book of advice, a memoir, short stories, and essays. Three of his novels—Raney, Walking Across Egypt, and Killer Diller—have been made into feature films, and seven of his books have been adapted for the stage.
He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, and five of his novels have been New York Times Notable Books. He is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNC Wilmington. He lives in Wilmington, NC, with his wife, Kristina, and their children.
Margaret Maron is the author of thirty novels and two collections of short stories. Winner of several major American awards for mysteries (Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Macavity), her works are on the reading lists of various courses in contemporary Southern literature and have been translated into sixteen languages. She has served as president of Sisters in Crime, the American Crime Writers League, and Mystery Writers of America.
A native Tar Heel—and a cousin of 2014 NCLHOF inductee Shelby Stephenson—she lives on her family’s farm a few miles southeast of Raleigh, the setting for Bootlegger’s Daughter, which is numbered among the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century as selected by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. In 2004, she received the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for best North Carolina novel of the year. In 2008, she was honored with the North Carolina Award for Literature, the state’s highest civilian honor. In 2013, she was named a Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America for lifetime achievement, and won the R. Hunt Parker Award for Significant Contributions to the Literature of North Carolina.
Carl Sandburg was born in a three-room cottage in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1878. The son of Swedish immigrants, young Sandburg spent time as a milkman, bricklayer, wheat thresher, shoeshiner, hobo, and soldier before making his name as a journalist, biographer, and poet. He won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1940 for his multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, and his second in 1951 for his Complete Poems.
In 1945, Sandburg and his family—along with their herd of prize-winning goats and their collection of thousands of books—moved to a farm outside Flat Rock, now the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. Sandburg died there in 1967.
The North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame was founded in 1996, under the leadership of poet laureate Sam Ragan, and is a program of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. Since 2008, the Network and the Weymouth Center collaborate with the North Carolina Center for the Book, the North Carolina Humanities Council, and the North Carolina Collection of the Wilson Library at UNC-Chapel Hill to produce the induction ceremony and to promote the NCLHOF and North Carolina’s literary heritage.
For more information, visit the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame at www.nclhof.org or the North Carolina Writers’ Network at www.ncwriters.org.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.My PhD is in early modern literature and my scholarship centers around the intersections of literature and law. I’ve written about the violence of the law in early modern England, critical prison theory, and human rights in children’s literature. My publications appear in Law, Culture, and the Humanities, Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Contemporary Justice Review, The Social History of Crime and Punishment in the United States, Wake Forest Law Review, and Reading Milton. I co-authored a recent book, Human Rights and Children’s Literature: Imagination and the Narrative of Law . For the last eight years, I’ve taught at a men’s prison outside Atlanta, a place where I’ve found — ironically — unparalleled intellectual freedom and creative collaboration. Along with my friend and colleague Bill Taft, I co-direct the nonprofit Common Good Atlanta, which seeks to connect the humanities to the community. sarah.higinbotham@gatech.edu
Human Rights in Children's Literature
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.How can children grow to realize their inherent rights and respect the rights of others? In this book, authors Jonathan Todres and Sarah Higinbotham explore this question through both human rights law and children's literature. Both international and domestic law affirm that children have rights, but how are these norms disseminated so that they make a difference in children's lives? Human rights education research demonstrates that when children learn about human rights, they exhibit greater self-esteem and respect the rights of others. The Convention on the Rights of the Child -- the most widely-ratified human rights treaty -- not only ensures that children have rights, it also requires that states make those rights "widely known, by appropriate and active means, to adults and children alike." This first-of-its-kind requirement for a human rights treaty indicates that if rights are to be meaningful to the lives of children, then government and civil society must engage with those rights in ways that are relevant to children. Human Rights in Children's Literature investigates children's rights under international law -- identity and family rights, the right to be heard, the right to be free from discrimination, and other civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights -- and considers the way in which those rights are embedded in children's literature from Peter Rabbit to Horton Hears a Who to Harry Potter. This book traverses children's rights law, literary theory, and human rights education to argue that in order for children to fully realize their human rights, they first have to imagine and understand them.
For the week ending September 18. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. Commonwealth Ann Patchett, Harper, $27.99, 9780062491794 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.2. Razor Girl Carl Hiaasen, Knopf, $27.95, 9780385349741 3. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 4. Nutshell Ian McEwan, Nan A. Talese, $24.95, 9780385542074 5. A Great Reckoning Louise Penny, Minotaur, $28.99, 9781250022134
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 2. Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard, Holt, $30, 9781627790628 3. The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class Edward Conard, Portfolio, $29, 9781595231239 4. Hustle: The Power to Charge Your Life with Money, Meaning, and Momentum Neil Patel, et al., Rodale, $26.99, 9781623367169 5. Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland Dave Barry, Putnam, $27, 9781101982600
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.8. The Risen Ron Rash, Ecco, $25.99, 9780062436313 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.4. Raymie Nightingale Kate DiCamillo, Candlewick, $16.99, 9780763681173
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which her ladyship, the editor, prepares for a storm, again, Mr. Daniel Connolly opens a package, Mr. Kelly Guidry creates an angel, and mothers are full of secrets.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
Once again, her ladyship is making preparations. In a few days she will have Hurricane Matthew as an unwelcome visitor, and so she is dutifully running through her usual pre-storm routine: fill the car with gas. Do all the laundry. Vacuum and clean the kitchen counters. Grind enough coffee to last three or four days.
Pick out what to read when the power goes out.
This last item always seems to take the most thought. Beth Macy's Truevine is on the list, and Jonathan Rabb's Among the Living. The new Sharyn McCrumb novel, Prayers the Devil Answers, is a possibility. But then so is The Hidden Life of Trees.
Isaias spent the summer before his senior year working with Dennis and his parents on painting jobs, and in one house in Germantown, a well- to-do suburb, he used his cell phone to take a picture of himself in a mirror, then posted it on Facebook— his glasses off, a serious expression, his head haloed by light streaming from a window behind him, his shirt paint- spattered. After school started, he continued to do painting jobs on the weekends.
One day early in the school year, Isaias hurried to the vocational center near Kingsbury High to speak with Corey A. Davis, an instructor. Isaias sometimes ran from place to place, and he arrived sweating and tired, as if he’d just completed a race, Mr. Davis recalled. Isaias told him that he needed permission to sign up for the audio recording class. No problem— Mr. Davis agreed.
The class was optional, and Isaias wanted it badly. He’d sit behind an actual mixing board with knobs and sliders, learning to create songs and sound effects. He’d listen to NPR for ideas on how to edit radio stories. Every day, he would walk from the main high school building to the vocational center, and he’d stay there for about three hours, working contentedly.
But for many other Kingsbury students, the start of the school year would bring not contentment, but long hours of sitting in a gymnasium with nothing to do.
Recommended reading from Southern Indie Booksellers
Quail Ridge Books, in Raleigh, North Carolina
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From Mamie: David Means’ short story collection, Assorted Fire Events, was full of dark and dystopian stories. These two adjectives would also apply to his latest novel, Hystopia (Farrar, Straus and Giroux $26). It is 1970. John F. Kennedy has lived through several assassination attempts and is still President. Veterans of the Vietnam war are dealing with their PTSD by taking the drug Tripizoid and undergoing a process called Enfolding. Some vets, like Rake, are so incorrigible that they can’t be enfolded, and therein lies the tale. It is a novel within a novel, complete with Editor’s Notes and Author’s Notes that provide a sense of truth and realism to the fictional story. This and other novels pertaining to Vietnam remind us that the psychological damage from war is heartbreaking, and often unmanageable. 9780865479135
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Award-winning author Adam Haslett is at it again with one of my earlier staff picks, Imagine Me Gone(Little Brown $26). The book has been nominated for the 2016 Kirkus Prize, and is long-listed for the 2016 National Book Award. A beautifully written story of a family besieged by mental illness. 9780316261357
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From Ceewin: Tales of the City (Harper $15.99). The more things change, the more things stay the same. Or so it seems in this novel by Armistead Maupin. Set in 1970s San Francisco, we follow a dozen city dwellers chasing their version of their dream life in this bustling metropolis. While certain details are amusingly out-of-date, the main themes still ring true today: friendship, companionship, heartbreak, loss, deciding what type of life you want to live and what type of person you want to be. 9780062421081
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From Ceewin: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo (Ten Speed $16.99). “The question of what you want to own is actually a question of how you want to live your life!” Kondo exclaims. While I am still working my way at decluttering my space, following the advice of this book has been fairly straight forward. The concept is pretty simple: get rid of physical baggage so you can focus on living your life (and maybe cutting some other types of baggage too). It’s empowering, it’s not being beholden to material possessions, it’s learning how to make your space serve you, and it’s deciding what you want for your life as the person you are today. Now that is life-changing. 9781607747307
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Two from Mari Lu: The Lost Girls (William Morrow $25.99), a debut novel by Heather Young, is the story of three generations of women and mainly set in a desolate part of Minnesota. In 1935 a six-year-old girl disappears without any explanation, and she's never heard of or seen again. The novel explores the effects Emily's disappearance has on her siblings and succeeding generations of women in the family. It's haunting and beautifully written. 9780062456601
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.This one really grabbed me, a 570-page history of WWII, The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945 (Basic $35), by Nicholas Stargardt, an historian at Oxford. It explores the feelings and changing beliefs of ordinary Germans and their reactions to the war as it progresses. It's incredibly well-written, not text-bookish at all, and I couldn't put it down. It is based on correspondence between, for example, German soldiers and their wives, mothers, fiancées as well as memoirs. I hesitated to recommend this book because of its length, but that was not an impediment to me as I got into it. It's not your ordinary history book. 9780465018994
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."The Book of Isaias has a light touch and a conversational narrative style, and doesn't concern itself overly with the vagaries of immigration politics. Yet it will hit you over the head over and over again with its presentation of life as many immigrant families know it." -Kat Leache, The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis, TN.
In a green town in the middle of America, a bright 18-year-old Hispanic student named Isaias Ramos sets out on the journey to college.
Isaias, who passed a prestigious national calculus test as a junior and leads the quiz bowl team, is the hope of Kingsbury High in Memphis, a school where many students have difficulty reading. But Kingsbury’s dysfunction, expensive college fees, and forms printed in a language that’s foreign to his parents are all obstacles in the way of getting him to a university.
Isaias also doubts the value of college and says he might go to work in his family’s painting business after high school, despite his academic potential. Is Isaias making a rational choice? Or does he simply hope to avoid pain by deferring dreams that may not come to fruition? This is what journalist Daniel Connolly attempts to uncover in The Book of Isaias as he follows Isaias, peers into a tumultuous final year of high school, and, eventually, shows how adults intervene in the hopes of changing Isaias’ life.
Mexican immigration has brought the proportion of Hispanics in the nation’s youth population to roughly one in four. Every day, children of immigrants make decisions about their lives that will shape our society and economy for generations. This engaging, poignant book captures an American microcosm and illustrates broader challenges for our collective future.
Next week will begin a new periodic section in this newsletter. Once a month her ladyship, the editor, will focus on one of the book/author/musician/artist combinations that make up the 2017 TRIO exhibit. But this week she wanted to highlight the books themselves. Together they make a unique reading list full of both familiar names and unexpected discoveries. You can see the schedule for the current exhibit here and even put in a request to have TRIO come to your town.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“The South struck me as being a little like my mother: full of secrets I would never know and truths I would not hear in full,”
Interview of Daniel Connolly, author of The Book of Isaias, by Kat Leache, high school friend of Daniel’s and bookseller at the Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Daniel: I guess I’ll just start by saying thanks for doing this again.
Kat: My pleasure. It was so much fun to read. I mean, hard to read at times, but fun. What was the origin story of the book?
Daniel: I’ve been really interested in immigration for a long time. I almost always spoke with adults, Mexican immigrants. And I was interested in doing a big project, possibly a book and didn’t really know exactly what I was going to do. Then I went to lunch with this guy, Mauricio Calvo, who’s head of the group Latino Memphis. In that interview he brought up that he was very concerned about immigrants’ children. And he talked about all the challenges that they’re dealing with, like domestic violence in some cases, and kids dropping out of school. And he asked this question in Spanish: “¿Qué nos espera?” Which means “What awaits us?” That was really the genesis of focusing on kids. I got the idea of embedding in a school from a journalism conference. I heard of somebody who did that in Philadelphia. That came later. I actually called that person and asked how to do it. I called some other people who’d done similar things and got some practical tips.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Kat: I just loved the way you take the reader through the lives of these kids in just such a conversational, direct way, and you never hit anyone over the head with some of the heavier issues, yet it’s in your face the entire time you’re reading - what potential is there, what limits them, what inequality actually looks like.
Daniel: I spent a lot of time with this group of children of Mexican immigrants through their senior year of high school and for a couple of years afterward. And what I’m trying to do is show how they can contribute to the society, the obstacles that are standing in their way now, and offer some ideas of how we as a society could help. And I’m telling that in a story about these individuals, just a really interesting group of people that I met while doing embedded reporting at a high school.
I was very lucky to meet Isaias and the Ramos family. They did a lot for the book. They basically let me into their home, time after time, let me hang out with them over and over. And we’re talking about a period of years. . . . Looking back at it, I have a sense of just gratitude that everything worked out the way it did.
Kat: What else can you tell me about writing the book?
Daniel: I had to learn what we call immersion journalism, which is basically following people around. And so it’s like you see this in a documentary movie, where it’s just a camera following somebody as they do something. It’s a technique that I had to learn as I did the book. A lot of what appears in the book is overheard dialogue and scenes that I observed. I’m not asking people about it afterward, I was actually in the room as these things happened.
And so the experience of doing this was so much different than the experience of writing an article for the daily newspaper. An article I would do for the newspaper is more like a snapshot, and this is more like a movie.
Kat: You write that, “at its heart, the illegal immigration system is inherently exploitative and aims to give the worker as little as possible.”
This book is engaging in a million ways, but what I liked best about it for me as a thinker and a member of society is it made the problems of the current immigration system very clear, in very specific ways.
Daniel: What I argue in the book - and this is based on interviewing immigrants going back to 2004 - that what we call ‘illegal immigration’ isn’t really illegal. It’s a phenomenon that our federal government in both Republican and Democratic administrations has tolerated. Illegal immigration is a method for bringing workers into the country. If the government tries to enforce immigration law in a city, that means they’re taking workers from businesses, and businesses don’t like that. They complain to members of Congress and they get it stopped. So what ends up happening is, the class of people who are here illegally, basically no one’s trying to get them out, but they live here with limited rights.
I don’t really take a strong stance on what our immigration policy should look like. I do say we should support immigrants’ kids for a variety of practical reasons. And I guess the last thing I’d say about the immigration question is it’s just so important to understand that illegal immigration isn’t really illegal, because once you understand that, everything else that happens out there starts making a lot of sense.
Kat: Somewhere early in the book you say ‘Memphis looked like real life,’ kind of speaking for the Ramos family once they got here.
Daniel: Isaias said that. He’d seen this British TV show ‘Bernard’s Watch’ and he was expecting Memphis to be like that, but it wasn’t. The story, it could be anywhere in America, but it’s very, very specific to this one Southern city. There is a peculiar racial history of desegregation, busing and how this all white school became a Hispanic and African-American and Asian school. And it’s a view of the South that we’re not talking about magnolias and mint juleps. We’re talking about a modern, multicultural South that I don’t think has been written about that much.
Kat: I loved the photos you included in the book.
Daniel: I worked with two photographers during the course of this project. It was Karen Focht here in Memphis and Dominic Bracco in Mexico. So we have a visual record of everything from a really crucial meeting that took place in Isaias’ house to Isaias playing rock music. I actually took that photo myself.
I appreciate you getting all the way through it and reading it. It’s a commitment. It’s a short book, but still . . .
Kat: It was easy to read. It will be an easy book for people to pick up. You really do a good job of just reporting facts, mostly, but then putting your own personality and thoughts into it just enough to give it personality but to still seem like the straightforward account that it is. It came together really well, I really enjoyed reading it. I think that other people will in Memphis and elsewhere. It really couldn’t be any more timely.
-----
DANIEL CONNOLLY has for more than a decade reported on Mexican immigration to the U.S. South for news organizations including The Associated Press in Little Rock and The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal. An award-winning journalist, he has received support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the International Center for Journalists and the Fulbright program. He lives in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.
For the week ending October 2. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. Commonwealth Ann Patchett, Harper, $27.99, 9780062491794 2. Razor Girl Carl Hiaasen, Knopf, $27.95, 9780385349741 3. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 4. Nutshell Ian McEwan, Nan A. Talese, $24.95, 9780385542074 5. A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles, Viking, $27, 9780670026197
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Born to Run Bruce Springsteen, S&S, $32.50, 9781501141515 2. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 3. Killing the Rising Sun Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard, Holt, $30, 9781627790628 4. Hero of the Empire Candice Millard, Doubleday, $30, 9780385535731 5. Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders Joshua Foer, et al., Workman, $35, 9780761169086
Also of note:
6. The Year of Voting Dangerously Maureen Dowd, Twelve, $30, 9781455539260 8. Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland Dave Barry, Putnam, $27, 9781101982600 7. North Carolina's Roadside Eateries: A Traveler's Guide to Local Restaurants, Diners, and Barbecue Joints D.G. Martin, University of North Carolina Press, $16, 9781469630144
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which Mr. J. Drew Lanham's blood is the color of the red dirt he walks upon, Ms. Kate DiCamillo did not win the Little Miss Orange Blossom pageant, Mr. Alex Beard sees the world differently that the rest of us, and Mr. William Ferris honors the intimacy of Southern life.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
The storm has passed, and her ladyship, the editor's house has come through unscathed. She even has power, although her neighbors down the road remain without. And being on high ground, she is safe from the rising waters that are still threatening other homes in other neighborhoods.
Here the storm's passage is marked by the steadily rising roar of chainsaws as people take down broken trees or cut up fallen branches. But in her own garden, the only sign of the storm's passing are the stripped branches of the fig tree. The winds blew off all the curling leaves.
With the arrival of the sun, and the cool nights and warm days also came the arrival of the postman, who brought her ladyship, like a gift from the storm, a copy of A Brush with Nature: Abstract Naturalism and the Painting of Life by Alex Beard. The artist, who lives in New Orleans and is inspired by African and Southern Bayou landscapes, had his launch party at Octavia Books last week. Her ladyship had seen a notification of the event, and written the bookshop owners to inquire if any copies would be available after the event.
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Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Then Matthew came calling, and her ladyship forgot all about the exchange until this afternoon, when a box arrived at her doorstep with a signed copy of A Brush with Nature inside.
Alex Beard's swirling paintings are mesmerizing to look at -- her ladyship like the "animalia" pieces and the pen-and-ink work the best. Beard is greatly interested in and concerned with the always-in-motion balance of nature, and works with UNESCO and conservation groups to save the wild places of the Earth, both at home and in farther away places. Some of the proceeds from the sale of his works and his book go towards such causes.
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence. --Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
I am a man in love with nature. I am an eco-addict, consuming everything that the outdoors offers in its all-you-cansense, seasonal buffet. I am a wildling, born of forests and fields and more comfortable on unpaved back roads and winding woodland paths than in any place where concrete, asphalt, and crowds prevail. In my obsession I “celebrate myself, and sing myself,” living Walt Whitman’s exaltations, rolling and reveling in all that nature lays before me.
I am an ornithologist, wildlife ecologist, and college professor. I am a father, husband, son, and brother. I hope to some I am a friend. I bird. I hunt. I gather. I am a seeker and a noticer. I am a lover. My being finds its foundation in open places.
I’m a man of color— African American by politically correct convention— mostly black by virtue of ancestors who trod ground in central and west Africa before being brought to foreign shores. In me there’s additionally an inkling of Irish, a bit of Brit, a smidgen of Scandinavian, and some American Indian, Asian, and Neanderthal tossed in, too. But that’s only a part of the whole: There is also the red of miry clay, plowed up and planted to pass a legacy forward.
There is the brown of spring floods rushing over a Savannah River shoal. There is the gold of ripening tobacco drying in the heat of summer’s last breath. There are endless rows of cotton’s cloudy white. My plumage is a kaleidoscopic rainbow of an eternal hope and the deepest blue of despair and darkness. All of these hues are me; I am, in the deepest sense, colored.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.If you’ve ever been interested in what your dog or your cat really thinks about your tuxedo t-shirt (or whether they think at all), then Frans de Waal’s new book is a must-read for you.
De Waal is the renowned primatologist and writer of The Bonobo and the Atheist, as well as other essays on morality and intelligence in the animal kingdom. And in this book de Waal argues that certain animal intelligence–though different—is not inferior or superior to others (including us human folk).
De Waal makes it clear that we should examine animals in relation to their own specific traits and capabilities in order to understand their true intelligence, rather than comparing them to the things that we humans excel it.
By trying to get us to embody a point of view outside of our own species', this book will forever change the way we look at animal intelligence and consciousness.
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal, F. B. M. De Waal (W. W. Norton) Recommended by Donovan at Inkwood Books Tampa FL
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Marine biologist Nichols reveals groundbreaking neuroscience that proves what we intuitively know: We are emotionally, physically and spiritually healthier when we are near or in the water.
He presents the evidence in terms easily accessible to non-scientists and reminds us that it is imperative that we humans protect the waters of our planet for the good of all of the beings who inhabit it.
Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, & Better at What You Do by Wallace J. Nichols (Little, Brown and Co.) Recommended by Samantha at Quail Ridge Books Raleigh NC
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Ellie doesn't like how things have changed in her eleven years of life, the most recent change being that her best friend doesn't seem to be her best friend any more. Then her scientist grandfather shows up under very strange circumstances and shows Ellie a glimpse into the world of science -- Salk, Oppenheimer, Galileo, Newton -- and Ellie has to decide what changes she wants to make and which might not be worth the risk.
A great introduction to science for interested kids, and Ellie will make it even more appealing for girls.
The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer L. Holm (Dell Yearling) Recommended by Melissa at Fiction AddictionGreenville SC
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The Genius of Birds is a splendidly written account of the remarkable ways, many of which are newly discovered, that birds gossip, eavesdrop, exact revenge, manipulate, sympathize, use tools, and communicate in myriad ways.
This smart and entertaining narrative appeals to bird geeks and the commonly curious alike with anecdotes, science, and new insights into what birds know about our frighteningly changing world.
The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman (Penguin) Recommended by Richard at Square Books Oxford MS
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.An around the world tour of all of the tangible workings behind that seemingly intangible construct known as the internet.
Lots of great information on where and how your news, emails and favorite adorable kitten videos are stored and transmitted to your computer monitor. Great for techies but also great for readers interested in history or just good non-fiction. No computer science degree required.
Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet by Andrew Blum (Ecco Press) Recommended by John at Cavalier House Books Denham Springs LA
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“In me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. All of these hues are me; I am, in the deepest sense, colored.”
From these fertile soils of love, land, identity, family, and race emerges The Home Place, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist and professor of ecology J. Drew Lanham.
Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina—a place “easy to pass by on the way somewhere else”—has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be “the rare bird, the oddity.”
By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South—and in America today.
Literary News & Gossip passed along from the readers, the writers, the reviewers, the resellers, the riff raff, and dutifully repeated here by her ladyship (who falls into the last category).
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Thomas Pierce was stepping out of his house for a walk with his family and typically would not have picked up the phone, especially from an unknown number.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."I don't know what my mother was thinking, but she entered me in a Little Miss contest — Little Miss Orange Blossom, I think it was."
For the week ending October 2. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. Commonwealth Ann Patchett, Harper, $27.99, 9780062491794 2. Razor Girl Carl Hiaasen, Knopf, $27.95, 9780385349741 3. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 4. Nutshell Ian McEwan, Nan A. Talese, $24.95, 9780385542074 5. A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles, Viking, $27, 9780670026197
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Born to Run Bruce Springsteen, S&S, $32.50, 9781501141515 2. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 3. Killing the Rising Sun Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard, Holt, $30, 9781627790628 4. Hero of the Empire Candice Millard, Doubleday, $30, 9780385535731 5. Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders Joshua Foer, et al., Workman, $35, 9780761169086
Also of note:
6. The Year of Voting Dangerously Maureen Dowd, Twelve, $30, 9781455539260 8. Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland Dave Barry, Putnam, $27, 9781101982600 7. North Carolina's Roadside Eateries: A Traveler's Guide to Local Restaurants, Diners, and Barbecue Joints D.G. Martin, University of North Carolina Press, $16, 9781469630144
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which Ms. Jaki Shelton Green remembers her grandmother's hand kneading bread, Ms. Gertie creates a monstrosity of science, Ms. Margaret Maron turns her home into a refuge for disrespected and dilapidated flamingos, and Mr. Pat Conroy advises young writers: "Read everything. Go deeper."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."Read everything. Go deeper." This is the advice that Pat Conroy once gave to a group of high school kids who wanted to become writers, and it encapsulates his attitude towards a literary life, and his belief that literature, story, storytelling, writing, reading . . . that all these things are necessary to us. Conroy was a tireless supporter of literary life and of writers. He was a mentor and a man always generous with his time and advice, and he is one of the reasons the South's literary tradition is so vibrant and strong.
It is to continue this legacy that the Pat Conroy Literary Center was founded this year, and to raise support for that same mission of "encouraging a Southern reading and writing community for generations to come" October 24-28 has been declared "Pat Conroy Week."
Make at least a $41 donation to the Pat Conroy Literary Center during "Pat Conroy Week" and be entered in a drawing to win a full set of the winners and finalists of the 2016 Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize. 41 books for $41!
You could, of course, make two $41 donations to double your chances of winning all those books! And really, if the mission is more important that the books, you could always donate right now!
She wiggled her index finger between the frog’s lips— if you could call them lips— and poked the pipette into his mouth. Then she squeezed the blue bulb at the other end, forcing oxygen into his lungs.
The air must have revived him quickly, or maybe he was a little less dead than Gertie had hoped, because he sprang for the edge of the counter. Gertie lunged sideways and cupped her hands over him.
“There, there,” she said. “You’re safe now.”
She peeked at him through her fingers, and he peeked back at her, his eyeballs quivering with gratitude. Or maybe they quivered with rage. It was hard to tell.
She wrapped her hands around the frog’s middle, turned on her heel, and crashed into a soft, flowery stomach.
“Oof,” said Aunt Rae. She blinked at the frog in Gertie’s hands. “What in the Sam Hill are you doing?”
“I resuscitated him.” Gertie held the frog closer.
Aunt Rae moved to stand over the air vent in the kitchen floor, and her house dress ballooned around her legs. “You what?”
“Resuscitated,” said Gertie. “It means I brought him back to life.”
“I know what it means.” Aunt Rae swayed her weight from foot to foot. “Why’d you resuscitate a ugly old bull- frog? That’s what I don’t know.”
Gertie sighed. She spent a lot of time explaining things that should have been obvious to people. “I did it so he could become a miracle of science,” she said.
“Huh.” Aunt Rae wrinkled her nose at the frog. “Looks more like a monstrosity of science to me.”
Gertie gasped. “Oh my Lord.”
“What?”
“Aunt Rae, that’s even better!”
--Kate Beasley, Gertie's Leap to Greatness (Farrar, Straus, Giroux 2016)
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.TenNapel has created a very real Reptiles vs. Amphibians world in which Little Herk, the weakest of the Nnewts, is forced to flee his home when his town is invaded by the scary Lizzarks.
Confined to water due to his underdeveloped legs, Herk navigates the big wide world with an evil overlord hot on his tail. He must find the strength he possesses within himself, different from all the others -- his life depends on it!
This is a great start to a new graphic novel series for kids. Fans of Zita the Spacegirl orAmulet and Bones--here's something new for you!
Escape from the Lizzarks by Doug TenNapel (Graphix) Recommended by Amanda at Inkwood Books Tampa FL
I Stink is a book I read to my seven year old son a few months ago.
He really enjoyed following the garbage truck through the book to see what he does on his daily route. One thing I liked was, everything the garbage truck ate, he ate alphabetically. This is a great kids book and everyone will love this smelly, sassy garbage truck.
I Stink! by Kate McCullan (HarperTrophy) Recommended by Christina at Blue Ridge Books Waynesville NC
Ten-year-old Manami’s family is forced to relocate to a camp for Japanese Americans during WWII.
She tries to sneak her dog, Yujin, into the camp, but is caught by the soldiers. Manami doesn’t speak in the prison village. She writes paper wishes that she hopes will sail through the air to her dog.
This is a beautifully written story about family and survival, perfect for young readers interested in WWII history.
Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Recommended by Rae Ann Parker at Parnassus Books Nashville TN
Meet ANGUS and ALEX! Angus is a brownie—a MAGICAL creature that secretly loves to do chores for humans. Alex is an ORDINARY kid. Angus has a TEMPER problem. Alex has the world’s MESSIEST room.
For better or worse (and things are going to get a whole lot worse!), the two are about to be thrown together by a centuries-old curse.
Can they work together to find a way to break it? Featuring diary entries, newspaper clippings, police transcripts, grumpy cats, annoying older brothers, terrible poetry, daring rescues, ancient magic, the occasional fit of temper, and more, Bruce Coville brings fantasy, adventure, and humor together in this one-of-a-kind tale of family and friendship.
The Enchanted Files #1 Cursed (Yearling Books)Recommended by Bookstore1Sarasota Sarasota FL
Gertie Reece Foy is 100% Not-From-Concentrate awesome. She has a daddy who works on an oil rig, a great-aunt who always finds the lowest prices at the Piggly Wiggly, and two loyal best friends. So when her absent mother decides to move away from their small town, Gertie sets out on her greatest mission yet: becoming the best fifth grader in the universe to show her mother exactly what she'll be leaving behind. There's just one problem: Seat-stealing new girl Mary Sue Spivey wants to be the best fifth grader, too. And there is simply not enough room at the top for the two of them.
From debut author Kate Beasley, and with illustrations by Caldecott Honor artist Jillian Tamaki, comes a classic tale of hope and homecoming that will empty your heart, then fill it back up again--one laugh at a time.
Gertie is a fifth-grade force to be reckoned with! Kate Beasley packs so much into this lovely story - there is heart, gravity, and humor all wrapped up with Jillian Tamaki's amazing illustrations. Like Raymie Nightingale or Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo, Beasley somehow addresses complicated family issues and real-world problems through the lens of a quirky and authentic child. I loved meeting Gertie and her classmates and I can't wait to put this book into the hands of kids, teachers, and parents. Kate Beasley is sure to have a long and illustrious career ahead of her, starting with this stunning debut novel! --recommended by Johanna at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC.
Literary News & Gossip passed along from the readers, the writers, the reviewers, the resellers, the riff raff, and dutifully repeated here by her ladyship (who falls into the last category).
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.i know the grandmother one had hands/ but they were always in bowls/ folding, pinching, rolling the dough/ making the bread/ i know the grandmother one had hands/ but they were always under water/ sifting rice/ blueing clothes/ starching lives...
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Must prejudice, whether casual or violent, define us, as individuals and as a society, and confine us in perpetuity?
Donate at least a $41 to the Pat Conroy Literary Center during "Pat Conroy Week" (10/24-10/28) and be entered in a drawing to win a full set of the winners and finalists of the 2016 Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize. 41 books for $41!
In the summer of 1961, my family crossed over the Combahee River and entered into Beaufort County for the first time. I was fifteen years old and had never heard of Beaufort, South Carolina, in my life. It was my twenty-third move since my birth, and Beaufort High would be the eleventh school I’d attended and the third high school in my adolescence. I was in the middle of a very unhappy childhood.
But I was a military brat, and my mother had convinced her seven children that we were serving America whenever we moved because our father was a fighter pilot and our nation needed him. Little did we know that we were driving toward the life we were meant to live and toward the destiny we were all meant to share. I had entered the Lowcountry of South Carolina for the first time in my life, a place of such mysterious and uncommon beauty that it still strikes me as some lost archipelago of paradise. I had no clue that I would spend the next fifty-three years of my life writing about this sacred place and the amazing people I found there.
This much I know. I was a teenager, like all of you are, and like you, I entertained the improbable dream that I wanted to be a writer and that I had things to say. I also know this—all of you who contributed to this book write much better than I did in high school, and the stuff I published in The Breakers, our literary magazine, would not have made the cut in your wonderful book. I’m reading my dinky poems and quasi-essays as I write this, and I think objectively that I showed little promise during those awkward, melancholy years of my boyhood. You, ladies and gentlemen, write with a verve and a confidence I don’t believe I matched until my final years at the Citadel. As high school writers in South Carolina, I think you’re writing better sentences and thinking deeper thoughts and showing off a more refined talent than I could present to my teachers in high school. Someone has taught you well and you’ve been smart enough to listen, and you’re using the English language with both purpose and gracefulness.
For the week ending October 2. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Trespasser Tana French, Viking, $27, 9780670026333 2. Commonwealth Ann Patchett, Harper, $27.99, 9780062491794 3. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 4. Two by Two Nicholas Sparks, Grand Central, $27, 9781455520695 5. Razor Girl Carl Hiaasen, Knopf, $27.95, 9780385349741
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Born to Run Bruce Springsteen, S&S, $32.50, 9781501141515 2. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 3. Is This the End?: Signs of God's Providence in a Disturbing New World David Jeremiah, Thomas Nelson, $24.99, 9780718079864 4. Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South Vivian Howard, Little Brown, $40, 9780316381109 5. Killing the Rising Sun Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard, Holt, $30, 9781627790628
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.9. Darktown Thomas Mullen, Atria / 37 Ink, $26, 9781501133862 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.10. The Risen Ron Rash, Ecco, $25.99, 9780062436313
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which Mr. Pat Conroy wanted to write books that matter, Ms. Kristy Woodson Harvey is an only child, which is why she likes writing about sisters, and Mr. Robert Croshon tells his friend Mr. Frye Gaillard a story.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
"It was my great-grandmamma who told me the story. She was old the, 'bout as old as I am now, and that's pretty old. She didn't remember much of it firsthand, but it had been told to her so many times, it seemed like she did. And of course she was there when the whole thing happened."
Dearest Readers,
In the oldest cemetery in her ladyship, the editor's town, family plots often come laid out with wrought iron benches and chairs, looking for all the world as though somebody's garden party had just been held. Nowadays those benches are rarely occupied, but back in the day it was the practice for a family to visit the family plot after church on a Sunday. And there, seated among the graves of their ancestors, the family matriarch would sit down and tell the children the stories of the people under their feet - their great aunts and uncles, their great great grandfathers, the scions of the family long since disappeared into history. Who married who, who went to war, who went to sea, who made something of themselves, who was a no account black sheep.
Before the age of the internet, this was how a family story was "published." It seems such a fragile fate, does it not? If our grandparents die before they have a chance to tell those stories, if the children aren't listing ... an entire family's history could just disappear in a breath.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Her ladyship found herself thinking of those empty iron benches while she was reading Frye Gaillard's children's novel, Go South to Freedom.
Mr. Frye Gaillard is well aware of the ephemeral nature of our own family stories. Twenty-odd years ago, an elderly friend gifted him with one of his own -- a family story that had been passed along from generation to generation and was now in danger of being lost. Mr. Robert Croshon's great grandfather Gilbert Fields was an African, kidnapped and sold into slavery. Long before the Civil War, he led his family in a daring escape from the Georgia plantation where they were held in bondage.
Runaway slaves usually fled north. But the night of their escape was stormy and the Fields family couldn't see the stars to follow their direction. They ended up fleeing south instead, towards the lands held by the Seminole tribes. Communities of escaped slaves -- Black Seminoles -- and a singular community of free African Americans in Mobile, Alabama absorbed runaway slaves into their ranks. Eventually, the descendants of these escaped slaves would be instrumental in the Seminole Wars.
The story of Gilbert Fields (known as "The African") and his family's flight to escape their enslavement, the dangers they overcame, the people they met, and their eventual safe (relatively) landing in that same community of free African Americans in Mobile...it is too strong a story to be allowed to disappear because no one is left to tell it. With Robert Croshon's blessing, Mr. Gaillard has turned put the story down on paper -- turning it into a children's story told just as the Croshon children would have heard it in their time. With illustrations by Anne Ken Rush, Go South to Freedom is more than just a bedtime story for children. It is a piece of someone's history that should never be forgot.
"Parts of the story are sure enough sad, but all of it is part of who we are. That African and all those others--they aren't people who should ever be forgotten. So I want you to listen real close, and someday, when you have children of your own I want you to promise you'll tell it to them.
You hear me on that?"
Be safe. Read Independently. And shop local.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. her ladyship, the editor
Noteworthy poetry and prose from her ladyship's bedside reading stack.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Yitzhak Goldah pressed his sallow brow to the glass and stared out at the slowing platform. It was late summer and he felt the beads of his sweat gather like warm rain on his skin. Down a ways a small black boy walked alongside the train. He was carrying a stack of newspapers and barked out the headlines in a voice that was far too low for his frame. Goldah had read the papers in New York. He had read them in Washington, in Richmond, in Raleigh. He would read them here. They all spoke of America and of confidence, and he marveled at their certainty.
Standing there, Goldah looked perfectly human. His suit hung crisply on his frame and lent it a heft that wasn’t his.
He was like a sail still holding its shape even after the wind has died away. He braced himself for the train’s final heave, then took his suitcase and hat and followed the line of passengers to the door. Down on the platform the smell quickly turned to coal dust and scorched metal. The cement and well-washed marble reminded him of distant places from before the war, the iron beams thick and vaulted. Goldah walked and peered ahead and waited for the first glimpse of his future.
--Jonathan Rabb, Among the Living (Farrar, Straus, Giroux 2016)
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Fans of The Snatchabook will not be disappointed with this new picture book by the same author and illustrator team. The focus is again on the power of story as Leo, a gentle knight who much prefers reading to swordplay, is sent on a mission to conquer a fearsome dragon. On the way, he encounters other mythical monsters and is able to vanquish every threat by sharing his beloved books. The rhythmic, rhyming text lends itself easily to being shared aloud and the fun illustrations add even more charm to the story.
The Storybook Knight by Helen Docherty and Thomas Docherty (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, $16.99), recommended by Melissa at Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Before Morning by Joyce Sidman and Beth Krommes (HMH Books for Young Readers $17.99). Who hasn’t wished for an overnight snowfall that transforms the next day? A minimal, pitch-perfect text is magnificently illustrated in scratchboard and watercolor. From endpaper to endpaper the entire city and surroundings gradually change shape and color as the snow falls. A little girl and her family revel in the unexpected, but welcome diversion, and there are many charming and amusing details in the art for readers to discover and follow. A quiet, but brilliant gem to share with everyone.
Before Morning by Joyce Sidman and Beth Krommes (HMH Books for Young Readers $17.99), recommended by Carol at Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Interesting, contemplative, lovely, and full of exquisite prose, Pond is hard for me to define. It's low on plot but high on character development and imagery, and I appreciated how the lead character was revealed little by little through her actions and not-necessarily-reliable brand of honesty. Also: THAT COVER! #swoon.
Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett (Pub, $00), recommended by Janet at the Avid Bookshop, Athens, GA.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.A moving novel about a Holocaust survivor’s unconventional journey back to a new normal in 1940s Savannah, Georgia
In late summer 1947, thirty-one-year-old Yitzhak Goldah, a camp survivor, arrives in Savannah to live with his only remaining relatives. They are Abe and Pearl Jesler, older, childless, and an integral part of the thriving Jewish community that has been in Georgia since the founding of the colony. There, Yitzhak discovers a fractured world, where Reform and Conservative Jews live separate lives–distinctions, to him, that are meaningless given what he has been through. He further complicates things when, much to the Jeslers’ dismay, he falls in love with Eva, a young widow within the Reform community. When a woman from Yitzhak’s past suddenly appears–one who is even more shattered by the war than he is–Yitzhak must choose between a dark and tortured familiarity and the promise of a bright new life.
Set amid the backdrop of America’s postwar south, Among the Living grapples with questions of identity and belonging, and steps beyond the Jewish experience as it situates Yitzhak’s story within the last gasp of the Jim Crow era. That he begins to find echoes of his recent past in the lives of the black family who work for the Jeslers–an affinity he does not share with the Jeslers themselves–both surprises and convinces Yitzhak that his choices are not as clear-cut as he might think.
What is unusual and so appealing about Jonathan Rabb’s Among the Living is that the novel takes two issues that separately we’ve heard so much about—the European Jewish experience and the Jim Crow era south—and blends them together in a way that demonstrates a fresh perspective. I found it powerful and engaging. -- Recommended by Stephanie at Page & Palette in Fairhope, AL.
One book is given to both a songwriter and a visual artist. They write a song and create a work of art inspired by the book they read fulfilling their Trio. Each Trio will be installed as part of an exhibit debuting at the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance in September of 2015 and traveling to museums, galleries, and literary events throughout the following year.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Kristy Woodson Harvey is a born-and-bred North Carolina girl who loves all four seasons—especially fall in Chapel Hill, where she attended the University of North Carolina’s school of journalism and mass communication, and summer in Beaufort, where she and her family spend every free moment. She is the author of the forthcoming Slightly South of Simple, Dear Carolina, which was longlisted for the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize and has been optioned for film and Lies and Other Acts of Love, a Southern Indie Bestseller and Okra Pick. Kristy and her mom co-founded the popular interior design blog Design Chic, an inaugural member of Traditional Home’s Design Blogger Hall of Fame, where she writes daily about how a beautiful home can be the catalyst for a beautiful life. Between her four-year-old’s soccer games, she is working on her next novel.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Brittany Bell grew up in the quaint town of Pace, Florida. At 16 she moved to Birmingham Alabama to pursue a music opportunity in a church. That only helped bring her back to the south to make more musical connections and opened up many more venues for her music! She is currently signed with Baldwin County Records and recorded her self-titled album in Admiral Bean Studio, she also has several consistent restaurants and bars she performs in around the Orange Beach area in Baldwin County. Her sense of freedom and soul help create inspiring and moving songs and sounds.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Courtney Abernathy is a photographer located in the small, but vibrant town of Claremont, NC. She thrives with a camera in her hands- from when she is capturing her client’s true beauty, to when she is helping others with their passion for photography. Courtney lives with her loving husband and inquisitive son in the house that she grew up in. She believes it is treasure to live life and love her own family within those same, memory-filled walls. On her weekends off, she loves to spend time in the mountains of NC, being lazy and sometimes a little adventurous. Courtney believes that Summer is for the birds, and that the crisp air of Fall, changing leaves, and aroma of everything Pumpkin Spice is what life is all about.
Literary News & Gossip passed along from the readers, the writers, the reviewers, the resellers, the riff raff, and dutifully repeated here by her ladyship (who falls into the last category).
Doubleday, the Dial Press and Penguin Random House will celebrate the life and legacy of Pat Conroy today (10/26) by donating $1 (up to $15,000) to the new Pat Conroy Literary Center for every photo, book, quote or memory shared to honor the late author on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, using the hashtag #PatConroyDay.
It says that we’ve got a thriving, strong literary heritage.
For the week ending October 16. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. Two by Two Nicholas Sparks, Grand Central, $27, 9781455520695 2. Small Great Things Jodi Picoult, Ballantine, $28.99, 9780345544957 3. Commonwealth Ann Patchett, Harper, $27.99, 9780062491794 4. A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles, Viking, $27, 9780670026197 5. Razor Girl Carl Hiaasen, Knopf, $27.95, 9780385349741
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Killing the Rising Sun Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard, Holt, $30, 9781627790628 2. Born to Run Bruce Springsteen, S&S, $32.5, 9781501141515 3. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 4. Hero of the Empire Candice Millard, Doubleday, $30, 9780385535731 5. Is This the End? David Jeremiah, Thomas Nelson, $24.99, 9780718079864
Also of note: List debuts
8. Order to Kill Kyle Mills, Atria Books, $28.99, 9781476783482 9. The Belly Art Project Sara Blakely, St. Martin's, $29.99, 9781250121363 11. The Invention of Nature Andrea Wulf, Vintage, $17, 9780345806291
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which Ms. Shellie Rushing Tomlinson rides a bike (precariously), Ms. Kathy Izard discovers that no one makes casseroles for crazy people, The Downtown Bookstore creates a foster program for abandoned cats, Ms. Cassandra King insists her husband got more fan mail than Brad Pitt, and Ms. Rhonda Rich writes a fan letter (but not to Pat Conroy).
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."I voted early. Now I will only watch Downton Abbey on the TV." This was the solution to election stress that a friend confided to her ladyship, the editor over lunch last week. Her ladyship usually votes on Election Day, but she follows a similar program to alleviate the stress of an Election year. The television stays off. The books, stay open.
And carrot cake. Carrot cake with white cream cheese frosting stays in good supply.
Read Independently. And shop local.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. her ladyship, the editor
Noteworthy poetry and prose from her ladyship's bedside reading stack.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.This is not your classic pasta, red sauce, and cheese version of lasagna, but I call it lasagna because of the way it's layered! Yeah, it's one of those recipes I invented from what I had on hand. I do that a lot.
1 pound ground beef, cooked and drained 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 teaspoon cumin Dash hot sauce 12 (six inch) corn tortillas 1 can diced green chilies 1 (2.25 ounce) can diced black olives 1 (10 ounce) can enchilada sauce 1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans 1 (10 ounce) can Ro-Tel tomatoes 8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, grated Fresh lettuce Green onions, chopped Fresh cilantro Black pepper to taste
Season browned ground beef with minced garlic, cumin, and hot sauce. Now layer ingredients lasagna style: Place six tortillas on bottom of casserole dish sprayed with cooking spray. Across them spread half of the meat, chilies, olives, enchilada sauce, pinto beans, tomatoes, and cheese. Repeat with six more tortillas and what remains of the previously halved ingredients.
Bat at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. I served this dish in squares atop a bed of lettuce and sprinkled with green onions, and fresh cilantro. Have mercy! That's my Mexican Lasagna and it's good eating, from the All Things Southern kitchen to yours.
--Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, Hungry is a Mighty Fine Sauce (Barbour, 2016)
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.In a town of extreme wealth and poverty with little in between, George Clare comes home one afternoon to find his three year old daughter alone and his wife murdered, without a clue by whom. Immediately, of course, George becomes the chief suspect. Set over the course of a generation in a community where local farms are dying out and other unsolved crimes evolve, Brundage creates a community of mystery. Move over, The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl.
All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage (Knopf) Recommended by Richard at Square Books Oxford MS
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Eleanor Flood, once a rising star as an artist and cartoonist now lives in Seattle. She still writes some, but primarily lives her life as a wife and mother. In one day of inopportune revelations and odd adventures, Eleanor comes to reckon with her complicated and dissatisfying family life. From the bestselling author of Where'd You Go Bernadette? comes another disarmingly funny story executed with a conversational tone that almost belies the seriousness of the plot. I especially love the full-color interior section of Eleanor's graphic novel Flood Girls, illustrated by Eric Chase Anderson.
Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple (Little, Brown & Co.), recommended by Johanna at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.This new book from Cecil has all the charm and energy of an early black-and-white movie. Organized into four acts, the main actors are Lucy, a little street dog; Eleanor, the girl who feeds her scraps each morning; and Eleanor's father, Sam, who must overcome his stage fright to succeed as a juggler on the vaudeville stage. Precise repetition of actions and reactions give the story clear beats, and readers will enjoy finding tiny changes in Cecil's camera-lens illustrations. An excellent choice for fans of dogs, juggling, and dreams coming true.
Lucy by Randy Cecil (Candlewick), recommended by Cecilia at Hooray for Books, Arlington, VA.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Imagine a world where it is impossible to lie.
Imagine a world where every lustful though is immediately self evident. Then turn your mind to how a crooked ruling class, who somehow have the antidote, could exploit this. Dan Vyleta's SMOKE is not just a brilliant alternate world, it's possibly a whole new genre. Smoke Punk anyone?
Smoke by Dan Vyleta (Doubleday) Recommended by Chris at A Cappella Books Atlanta GA.
Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, the Belle of All Things Southern, is serving up down-home southern dishes with a healthy side of laugh-out-loud entertainment in Hungry Is a Mighty Fine Sauce. Featuring dozens of tried-and-true recipes complemented by entertaining stories, your hunger--and your craving for humor--are sure to be satisfied! Uncomplicated, delicious recipes including Bodacious Black Bean Salad and Spicy Sausage and Crawfish Spread (125 recipes, to be exact!) fall into categories including Feeding the Funny Farm, Carnivores Are Us, Holidays in Dixie, and Watching the Curves. Eye-catching photos, guaranteed to make your mouth water, are included throughout...sure to be a much-appreciated gift or centerpiece on your very own kitchen countertop.
Customers often ask us which is the "best ever" feminist book or which book about feminism they should give someone new to feminism or which book they should read if they are just beginning their feminist journey. We think, as bell hooks says, "feminism is for everybody," but not every feminist book is for every person. Below is a list of our ever-evolving Charis feminist canon.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.My family has an all-for-one-and-one-for-all policy when it comes to visiting one another in the hospital. We've been known to take over a waiting room at a moment's notice and hold the fort for the duration of a loved one's stay. This can't be easy on the other folks forced to share the waiting area with us, but in our defense, we aren't at all exclusive. Should you find yourself in the vicinity, you're welcome to our snacks, and you're free to join the conversation, but good luck getting the floor. Do you remember jumping rope in grade school and how tricky it was to learn how to time your entrance when someone else was swinging the rope without getting clotheslined? Excellent. You'll need to draw on that skill should you decide to enter the conversational fray.
One of our last big get-togethers was held on Mama's behalf. She, so is affectionately known in this family as the Queen of Us All, drew quite the impressive gathering for her latest back surgery, and boy did we swap some stories that day! One of my author friends, Karen Spears Zacharias, had recently written a perfectly hilarious piece about childbirth and cod liver oil on her blog, and I took great delight in sharing it with the assembled females. That's another one of our family idiosyncrasies: we women seriously enjoy telling our childbirth stories. By now we know one another's experiences by heart, but somehow or another they always get better in the retelling. I know that I personally spare no details with mine.
I like to say medical books will tell you the human female's gestation period is forty weeks, but they will not tell you that once the human female passes that date, she will become open to all manner of suggestions as to how to get that baby out. Midway through my first pregnancy, my doctor told me to quit riding my bike let it send me into labor. A nine months and two weeks, I took him up on that promise. He lied. All I got for my trouble was curious stares from the neighborhood kids, and I couldn't blame'em. can you picture a circus elephant balancing on a ball? Good. That will give you some idea of what those poor things were forced to witness.
The women in my family told me castor oil would do the trick. They lied, too. That stuff did a lot of things to my body all right. Nasty things. Everything in me turned loose--except that sweet baby.
But about the Queen. Before her surgery was over that day, we had enjoyed something between a family feud and a family reunion. As alluded to earlier, the only thing harder than getting the floor to share a story in my southern family is keeping it until you're through. Breathe and you'll forfeit your turn till the next round -- unless you're willing to use force to retain your audience. Most of us are.
--Shellie Rushing Tomlinson (reprinted with permission from Shiloh Books)
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Book & Author Gossip
Literary News & Gossip passed along from the readers, the writers, the reviewers, the resellers, the riff raff, and dutifully repeated here by her ladyship (who falls into the last category).
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.It struck young Kathy during those years how her church’s congregation would endlessly help the families of those dealing with cancer or other disease. But “there are no casseroles for crazy,” Izard found.
For the week ending October 23. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. Small Great Things Jodi Picoult, Ballantine, $28.99, 9780345544957 2. Commonwealth Ann Patchett, Harper, $27.99, 9780062491794 3. Razor Girl Carl Hiaasen, Knopf, $27.95, 9780385349741 4. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 5. All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr, Scribner, $27, 9781476746586 6. The Trespasser Tana French, Viking, $27, 9780670026333
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 2. Killing the Rising Sun Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard, Holt, $30, 9781627790628 3. Upstream Mary Oliver, Penguin Press, $26, 9781594206702 4. Born to Run Bruce Springsteen, S&S, $32.50, 9781501141515 5. Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South Vivian Howard, Little Brown, $40, 9780316381109
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.7. Two by Two Nicholas Sparks, Grand Central, $27, 9781455520695 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.15. The Risen Ron Rash, Ecco, $25.99, 9780062436313 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.11. Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta Richard Grant, S&S, $16, 9781476709642 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.5. Raymie Nightingale Kate DiCamillo, Candlewick, $16.99, 9780763681173 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.6. Gertie's Leap to Greatness Kate Beasley, Jillian Tamaki (Illus.), FSG, $16.99, 9780374302610 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.9. Serafina and the Black Cloak Robert Beatty, Disney/Hyperion, $7.99, 9781484711873
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which her ladyship, the editor, spends the day in the kitchen, Mr. Ron Rash explains how poetry is like AM radio, Ms. Linda Barrett is told by the librarian to wash her hands before she touches the books, and Ms. Emoke B'racz began reading to avoid milking the cows.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Her ladyship, the editor, spent Election Day in the kitchen. Cooking relaxes her, and she, like most everyone in the country, was in dire need of some relaxing after such a long and fraught election season. There is really nothing more relaxing than the scent of white bean and kale soup simmering in a big kettle on the stove, or a skillet of hot cornbread just out of the oven. One feels one could face any future with a dish full of pan-roasted Brussels sprouts or a bowl of red beans and rice, Louisiana style.
The cookbook on her ladyship's kitchen counter this week is Vivian Howard's Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South. Ms. Howard's corner of the South happens to be the corner her ladyship lives in, and it is a, well, celebration is really the only word for it. Instead of sections for "Entrees" or "Appetizers," every chapter is devoted to one particular ingredient especially important to the region.
This means, for example that there is an entire chapter devoted to turnips. And also one for ground corn. And another one for not ground corn. Peaches, okra, tomatoes, pecans. . .come to think of it, the chapter list sounds remarkably like the titles to be found in the "Savor the South" cookbook series. (Her ladyship is now wondering whether a "Figs" or "Squash" book is in the offing).
Noteworthy poetry and prose from her ladyship's bedside reading stack.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.I live today on the same winding rural road I grew up on. It's named for a water-powered gristmill a half mile from my house. Every tiny community in Eastern Carolina used to have a mill like this, where people gathered to grind corn into grits, meal, and flour. A hundred years ago, these mills were bustling community hubs that often operated on barter and usually hid a moonshine still somewhere on the property.
But by my childhood in the 1980s, the farmers and housewives of Deep Run had been turned on to the joys of one-stop shopping at the Piggly Wiggly. The mill still made grits, but it was no longer a center of commerce. My family's kitchen, like many others, had begun to straddle the growing space between tradition and convenience, with one of Mom's feet planted in an old cast-iron skillet of cornbread and the other in a box of Bisquick.
--Vivian Howard, Deep Run Roots: Recipes from My Corner of the South (Little, Brown 2016) 9780316381109
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.All the intimacy and power that Anne Frank's war diary gave us--the real breath and thoughts and fears of a human living under inhumane circumstances--are aged and magnified in Saif's account of war in Gaza.
For 51 days he and his fellow Gazans live--and die--with the knowledge that life and death are a game of luck, controlled at the hands of an Israeli drone operator. Peace is not permitted for the people of Gaza, restricted by birth to a nation of contested land and continued acts of terror, violence, and grief. This was sixty years of life savings!- a man screams atop the rubble of his home. Ambulances screech all day long, gathering body parts of children and families that moments ago were survivors of the war, and now are its casualties.
Saif and his friends flip a coin on the street--heads, the truce ends, tails, the truce continues. The children fight to plug in their iPads when the electricity comes on, while the adults watch the news to hear which of their friends has been obliterated in their homes this week.
This is the fourth war Saif has lived through, and he knows that it is only by luck that he has lived, and that this war will not be the last--that one day his luck may run out. This is an essential read for those in search of peace in the midst of modern-day warfare, and even more essential for those who aren't sure which side they stand on.
The Drone Eats with Me by Atef Abu Saif (Beacon Press) Recommended by Clara at Acappella Books Atlanta GA
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Teacup is a lyrical tale of a refugee's journey, evoking the loneliness, anxiety, and sadness of leaving everything you know behind to begin anew. Ottley's textured, breathtaking illustrations are both incredibly realistic and beautifully dreamlike, adding gentleness and whimsy to this subtly told story. Young's minimal text allows the reader's imagination to expand and the drama unfolds at a perfect pace. Teacup is a book to linger over, appreciating the beauty to be found in the persistence and strength it takes to make a new life in an unfamiliar place.
Teacup by Rebecca Young, Matt Ottley (Dial Books for Young Readers, $17.99), recommended by Helen at the Avid Bookshop, Athens, GA.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Some problems are serious, some are silly, and some, well, some are just penguin problems. When the water is too salty, when the sea is too dark, when you are a bird that cannot fly, and when everyone you know looks exactly the same, well, those are penguin problems. This fun picture book is sure to make even the grumpiest young reader giggle!
Penguin Problems by Jory John, Lane Smith (Random House Books for Young Readers, $17.99), recommended by Angie at The Country Bookshop, Southern Pines, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.I obsessively checked out campaign coverage this election season, and it was a relief to examine turning points in past presidential campaigns and already know how everything turned out.
Whistlestop: My Favorite Stories from Presidential Campaign History by John Dickerson, (Twelve, $30.00), recommended by Niki at Parnassus Books, Nashville, TN.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Serafina's defeat of the Man in the Black Cloak has brought her out of the shadows and into the daylight realm of her home, Biltmore Estate. Every night she visits her mother in the forest, eager to learn the ways of the cat amount. But Serafina finds herself caught between her two worlds: she's too wild for Biltmore's beautifully dressed ladies and formal customs, and too human to fully join her kin. Late one night, Serafina encounters a strange and terrifying figure in the forest, and is attacked by the vicious wolfhounds that seem to be under his control. Even worse, she's convinced that the stranger was not alone, that he has sent his accomplice into Biltmore in disguise. Someone is wreaking havoc at the estate. A mysterious series of attacks test Serafina's role as Biltmore's protector, culminating in a tragedy that tears Serafina's best friend and only ally, Braeden Vanderbilt, from her side. Heartbroken, she flees. Deep in the forest, Serafina comes face-to-face with the evil infecting Biltmore-and discovers its reach is far greater than she'd ever imagined. All the humans and creatures of the Blue Ridge Mountains are in terrible danger. For Serafina to defeat this new evil before it engulfs her beloved home, she must search deep inside herself and embrace the destiny that has always awaited her.
Okra Picks: Two By Two
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.#1 New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Sparks returns with an emotionally powerful story of unconditional love, its challenges, its risks and most of all, its rewards.
At 32, Russell Green has it all: a stunning wife, a lovable six year-old daughter, a successful career as an advertising executive and an expansive home in Charlotte. He is living the dream, and his marriage to the bewitching Vivian is the center of that. But underneath the shiny surface of this perfect existence, fault lines are beginning to appear. . .and no one is more surprised than Russ when he finds every aspect of the life he took for granted turned upside down. In a matter of months, Russ finds himself without a job or wife, caring for his young daughter while struggling to adapt to a new and baffling reality. Throwing himself into the wilderness of single parenting, Russ embarks on a journey at once terrifying and rewarding-one that will test his abilities and his emotional resources beyond anything he ever imagined.
If it weren't for audiobooks to listen to, her ladyship, the editor, might never clean her house. A nice suspenseful story will carry her through the most tedious of house cleaning jobs. The audiobook site Libro.fm allows downloads from many indie booksellers, and stores often post "playlists" in the same way they might put up a "staff picks" section in their shop.
Literary News & Gossip passed along from the readers, the writers, the reviewers, the resellers, the riff raff, and dutifully repeated here by her ladyship (who falls into the last category).
"If you’re reading, you don’t have to milk the cows."
"Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.My one of my earliest memories is getting my library card, and the woman checking my hands to make sure I washed them."
For the week ending October 30. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Whistler John Grisham, Doubleday, $28.95, 9780385541190 2. Commonwealth Ann Patchett, Harper, $27.99, 9780062491794 3. Small Great Things Jodi Picoult, Ballantine, $28.99, 9780345544957 4. The Trespasser Tana French, Viking, $27, 9780670026333 5. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Cooking for Jeffrey: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook Ina Garten, Clarkson Potter, $35, 9780307464897 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.2. A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866 3. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 4. Appetites: A Cookbook Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever, Ecco, $37.50, 9780062409959 5. The Truth about Cancer: What You Need to Know about Cancer's History, Treatment, and Prevention Ty M. Bollinger, Hay House, $24.99, 9781401952235
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.13. Two by Two Nicholas Sparks, Grand Central, $27, 9781455520695 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.2. A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.7. Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta Richard Grant, S&S, $16, 9781476709642
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which Ms Suzanne Vega pays tribute to Carson McCullers, Mr. Frye Gaillard tells a story for a friend, and Ms. Ann Patchett says she would write the most boring book in the world, (something her readers have good cause to doubt).
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
The newsletters her ladyship, the editor, receives from bookshops across the South have had a common theme this past week:
"When I dream of some tiny step to counteract the current madness, I think about how nice it would be to make a safe place for myself, my family, my friends, and total strangers, a place that is quiet and cheerful, a place that welcomes everyone exactly as they are, while at the same time encouraging them to be better, smarter, and more curious." --Ann Patchett, Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN
"We hope you will continue to think of us when you are looking for a safe place to share ideas and to evaluate options. A place where you can let your curiosity roam free." - Tom Campbell, The Regulator Book Shop, in Durham, NC
A bookseller in the now closed Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop in Boston once called their shop "a study in wonder, without pinning the butterfly."
A place to be open, to be curious. This describes every bookstore and every library that her ladyship has ever walked into. If you are looking for a place to be yourself, be welcome, and be curious, then make a visit to your local neighborhood bookshop.
Read Independently. And shop local.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. her ladyship, the editor
The sun leaned for down bringing shade to the waterfront. On the other side of the river from where Cassie McGonegal stood, light--low on the horizon--spread across the harbor entrance and surrounding Sea Islands. It was the slack of an ebb tide and there wasn't any breeze worth mentioning. Sounds of men working hard traveled easily up and down the Cooper River: the thump and thud of stevedores emptying a ship's hold, the shouts of longshoremen moving cargo on the dock, the slap of oars as the Mosquito Fleet roved home to Adger's Wharf. Cassie's younger brother Charlie stood upon the remains of an old bateau that once belonged to the Negro fishermen of the fleet. The weathered boards kept Charlie from sinking into the pluff mud. Reluctantly, Cassie stayed on the pier, wishing she had her own hook and her own piece of line.
"Help me, Cassie," Charlie called. She clamored down from the pier, careful to step onto the boards, never-minding her dress and how angry her mother would get when it had to be washed again so soon, never-minding her doubt that there was anything on the other end of his line besides an even bigger clump of marshgrass than the one he had caught earlier. Together they pulled, refusing to let go even as the line cut into Charlie's palms. They kept pulling until finally they brought up the nicest, biggest, and most beautiful--flounder.
--Michele Moore, The Cigar Factory (Story River Books, University of South Carolina Press, 2016)
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.When Catrina and her family move to a seaside town in Northern California to accommodate her sister's cystic fibrosis, she is not happy. Bahia de la Luna is cold, foggy, far away from her friends, and, worst of all, reportedly home to a whole lot of ghosts. Cat's sister, Maya, is thrilled by their new town's spooky residents, but Cat wants nothing to do with them until she realizes that she must put aside her fear for both her sister's sake and her own. Graphic novel queen Telgemeier is back, and she has crafted a beautiful, entertaining, and hopeful story about the power of family, friendship, and community -- with an extra dash of ghostly magic for good measure.
Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier (Graphix, $10.99), recommended by Rebecca at One More Page Books, Arlington, VA.
From Cindy: An essential thread in the tapestry of FDR and his legacy, Missy LeHand was intuitive, pragmatic and totally devoted to this controversial president. Kathryn Smith's impeccable research and reader-friendly narrative give us an intimate look at this extraordinary woman and an historical perspective on the pivotal role she played in American politics. The facts, the feelings, and the frictions of the years Missy was a primary player in Roosevelt's inner circle are woven together in this biographical gem.
From Rosemary: I lived for many years in Hyde Park, so an almost yearly expedition to the FDR Presidential Library down the street was in order. The 'extended family' that he invited into the White House was essentially on a 24/7 on-call status for years, and this eclectic mix of staff, family, and friends (some belonging to multiple categories) always fascinated me. I am delighted to finally find material on Missy LeHand, a woman ahead of her time. Her story also reveals inner circle anecdotes about FDR's band, and indeed, on FDR himself. The pre-presidential accounts of his battle with polio, and Missy's efforts toward his recovery are new to me, and worth the book alone.
The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR, and the Untold Story of the Partnership That Defined a Presidency by Kathryn Smith, ($28, Touchstone), recommended by Cindy and Rosemary, Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.A Plague on All Our Houses examines the AIDS epidemic and the doctors behind the discovery of its cause and the tangled motivations of the search. Readers delve into knowledge about how academia works, and whether the work is for ego or for helping the sick. The book also details how Hollywood and the government would not acknowledge what was happening as the crisis developed.
A Plague on All Our Houses by Bruce J. Hillman (Foreedge, $29.95), recommended by Suzanne at Page 158 Books, Wake Forest, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The sun leaned for down bringing shade to the waterfront, begins Michele Moore's entrancing debut novel, harkening back to an era when the legendary fishermen of Charleston's Mosquito Fleet rowed miles offshore for their daily catch. With evocative dialect and remarkable prose, The Cigar Factory tells the story of two entwined families, both devout Catholics the white McGonegals and the African American Ravenels in the storied port city of Charleston, South Carolina, during the World Wars. Moore's novel follows the parallel lives of family matriarchs working on segregated floors of the massive Charleston cigar factory, where white and black workers remain divided and misinformed about the duties and treatment received by each other. Cassie McGonegal and her niece Brigid work upstairs in the factory rolling cigars by hand. Meliah Amey Ravenel works in the basement, where she stems the tobacco. While both white and black workers suffer in the harsh working conditions of the factory and both endure the sexual harassment of the foremen, segregation keeps them from recognizing their common plight until the Tobacco Workers Strike of 1945. Through the experience of a brutal picket line, the two women come to realize how much they stand to gain by joining forces, creating a powerful moment in labor history that gives rise to the Civil Rights anthem, We Shall Overcome. Moore's extensive historical research included interviews with her own family members who worked at the cigar factory, adding a layer of nuance and authenticity to her empowering story of families and friendships fostered through struggle, loss, and redemption. The Cigar Factory includes a foreword by New York Times best-selling author and Story River Books editor at large Pat Conroy.
“It all started with a chicken who could walk backwards and forwards.”
In this picture book, inspired by the life of Flannery O’Connor, a young fan of fowl brings home a peacock to be the king of her collection, but he refuses to show off his colorful tail. The girl goes to great lengths to encourage the peacock to display his plumage — she throws him a party, lets him play in the fig tree, feeds him flowers and stages a parade — all to no avail.
Then she finally stumbles on the perfect solution. When she introduces the queen of the birds — a peahen — to her collection, the peacock immediately displays his glorious shimmering tail.
This delightful story, full of humor and heart, celebrates the legacy of a great American writer. Includes an author’s note about Flannery O’Connor.
The List: Ann Patchett's Post Election Reading List
At Parnassus we specialize in books, and books, along with dogs, have been the greatest comfort of my life. Karen Hayes and I opened the doors five years ago and since then Parnassus has been a vital part of Nashville’s community through good times and bad. Regardless of whether or not you see this as a good time, a bad time, or just another moment in history’s larger picture, we’re here for you now. Come in and pull up a chair, pull a dog into your lap (Opie is big but he can be a lap dog in a pinch) and take heart. (via)
On Telling the Story: An Interview with Frye Gaillard
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Frye Gaillard has spent his career as a journalist and author chronicling the people, places, events, and stories of the American South, focusing on the convergence of race, history, politics, and culture. As a long-time reporter for the Charlotte Observer, he covered the region's journey to public school desegregation, the rise and spectacular fall of televangelist Jim Bakker, Elvis Presley's funeral, and the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Gaillard has also authored numerous books, on subjects ranging from country music to the history of native Americans in the South. At present, he is the writer-in-residence at the University of South Alabama, and lives in Mobile with his wife, Nancy, who teaches in the university's College of Education.
His new book for young readers, Go South to Freedom (NewSouth Books, $17.95), explores the complex story of the Black Seminoles: runaway slaves who lived with the Seminole Indians in Florida. Gaillard expands the story of his friend Robert Croshon's family story into a heartfelt novel for young readers, and illuminates a dramatic and important chapter in American history.
Gaillard shared his thoughts with Lady Banks on writing Go South to Freedom, the challenges facing a journalist writing fiction, and his quest to keep a friend's story alive for new generations:
There were a lot of ways to write this story. I had written a much shorter version, very straight-forward, in an earlier piece about my friend, Robert Croshon, who told the story to me. I had been thinking about writing a children's book. I had collaborated on one earlier with a North Carolina teacher named Melinda Farbman - the true story of Ham, the little chimpanzee that NASA launched into space back in 1961. One of my grandchildren had recently asked me if I was ever going to do another "book for kids," and I decided this story might lend itself to that. The more I wrote, the more certain I was that his was a good setting for such a moving and dramatic oral history.
Go South to Freedom isn't your story, it is the story of the family of a friend, Mr. Robert Croshon. Even though you had his blessing to tell the story to a wider audience, did you ever worry that it wasn't your story to tell?
I've spent much of my career as a journalist, a profession in which you're always writing somebody else's story. There's an inherent presumption in that, and the only antidotes to it are listening carefully and treating these stories with respect. This wasn't hard in the case of my friend, Robert Croshon. He was one of the kindest, most genteel and dignified men I've ever known, and I had great affection for him. He said he was pleased after I first wrote a brief account of his oral history, and he seemed pleased that I wanted to turn it into this little book. It took me a while to get to it on a fairly long list of writing projects, and sadly he passed away before I did. I think it's clear in the book, both within the story itself, and also in an afterword that details my debts, not only to Robert but to scholars who had researched and written about the broader history, that this is somebody else's story - hopefully written with tenderness and respect.
In the book, the storyteller is the great-grandson of the baby in the story of the family's escape from slavery. Is that who Robert Croshon heard the story from?
Yes, Robert Croshon learned the story from his great-aunt when she was quite old and he was quite young, and she was the infant in the story.
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Even though it is written as historical fiction, Go South to Freedom talks about some real events, places, and people. What were "Black Seminoles" and who was John Horse? Why did you include him as a character in the story?
The Black Seminoles were runaway slaves and their descendants who lived with the Seminole Indians in Florida. Usually in separate, contiguous villages. The Seminole Wars, I learned, were as much about re-capturing the runaways as they were about subduing the Indians. The Black Seminoles fought side-by-side with their Indian neighbors in all of those wars - very bravely and tenaciously, according to all accounts. There was a lot at stake. These were, in effect, the largest slave uprisings in U.S. history, or at least you could make that case. John Horse, one of the most important leaders of the Black Seminoles, was a historical figure whose story is well-documented, but not well-known - a war chief, among other things, who fought along side the famous Native American chief, Osceola. I hope to write more about Horse in the future. It's fun, of course, to learn things you didn't know before.
How was it possible for a free black community to exist in Mobile, Alabama, before the Civil War? How long did it survive?
The free black community in Mobile traced back to the time in the 18th century when Mobile was controlled by the French and then the Spanish. Some were Creoles, or mixed-blood people whose ancestors were French, Indian, and black, and their legal status was secure before Mobile became a part of the United States. As time went by this community also included former slaves who had been freed by their owners, sometimes because the owners had moved from plantations to the small city of Mobile to work in various professions - lawyers, merchants, doctors, whatever - and they found they didn't really need slaves, or at least not as many. The free people of color in Mobile, whether black or Creole, faced restrictions on their lives - their right to bear arms, their freedom to assemble or participate in the democracy around them. They also faced dire penalties if they took in runaway slaves, and yet some of them did it anyway. They remained free through the Civil War, when, of course, slavery ended altogether and a new struggle began.
The illustrations for the book are beautiful. How did you find the artist, Anne Kent Rush?
Anne Kent Rush and I had been friends for years. I knew her work as an artist and thought she would be the perfect illustrator. I was definitely right about this!
I notice that the illustrations were often more informative than pictures of the scenes in the story -- pictures of wildlife, of the Seminoles and of how they lived. Why did you and the Anne Kent Rush decide do to that?
Kent Rush really made the decisions about what illustrations to include. She wanted the book to be as educational as possible for young readers. My only contribution to her decisions was to say something like, "wow, that's great!" when she showed me the pictures. Suzanne LaRosa, our publisher at NewSouth Books, had some input also, but I think Suzanne will tell you as well that most artistic decisions were Kent's. The illustrations are one of the great strengths of the book, though I will add that the layout and artistic design by NewSouth were a perfect setting for Kent's work, flowing sort of organically from the art.
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Any story about slavery, not to mention war, has a lot of violence in it. How how do you deal with that in a children's book?
I tried to deal with the violence as gently as possible, softening it through the gentle voice of the narrator, whose voice by the way - in spirit, if not identically in form - was inspired by Robert Croshon's. It's the first time I've ever written a whole book in somebody else's voice. But Robert's ability to see inspiration more than bitterness in this story kind of flows through the whole telling, and the hard realities serve more as a backdrop for the heroism and tenacity than as something to horrify young readers. It's still delicate, of course. I remember when my oldest granddaughter, Abby, first learned in elementary school that there had been something called slavery. She called me in tears: "Granddad, it's just not fair." So I thought about that as I was writing the book. It's a hard thing.
At the end of the book, the storyteller tells his audience not to forget the stories he just told: "It's like my great-grandmamma said. We carry a piece of that story inside us. We just got to keep it alive." Is that why you wrote Go South to Freedom? To keep the story alive? Or because everyone has a piece of a story inside them that ought to be told?
Yes. I wrote Go South to Freedom to help keep alive the story that a dear friend had honored me by sharing. I also wanted to honor the bravery and tenacity of people who wanted to escape the terrible scourge of slavery. (My own ancestors had been on the wrong side of that history.) But I also remembered the lessons from Roots, not, of course, in the sense of comparing myself to Alex Haley, but of remembering why Haley's story was so universal. It was not only the story of slavery, it was the story of family. All families have their histories, their stories, some well-preserved, some not, but I hoped to help inspire kids to talk to their parents and grandparents about things that happened in their lives and before. We do need to keep our stories alive.
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Book & Author Gossip
Literary News & Gossip passed along from the readers, the writers, the reviewers, the resellers, the riff raff, and dutifully repeated here by her ladyship (who falls into the last category).
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."I feel her faults are very human, and her work is too. It’s not a perfect, idealized world she presents, but glimmers of one as presented through the empathy and capacity for love of her characters."
For the week ending November 6. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Whistler John Grisham, Doubleday, $28.95, 9780385541190 2. Commonwealth Ann Patchett, Harper, $27.99, 9780062491794 3. Small Great Things Jodi Picoult, Ballantine, $28.99, 9780345544957 4. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 5. A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles, Viking, $27, 9780670026197
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 2. Appetites Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever, Ecco, $37.50, 9780062409959 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.3. A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866 4. Cooking for Jeffrey Ina Garten, Clarkson Potter, $35, 9780307464897 5. Upstream Mary Oliver, Penguin Press, $26, 9781594206702
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.7. Two by Two Nicholas Sparks, Grand Central, $27, 9781455520695 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.3. A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.6. Brown Girl Dreaming Jacqueline Woodson, Puffin, $10.99, 9780147515827
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which Mr. Donald Culross Peattie pens an ode to the Mountain Magnolia, a couple bookstores are prettified, Mr. Corey Mesler talks to his imaginary book buying friends, and Mr. John Lewis gets some very good advice from a teacher.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
Enjoy your day tomorrow with family and friends. And the following day as well, because family and friends are the only true treasures and we should be thankful for every moment we have with each.
And on Saturday, if you are venturing out to shop the sales, remember it is Small Business Saturday, so shop small, and shop local.
Here's a link to Southern indie bookstores, many of whom have special events and sales on Saturday. Some of them have got all dolled up for the occasion. Here's a peek at the new facade at Gottwals Books in Macon, Georgia:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
And down in Punta Gorda, Florida, Copperfish Books has made their front door almost as magical as the shop inside:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
"This amazing artwork was imagined and created by Ron Bates, a freelance graphic artist, muralist, set designer, and illustrator, says Serena Wycoff, one of the shop's owners. "We are so fortunate to have such talent -- and a genuinely nice guy -- in our community."
Nothing like a bit of bookstore pretty to make one's day.
Read Independently. And shop local -- especially this weekend!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. her ladyship, the editor
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.When Stanley was 12, he told a friend in carpool, "My mother loves to type! That's all she does! That's what she does all day long!"
Other names: Fraser Magnolia, Ear-leaved Cucumbertree Range: From southwestern Virginia to the high country of Georgia, and from northeastern Kentucky to Alabama. Ascends to 4000 feet altitude
In the covers of the southern Appalachians, cooled by the breezes set astir by ever-falling water and fresh with fern and saxifrage, this lovely tree is most at home, its flowers shining forth serenely as water lilies floating in the forest green. Its leaves are borne all at the ends of the branches, which gives the Mountain Magnolia a wilder and more careless look than the cultivated species familiar in the garden. Indeed, it has proved too tender for gardens as far north as Massachusetts and is happiest in the rich, humid soils to which it is native. There it rises some 18 to 30 feet in height, in many stems from one source, its "crooked wreathing branches arising and subdividing from the main stem without order or uniformity, until their extremities turn upwards, producing a very large rosaceous, perfectly white double or polypetalous flower, which is of a most fragrant scent."
So it was described by the lucky naturalist who discovered it, William Bartram, the first American botanist who ever explored the southern Appalachians. On the headwaters of the Keowee in the mountains of South Carolina he found it, in that morning of exploration when this wand was young and half its wealth unnamed. The month was May, the year that in which a young nation was to declare independence, but the happy naturalist was far from any human struggle but the toil up the mountains.
-- Donald Culross Peattie, A Natural History of North American Trees (Houghton Mifflin, 2007)
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.At its best, pop culture criticism forces us to reconsider a familiar product by placing it in a new context and, in doing so, imbuing it with new meaning. Trainwreck is just that. Doyle effectively and entertainingly litigates her case: that Western culture's fascination with 'fallen' female starlets—AKA trainwrecks--is simply a modern form of the patriarchal silencing and marginalization of women that has been going for centuries. With sly humor and lively prose, Doyle systematically punches through all the familiar straw-man arguments and convincingly illustrates that the 'harmless fun' of Internet clickbait and TMZ gossip are merely modern forms of public shaming. A must-read.
Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why by Sady Doyle (Melville House, $25.99), recommended by Matt at The Booksellers at Laurelwood, Memphis, TN.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.In the hands of such a great writer (and fellow musician) the story of The Godfather of Soul becomes not just a portrayal of one of the most important figures in musical history but in American history.
A book that will make you crave that unmistakable James Brown sound.
Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul by James McBride (Spiegel & Grau) Recommended by Frank at A Cappella Books Atlanta GA
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Mary DiNunzio is a successful attorney and a partner at the Rosato & DiNunzio firm. Her schedule has gotten complicated, due to her wedding being a few weeks away. However, when an elderly man named Edward comes in for a free consultation, Mary’s world is turned upside down. Edward’s grandson, Patrick, is being sued by a teacher’s aide for assault. Sadly, it is this shy, dyslexic boy who bears the markings of abuse. As Mary becomes more involved in finding out the truth, she becomes the only chance Patrick has at surviving and leading a healthy life. Is Mary going to lose everything she has in order to protect Patrick, or will the evidence prove Mary wrong?
Lisa Scottoline packs a powerful punch in this novel. Despite it being the fourth in a series, the plot works well as a stand-alone story. Readers, like Mary, will be drawn in right from the moment they meet Patrick and they will be kept guessing as they try to figure out the truth through all the multiple twists and intense secondary storylines. Damaged is a book that weaves its way into readers’ hearts. The author does an excellent job at showing the current struggles children with learning disorders face on a daily basis. Filled with a large family, human emotions, and one dramatic courtroom scene, readers of literature and mysteries will devour this book.
Damaged by Lisa Scottoline, recommended by Nicole at My Sisters Books, Pawleys Island, SC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“We are talking about expressions of love, not the sentimental, Hallmark-card version, but material, immediate, unambiguous demonstrations that you care, that you are there.”
There's a bumper crop of good books about local and Southern food this year. Give one of these to the right person and you might find you get something (tasty) back!
"One of the Best Books of 2016" - Publishers Weekly
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Welcome to the stunning conclusion of the award-winning and best-selling MARCH trilogy. Congressman John Lewis, an American icon and one of the key figures of the civil rights movement, joins co-writer Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell to bring the lessons of history to vivid life for a new generation, urgently relevant for today's world.
By the fall of 1963, the Civil Rights Movement has penetrated deep into the American consciousness, and as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, John Lewis is guiding the tip of the spear. Through relentless direct action, SNCC continues to force the nation to confront its own blatant injustice, but for every step forward, the danger grows more intense: Jim Crow strikes back through legal tricks, intimidation, violence, and death. The only hope for lasting change is to give voice to the millions of Americans silenced by voter suppression: "One Man, One Vote." To carry out their nonviolent revolution, Lewis and an army of young activists launch a series of innovative campaigns, including the Freedom Vote, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and an all-out battle for the soul of the Democratic Party waged live on national television. With these new struggles come new allies, new opponents, and an unpredictable new president who might be both at once. But fractures within the movement are deepening ... even as 25-year-old John Lewis prepares to risk everything in a historic showdown high above the Alabama river, in a town called Selma.
“Robert Walker, the main character of Corey Mesler’s book of the same name is a man adrift in Memphis. Walker is homeless and he moves through the city connecting with both his own past and the city’s needy and vulnerable. Readers will find something gentle, wise and moving in these pages.”
—Darcey Steinke, author of Sister Golden Hair and Suicide Blonde
Robert Walker is homeless. He awakes one morning in his box to find half his face paralyzed. In perplexity, in anguish, he moves. He walks to mimic normality and he walks because it is what he does. Walking for Robert Walker is life. The novel follows two crucial days in his journey while he traverses the city of Memphis, encountering the familiar, the foreign, the desolate and the joyous. During these two days Robert Walker is forced to face himself and, in opposition to his dedication to a desired anonymity, he is forced to rejoin the world.
At the end of the year her ladyship posts a holiday gift guide of books to be found in the gift catalogs of Southern indie bookstores. You can find the full guide here. Or ask for a catalog from your local bookshop.
It’s that time of year again, the jolliest of them all and we’re here to help you add some great books to your shopping list! The first genre we’re going to look at is for the youngest little book lovers out there. So, if your shopping for any tiny tyke between the ages of 3-8, check out these books!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Give Please a Chance is a collaboration between Bill O'Reilly and James Patterson where they kindly remind us that a single word has a thousand possibilities. With a collection of beautiful illustrations from different artists, this charming book teaches children the power of the tiny word please. This book is best suited for children between the ages of 3-5.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Another great option for children between the ages of 3-5 is The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles by Michelle Cuevas. This is a beautiful story that adults will enjoy reading with their little ones about a man whose job is to deliver all of the letters he finds within bottles washed ashore. The story, which is beautifully illustrated by Erin E. Stead, is one about making friends when you least expect it.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Hot off the press this Christmas is a new children’s series by the bestselling and beloved Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes author Eric Litwin, and bestselling artist Tom Lichtenheld, illustrator of Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site. In this debut, we meet a captivating new canine character, Groovy Joe who embodies positivity, creativity, and kindness. This is a great Christmas idea for children between the ages 3-6.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.If you have any little lover of the zoo on your list, between the ages of 4-8, be sure to check out River Rose and the Magical Lullaby! Written by Grammy award winner Kelly Clarkson, this book includes a link to an original lullaby which accompanies the book. This whimsical and rhyming little book is full of charm and is the perfect new bedtime story to add to someone’s bedtime reading collection.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. I just love this funky take on Mother Goose. Mary Had a Little Glam is the perfect book for the little fashion lover on your list. Mary is a spunky fashionista who is there to help her friends at school, including Jack, who breaks his crown but gets a great new one, and the kid who lives in a shoe dons some fab footwear too, who both learn how to live in style. This book is fun and perfect for any child between the ages 4-8 who loves dressing up.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. If your shopping for any Disney fans between the ages of 6-9, check out these two releases featuring The Disney Channels newest princess, Elena of Avalor; Elena of Avalor: Elena and the Secret of Avalor and Elena of Avalor: Feliz Navidad. These books include the fun adventures and beautiful illustrations that you can always count on from Disney.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Listen: I wrote a novel once. Some nice people said some nice things. It sold considerably fewer copies than The DaVinci Code. It sold considerably fewer copies than TheSatanic Verses, and The Land that Time Forgot, and The Poky Little Puppy.
You may not know that publishers send out sales reports as detailed as a medical record, and as chilling. It not only lists every bookstore that ever ordered your book, it lists their subsequent returns. Dreams dashed!
What does a writer do with such a document? He or she sets it aside, along with wills and that letter from the bank that is as confusing as algebra. He or she tries to forget it, tries to argue marketplace vs. creativity. Tries to remember sales figures for early Faulkner or early Woolf. Then, if he or she has any intestinal fortitude, he or she begins another story, or poem, or essay.
I want to talk about all the conflicting reports about the death of the novel, the death of the book, the recrudescence of the novel, the rebirth of the book, the losses at major houses for fiction and poetry titles, the gains at midsize houses for fiction and poetry titles. And the reports about how the Browser is obsolete, the bookstore browser, not the little electronic other-self that one employs in virtual reality. Apparently there are fewer people who go to bookstores just to poke around, hoping for inspiration to hit them, a novel, say, by an Eastern-European fabulist, or a slim volume of poems by a stranger.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. This shopper, let’s try to imagine this chimera of myth. He or she obviously has time on his or her hands. He goes to a bookstore in the middle of the week with a café au lait in his hand, a BookPage under one arm, and just piddles around. His expression is dreamy. He is drawn to Fiction, meaning Bellow and Murdoch and Rick Powers. He spends an inordinate amount of time reading jacket copy, looking at author’s photos (posed B&W eidolons of imaginary erudition). He takes 32 minutes to pick one paperback: Peter DeVries’ Reuben, Reuben. When he finishes this delicious item he will say, “He is unjustly neglected.” Ok.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Or: She enters the store having just come from the gym. She looks good in her stretchy leotard. She smiles at the book clerk (a papuliferous mooncalf with a passion for Bukowski, now in love with our female browser, just like that) and heads for Biography. She wants something as good as Ellmann’s Joyce. Today she may find it. She may find another 500 page tale of writerly angst and wandering affections that just clicks with her. She is optimistic. But maybe this isn’t the day. Maybe she goes home without a new book and chooses to reread Ellmann. Yet, her time in the bookstore was not a waste. She has been enriched, if that is not overstating it, because she has engaged with the culture, if that is not overstating it, and she is contented.
Now, is the Browser a ninnyhammer, a person out of step with his or her fellow man? Would he or she be happier punching a CC number into B&N.com, or calling ahead to have a chick-lit waiting at the counter so there is no wasted time involved?
No, I say. No, I shout from the housetop (later my wife will coax down a sheepish me and put me to bed with a warm Updike). The Browser will always be. And not just as some retro-hipster who insists on vinyl over digital. Nothing will ever replace boards and paper, just as the web-surfer will never replace the instinctive Browser.
Listen: I’ve written many novels since my first. They passed through the public consciousness the way castor oil—well, you get it. Don’t, please gentle reader, check their numerical rankings on Amazon. Instead use this inspirational message—that there is still a place in American letters for little trickles of storytelling talent like Yours Truly—to spur you out of your chair, into the bustling thoroughfares of the modern city, and through the portals of your nearest INDEPENDENT bookstore. Once there, decelerate, friend, and look around. And say hi to the book clerk. He or she is as lonely as a cloud.
COREY MESLER has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Five Points, Good Poems American Places, and Esquire/Narrative. He has published 9 novels, 4 short story collections, and 5 full-length poetry collections. His novel, Robert Walker, is just out from Livingston Press. He’s been nominated for the Pushcart many times, and 2 of his poems were chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. With his wife he runs a 140 year-old bookstore in Memphis. He can be found at https://coreymesler.wordpress.com.
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Southern Indie Bestsellers
For the week ending November 13. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Whistler John Grisham, Doubleday, $28.95, 9780385541190 2. Night School Lee Child, Delacorte, $28.99, 9780804178808 3. Commonwealth Ann Patchett, Harper, $27.99, 9780062491794 4. A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles, Viking, $27, 9780670026197 5. All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr, Scribner, $27, 9781476746586
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.2. A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866 3. Upstream Mary Oliver, Penguin Press, $26, 9781594206702 4. Appetites Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever, Ecco, $37.50, 9780062409959 5. Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South Vivian Howard, Little Brown, $40, 9780316381109
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.6. Two by Two Nicholas Sparks, Grand Central, $27, 9781455520695 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.2. A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.13. Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta Richard Grant, S&S, $16, 9781476709642 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.5. Serafina and the Black Cloak Robert Beatty, Disney/Hyperion, $7.99, 9781484711873
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which Mr. Rick Bragg writes down the recipes his mama never needed to, Mr. John Shelton Reed thinks Clinton may have lost North Carolina because she went to the wrong barbecue joint, and her ladyship, the editor, contemplates re-arranging her bookshelves.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
Those of her ladyship's readers who live in the vicinity of Tuscaloosa, Alabama or Franklin, Tennessee, have a new option for your holiday shopping. Two new bookstores have opened (or are in the process of opening) -- each with their own commitment to serve their local communities (and especially their local authors) and each with their own bookselling philosophy.
Bound Booksellers, in Franklin, TN says that "I don’t know if the idea for a bookstore existed initially in our minds — it was more as a community hub for the local artistic community of singers, writers, and artists, but with the backdrop of a bookstore.” (via)
And the owner of Ernest & Hadley Booksellers, which plans to open its doors on December 11th, plans to make her store unique "by encouraging community input and arranging the store chronologically instead of alphabetically or by genre." (via)
That is, book lovers will be able to find a "Lost Generation" section featuring the work of writers like Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also books about the writers, their era, and the places they lived. History, fiction, poetry, biography . . . all in one place coalesced around one interesting idea.
Her ladyship, the editor, is entranced by the notion. She is already eyeing her own bookshelves, wondering how she might best re-arrange them.
Read Independently. And shop local!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. her ladyship, the editor
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.When Stanley was 12, he told a friend in carpool, "My mother loves to type! That's all she does! That's what she does all day long!"
Noteworthy poetry and prose from her ladyship's bedside reading stack.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.At that moment, she heard a sound from above like an autumn breeze flowing through the tops of the trees. But there wasn't a breeze. The midnight air was chilled and quiet The midnight air was chilled and quiet and perfectly still, like God, was holding breath.
She heard a delicate, almost gossamer, whisper-like murmur. She looked up, but all she could see were the branches of the trees. Rising to her feet, she brushed off the simple green work dress that Mrs. Vanderbilt had given her the day before and walked through the forest, listening for the sound. She tried to determine the direction it was coming from. She tilted her head left and then right, but the sound seemed to have no position. She made her way over to a rocky outcropping, where the ground fell steeply away into a forested valley. From here she could see a great distance, miles yonder across the mist to the silhouettes of the Blue Ridge Mountains on the other side. A thin layer of silvery white clouds glowing with light passed slowly in front of the moon. The brightness of the moon cast a wide-arching halo in the feathery clouds, shone through them, and threw a long, jagged shadow onto the ground behind her.
-- Robert Beatty, Serafina and the Twisted Staff (Disney-Hyperion, 2016)
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."I learned my chicken and dressin' from Sis. Her real name was Maudie, and she and Daddy was first cousins. She was bad to cuss. Everything was blankety-blank this and blankety-blank that. But my God she could cook."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Much like his previous book, The Outlaws of America: the Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity, Berger focuses herein on the radical edge of the 1960s/70s movement.
His argument, hardly a new one, is what caused the radicalization of the civil rights movement was the attempt to imprison its most impassioned voices. The leadership of what came to be the Black Power movement was schooled for revolution behind the walls of the American supermax prison system.
Perhaps the most influential name of Black Power, George Jackson did not leave prison alive, yet he remains a powerful symbol near half a century after George Jackson was shot down in the prison yard at San Quentin.
Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era by Dan Berger (University of North Carolina Press) Recommended by Glen at A Cappella Books Atlanta GA
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Like paintings with shadowy figures in darkened corners, the lives of four of our nation's first presidents cannot be fully understood without opening the pages of Kenneth Davis' In the Shadow of Liberty . George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Andrew Jackson were founding fathers who risked their lives for the principles of freedom and liberty, while denying these rights to the slaves they owned, bought, and sold their entire lives.
Davis' exhaustive research and objective narrative reveal men whose lofty ideals were easier to legislate than to apply to their personal lives. The stories of five black slaves whose lives were entwined with these men and their families on a very intimate level are revealed in the context of a society in which the economic value of each could not be denied. Davis highlights the ironic juxtaposition of these bastions of liberty and their enslaved companions with a clarity that made me consider how very difficult it can be to truly live out the values we claim to cherish. A key title in understanding the humanity of these famous Americans for ages 10+.
In the Shadow of Liberty, (Henry Holt $17.99), recommended by Cindy at Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Set in Mississippi at the close of WWII, The Secret of Magic is the story of the tragic treatment of a returning black GI, which draws in noted civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall. But it also a story about the power of books and stories, especially those we encounter as children, to affect lives.
I loved this book and will be recommending it to fans of The Help and Mudbound.
The Secret of Magic by Deborah Johnson (Berkley) Recommended by Jill at Fiction AddictionGreenville SC
“I don’t know if the idea for a bookstore existed initially in our minds — it was more as a community hub for the local artistic community of singers, writers, and artists, but with the backdrop of a bookstore”
The List: Helen's Top Ten History & Biography Books
From Quail Ridge Books: Long-time employees, new customers; new employees, long-time customers! All of us are coming together in our beautiful new space. In order for you to know a bit about us, we’ve put together a new book display in the store called “Take Ten.” Each month we’ll feature one of our stellar staff members and ten books that he or she loves. Look for the display on the column near the front counter. For December, we're featuring Helen Stewart, our Floor Manager, someone you may only catch a glimpse of as she moves through the store making sure all is in order and beautifully presented. Helen is the go-to person for history and biography recommendations. Here’s her top ten:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."Hillary Clinton’s choice of a barbecue stop in Charlotte at the end of the presidential campaign. She and President Obama ate at the Midwood Smokehouse, which has a varied and upscale menu, and is not considered a traditional barbecue eatery. Meanwhile, Donald Trump was buying one of those $3.50 barbecue sandwiches at Stamey’s in Greensboro."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."A well-crafted fable for our time: as we focus on filling the plate in front of us, we risk forgetting where it came from, what it cost, and what that means." -Kirkus Reviews
What isn't written, isn't remembered. Even your crimes. Nadia lives in the city of Canaan, where life is safe and structured, hemmed in by white stone walls and no memory of what came before. But every twelve years the city descends into the bloody chaos of the Forgetting, a day of no remorse, when each person's memories--of parents, children, love, life, and self--are lost. Unless they have been written.
In Canaan, your book is your truth and your identity, and Nadia knows exactly who hasn't written the truth. Because Nadia is the only person in Canaan who has never forgotten.
But when Nadia begins to use her memories to solve the mysteries of Canaan, she discovers truths about herself and Gray, the handsome glassblower, that will change her world forever. As the anarchy of the Forgetting approaches, Nadia and Gray must stop an unseen enemy that threatens both their city and their own existence - before the people can forget the truth. And before Gray can forget her.
When the store opens Lambert-Brown said a section of it will be dedicated to the authors of “the Lost Generation,” such as Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
At the end of the year her ladyship posts a holiday gift guide of books to be found in the gift catalogs of Southern indie bookstores. You can find the full guide here. Or ask for a catalog from your local bookshop.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. If you are shopping for anyone this Christmas season, ages 9-12, a wonderful new series has hit the shelves called Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty. Serafina’s father is the maintenance man at the Biltmore mansion and they secretly live in the estate mansion. She has always minded her father and never wandered into the parts of the estate that were forbidden but when children start to go missing Serafina decides to take action before each and every one of them are gone. She wanders into the woods where she discovers hidden legends of magic that are tied to her heritage which she in turn must use to defeat the evil man kidnapping the kids. This debut series is sure to be a thrilling adventure for young readers to enjoy and the setting is a place they can actually visit one day! Serafina is wonderful new hero and a fun new middle grade series.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The New York City Ballet has been known for delivering classic ballet stories with a modern twist. This year they bring to us George Balanchine’s quintessential production, The Nutcracker, and just in time to be the perfect holiday gift! The New York City Ballet production of this hit classic is considered to be “the” leading production in the world and now it can be enjoyed right in the homes of those who can’t necessarily travel to the city. This is a beautiful picture book which encompasses illustrations inspired by the actual backdrops and scenery they use in the real-life production. The story also imitates the choreography of the famous ballet. This is a must-have for every aspiring ballerina’s library or any family who enjoys this classic story at Christmastime.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Shopping for any animal lovers between the ages of 8-12? If the answer is yes, check out these two book by Animal Planet; Animal Planet Animal Atlas and Animal Planet Strange, Unusual, Gross & Cool Animals. The first is an atlas of animals which takes you continent by continent to visit animals in their habitats globally. The second is a fun book and bound to be a hit with kids, especially for reluctant readers or anyone who loves totally gross and amazing animals. It is stocked full with over 200 vibrant photographs and fun facts about animals with unusual behaviors, strange appearances, and remarkable stats.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. If you are a military family or are shopping for any kiddo that is in one, Brave Like Me, by Barbara Kerley is must have for this Christmas! Through the story of a young girl and boy dealing with deployment, this book captures the worries, fears, trials, and triumphs they experience while waiting for their parents to return home. Another great option to consider is Paws of Courage: True Tales of Heroic Dogs that Protect and Serve by Nancy Furstinger. In this touching book we get a glimpse into the lives of some real canine war heroes. Their touching stories are sure to inspire animal lovers everywhere through stunning imagery and inspiring tales of bravery, friendship, heroism, and devotion.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. If you’re shopping for anybody between the ages of 8-12 that has fun doing science projects and experiments, look no further, Maker Lab: Make Your Own Science Experiments is the perfect book for you! In this cool Smithsonian approved book you’ll find 30 kid-tested experiments that use household products. This is a very user friendly book with lots of pictures, so even if you’re not a science-minded adult, you’ll have fun doing these crafts with your kids.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Shopping for any Lego Lovers? Lego has released another book in their line of non-fiction and this one covers the topic of our world and everything in it. In the 176 pages of Fantastic: A Lego Adventure in the Real World, you’ll find inspiration for every boy and girl with full page spreads of everything related to our world from geography and history to technology and pop-culture.
Young Adult
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. If you have any fans of Young Adult on your shopping list this year, young or old, here are three books you should consider adding to their library. Every Exquisite Thing is a contemporary realistic fiction by Matthew Quick. This is a sad, fun eye-opening and at times weird ode to the misfits, following the life of Nanette O’Hare. She’s been a good girl all of her life but when a favorite teacher gifts her his old copy of The Bubblegum Reaper, a mysterious, out-of-print cult classic, the rebel within Nanette awakens.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. The next book to look at is Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven. This young adult romance novel stars a morbidly obese girl (who has to be removed from her house by a crane in order to join the real world) and a boy who cannot recognize anyone’s faces. When these two wind up in group counseling together, the time they spend together changes them. This book has rave reviews and is bound to be a hit with readers aged 14 and up.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. The last YA book that you should consider checking out is Replica by bestselling author Lauren Oliver (author of “Before I Fall” and the “Delirium” trilogy). Replica is a truly unique science fiction/fantasy book or a duology as they are calling it, containing two narratives; turn the book one way and read Lyra’s story, or turn the book over and upside down and read Gemma's story. This is a masterful “flip book” novel that explores issues of individuality, identity, and humanity. The story centers around Haven Institute and all the mysteries surrounding this secretive facility where thousands of replicas, or human models, are born, raised, and observed.
(Reprinted with permission from Historical Novels Review, Issue 78, November 2016)
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Robert Beatty’s new series featuring Serafina, a twelve-year-old girl living in the basement of the famous Biltmore Estate in North Carolina during the Gilded Age, has ignited the world of Young Adult fiction and is quickly becoming the next big thing within the genre, as well as crossing over to an older audience.
Serafina and the Black Cloak (Disney Hyperion, 2015) received its much anticipated follow-up in 2016 with Serafina and the Twisted Staff, which carried over seamlessly with an action-packed introduction and fresh mystery for the beloved protagonist.
Serafina, the proverbial underdog, is at once a relatable, awkward pre-teen girl and a mysterious, otherworldly creature with questionable ancestry. What, other than this magnificent characterization, has made her such a hit?
An impressive mix of history and folklore, this series borders on a subgenre which has been quite prolific in the industry: historical fantasy. While many of these novels have vague settings with imaginative storylines rather than factual ones, the Serafina books stay true to both the era and the history of the Biltmore Estate, which is a major tourist attraction in scenic Asheville, North Carolina. As such, the books have historical integrity while also delving into Appalachian lore, albeit with a magical twist.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The folklore, in particular, has opened this series to many readers — those who love Harry Potter-type books, as well as Southern and local enthusiasts, who are interested in the background and history of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Serafina’s father, a mountain man and the chief mechanic at the Biltmore Estate, speaks in Appalachian dialect, giving his character credibility and the added charm of resembling Hogwart’s groundskeeper, Hagrid. In addition, there are catamounts, along with other wildlife of the region, and eerie places such as an overgrown graveyard, an abandoned town, and miles of dark, though beautiful, forests. Mention of haints, shape-shifters and creatures of the night bring this series fully into the ranks of Young Adult Gothic novels.
As for the historical aspect, George Washington Vanderbilt II, his wife, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser Vanderbilt, and the estate’s landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, are all real historical figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Serafina and the Twisted Staff, there is even a scene with Consuelo Vanderbilt, a prominent member of the Vanderbilt family who was a fashion icon and married to the 9th Duke of Marlborough.
Robert Beatty is a regular visitor to the estate and has minutely detailed his story to match the setting as it was in the late 19th century. The rooms and grounds are described accurately, including statues, secret passages, and even props that exist to this day.
Beatty has been forthcoming in interviews about the fact that this series is heavily influenced by the opinions of his wife and daughters. They are his sounding board for ideas and suggestions, and have also been involved with the making of the book trailers. With such a thorough and kid-inclusive process, it’s no wonder the series has received overwhelmingly positive reviews and occasioned much excitement among school-aged readers.
The immensely brave and good-hearted Serafina has found her place among the ranks of popular children’s series and is cornering the market on local lore in the South. With a packed author event schedule and opportunity for avid fans to explore the Biltmore Estate first-hand, Serafina is finding her way into the hands — and hearts — of eager audiences. What’s next for our admirable Chief Rat Catcher? After revelations at the end of Serafina and the Twisted Staff, the third book — as yet untitled — can’t be released soon enough!
Arleigh Johnson has worked in the book industry for more than a decade and is an active member of the book blogging community with her websites www.historical-fiction.com and www.royal-intrigue.net. She has been reviewing books online for nine years, and for the HNS since 2011.
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Southern Indie Bestsellers
For the week ending November 20. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Whistler John Grisham, Doubleday, $28.95, 9780385541190 2. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 3. Night School Lee Child, Delacorte, $28.99, 9780804178808 4. No Man's Land David Baldacci, Grand Central, $29, 9781455586516 5. Swing Time Zadie Smith, Penguin Press, $27, 9781594203985
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 2. Settle for More Megyn Kelly, Harper, $29.99, 9780062494603 3. Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In Bernie Sanders, Thomas Dunne Books, $27, 9781250132925 4. Born to Run Bruce Springsteen, S&S, $32.50, 9781501141515 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.5. A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.7. Two by Two Nicholas Sparks, Grand Central, $27, 9781455520695 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.5. A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.6. Raymie Nightingale Kate DiCamillo, Candlewick, $16.99, 9780763681173 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.6. Serafina and the Black Cloak Robert Beatty, Disney/Hyperion, $7.99, 9781484711873
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which her ladyship, the editor, wraps presents, Ms. Shellie Rushing Tomlinson thinks we should look up from our phones and talk to people, and Ms. Fannie Flagg concurs. She is of the opinion that there's just no dull people.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
Her ladyship, the editor, is wrapping presents and packing boxes. Gift giving is never the stressful task for her as it often is for so many others. Aside from her usual donations in honor of her family and friends (cows or goats via Heifer International; trees, turtle nests and tracks of land via The Nature Conservancy), her ladyship always gives books. There is always a book for every reader, and it is a pleasure and a joy to match the perfect book to the reader.
No, this year, her ladyship's holiday stress is entirely logistical -- her far-flung family is particularly flung afar this year, and thus she has to arrange that the proper package reaches the proper person in the proper place, on the proper date. She is gazing at the delivery schedules of the post office with a doubtful eye.
Her ladyship wants one of the transporters like they have on Star Trek, so she can simply step through and hand her various family members their gifts, and perhaps share a cup of non-virtual coffee. Why don't we have transporters yet?
Read Independently. And shop local!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. her ladyship, the editor
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."Everyone has a story. Our challenge is to take time to listen and connect instead of zoning out with our earphones and iPhones when we’re in public places."
Noteworthy poetry and prose from her ladyship's bedside reading stack.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Mamie Till remembers fixing Louis a sandwich. She wraps it in waxed paper, folds the edges like you gift wrap so edges even and neat. She's out of rubber bands. Rubber bands not around like before the war. Hopes the sandwich will hold together. Tucks it into a brown paper bag, adds an apple, creases the bag's top tightly shut. What kind damn sammich dat. She does not respond What the hell damn kind do you think, Louis Till. A T-bone steak sammich, hands ready to fly up to protect her face. No. Don't start. She is Louis Till's wife. Her mother's good daughter. Her daddy's sweet girl. Raised in Argo Temple Church of God in Christ. Baloney, she answers. A baloney sandwich for your lunch today, Louis. Thank goodness Louis not listening for an answer, not looking for a fight this morning. Brown bag in hand he's out the door. Slams it behind him. She can allow her arms to relax, her hands to drop to her sides. Wipe her fingers on her apron. Finish her thought. A baloney sandwich for your lunch break at Argo Corn Products, Louis, with my daddy and all the other colored men carrying sammiches fixed by wives, mothers, women who buy cold cuts from the A&P with money from Corn Products paychecks.
-- John Edgar Wideman, Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File (Scribner, 2016) 9781501147289
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."The thing that is most interesting about Southerners is that everybody’s a character. There’s just no dull people."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.We usually think of 'all men are created equal' when considering the start of our country. Ashes, which completes Anderson's Seeds of America trilogy set during the Revolutionary War, reminds us jarringly that this was not the case. Through the trilogy, we experience the hardships, hypocrisies, and always-cherished bonds of friendship from the perspective of Isabel, an escaped slave. Anderson always writes compelling, complicated characters for whom we care deeply. Ashes brings deep satisfaction to the trilogy. Ages 9+.
Ashes by Laurie Halse Anderson (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy $16.99), recommended by Rosemary at Quail Ridge Books. Raleigh, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.This fascinating novel opens in 18th century Ghana, whose residents are not just victims, but sometimes willing participants, in the slave trade with the English. Two sisters from different villages never meet, but they start a family tree whose branches are chronicled into the 20th century. Gyasi presents the stories of these characters so vividly; even as the decades race by you will feel an intimate connection with each one.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Knopf Publishing Group, $26.95), recommended by Karen at Parnassus Books, Nashville, TN.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.I Will Find You is not light reading, but it is necessary reading for a culture that seems unable to talk reasonably and openly about sexual violence. This nonfiction account of her own rape is filled with unrelenting honesty about sexual violence, race in America, and the realities of incarceration and poverty.
I Will Find You: A Reporter Investigates the Life of the Man Who Raped Her by Joanna Connors (Atlantic Monthly Press, $25), recommended by Brian at Scuppernong Books, Greensboro, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Beverly Lowry looks deep into the horrors of four unsolved killings in Austin in the early 1980’s with a detective’s mind and a novelist’s heart. The result is a book that is gripping, moving, and as good as any depiction of a murder case that’s been published since In Cold Blood. Is true crime not your thing? It isn’t my thing either, but this transcends the genre. Brilliant.
Who Killed These Girls?: Cold Case: The Yogurt Shop Murders by Beverly Lowery (Knopf Publishing Group, $27.95), recommended by Ann Patchett at Parnassus Books, Nashville, TN.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Part rap style poetry, part love story to a father and to basketball; good young adult fiction about 12-year-old twin boys.
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander (HMH Books for Young Readers $16.99), reader recommendation by Martha at Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.From the author of Summer at Hideaway Key comes a sweeping new Southern women’s fiction novel about forgiving the past one letter at a time...
The truth lies between the lines...
A year ago, Dovie Larkin’s life was shattered when her fiancé committed suicide just weeks before their wedding. Now, plagued by guilt, she has become a fixture at the cemetery where William is buried, visiting his grave daily, waiting for answers she knows will never come.
Then one day, she sees an old woman whose grief mirrors her own. Fascinated, she watches the woman leave a letter on a nearby grave. Dovie ignores her conscience and reads the letter—a mother’s plea for forgiveness to her dead daughter—and immediately needs to know the rest of the story.
As she delves deeper, a collection of letters from the cemetery’s lost and found begins to unravel a decades-old mystery involving one of Charleston’s wealthiest families. But even as Dovie seeks to answer questions about another woman’s past—questions filled with deception, betrayal, and heartbreaking loss—she starts to discover the keys to love, forgiveness, and finally embracing the future…
At the end of the year her ladyship posts a holiday gift guide of books to be found in the gift catalogs of Southern indie bookstores. You can find the full guide here. Or ask for a catalog from your local bookshop.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.If you’re shopping for some non-southerners who likes to cook, a fabulous gift option for you to consider is Learn to Cook 25 Southern Classics 3 Ways: Traditional, Contemporary, International by Jennifer Brule. It’s also a great gift option for those beginner cooks on your list! Jennifer Brule’s line-up of beloved southern dishes is irresistible, from Classic Chicken and Dumplings and Vegetarian Mushroom Stew with Sweet Potato Dumplings to dishes like Hungarian Chicken Paprikash with Dumplings. Featuring step-by-step instructions designed to teach basic cooking techniques, Brule shows cooks how to whisk, chop, slice, simmer, saute, fry, bake, and roast their way to seventy-five wonderful tasty dishes.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Chicken is a staple in many households and Cynthia Graubart takes what can often be perceived as a boring dish to a whole new level in her book Chicken: A Savor the South®cookbook. This is a celebration of one of America’s favorite birds which not only offers incredible recipes, it also takes-a-peek at the chicken’s culinary history. There are a lot of ways to cook chicken and preparations in this cookbook range from Country Captain to Carolina Chicken Bog to Chicken and Parslied Dumplings to many more.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.In Bacon: A Savor the South® cookbook, Fred Thompson takes us through the history of how our country came to love bacon while also teaching us fabulous ways to prepare it! By Thompson's count, fifty different styles of bacon exist worldwide and in this fifty-six recipe cookbook you’ll find dishes that range from southern regional to international, from appetizers to main courses, and even a very southern beverage. This book also includes a do-it-yourself section full of recipes for making bacon from fresh pork belly in five different styles. So, if you’re shopping for any lover of America’s favorite pork, this cook book is bound to be a hit!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.In Shrimp Country: Recipes and Tales from the Southern Coasts Anna Marlis Burgard takes cooks on a tour of southern coastlines, offering us some delicious regional recipes. Burgard gathers more than 100 tempting recipes from regional classics like pilau, creole, and bog to global fare such as shrimp empanadas, shrimp saganaki, and tom kha gai. This is more than just a cookbook though, it’s also full of interesting stories about the people who share their wonderful family recipes with us from crawler captains, food truck masters, diner cooks, and award-winning chefs all celebrating one of America’s favorite food staples.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Shopping for any gardeners? If the answer is yes, you must check out The All New Ball Book of Canning And Preserving: Over 200 of the Best Canned, Jammed, Pickled, and Preserved Recipes by Jarden Home Brands. This 368-page guide covers everything from water bath and pressure canning, pickling, fermenting to freezing, dehydrating, and smoking. Recipes range from delectable flavors like Tart Lemon Jelly, Tomato–Herb Jam, Ploughman's Pickles to fresh flavors such as Asian Pear Kimchi, Smoked Maple Juniper Bacon, and homemade Kombucha. This beautifully illustrated book is full of color photographs and is bound to inspire a host of new home cooks.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Attention cake bakers: In the sweet new cookbook American Cake, Anne Byrn takes a look at the stories and recipes behind more than 125 of the best-loved cakes. This book is more than a cookbook, it takes readers on a delicious coast-to-coast journey inspiring us to savor our nation's history of cake baking. From the dark, moist gingerbread and blueberry cakes of New England and the elegant English-style pound cake of Virginia to the hard-scrabble apple stack cake home to Appalachia and the slow-drawl, Deep South Lady Baltimore Cake, readers will learn the stories behind their favorite cakes and how to bake them.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Another great gift option for someone who likes to bake is Art of the Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings, and Life by Kate McDermott and photographs by Andrew Scrivani. Kate McDermott has taught thousands of people across the country how to make pies at her Pie Camps and now she brings the simple methods to all of us in her beautiful new book. Over the years she has also developed more than a dozen crusts, half of which are gluten-free, and in this book she gives detailed instructions for making, rolling, and baking those crusts. The recipes include desserts such as Blackberry Pie for Julia Child, The Best Peach Pie in the World and Old-Fashioned Rhubarb Pie.
For the week ending November 27. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Whistler John Grisham, Doubleday, $28.95, 9780385541190 2. Moonglow Michael Chabon, Harper, $28.99, 9780062225559 3. Commonwealth Ann Patchett, Harper, $27.99, 9780062491794 4. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 5. Night School Lee Child, Delacorte, $28.99, 9780804178808
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 2. Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations Thomas L. Friedman, FSG, $28, 9780374273538 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.3. A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866 4. Appetites Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever, Ecco, $37.50, 9780062409959 5. Settle for More Megyn Kelly, Harper, $29.99, 9780062494603
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.14. Two by Two Nicholas Sparks, Grand Central, $27, 9781455520695 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.3. A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.7. Serafina and the Black Cloak Robert Beatty, Disney/Hyperion, $7.99, 9781484711873
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which her ladyship, the editor, bakes cookies, Ms. Ann Patchett talks bookstores, Ms. Dot Jackson no longer has to worry about the dust under her refrigerator, and Mr. Tom Poland rides a mule, no saddle.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
What is it about this time of year that makes one want to break out the cookbooks? Her ladyship, the editor, is not much of a person for sweets -- she prefers spice to sugar. But somehow, the moment the evening temperatures drop and she wakes to a glittery frost on the drooping fall leaves, her ladyship can suddenly think of nothing but cookies. And pie. She orders milk and bittersweet chocolate in 2 pound bars. Buys sugar in ten pound sacks. And unsalted butter by the armful. And then she dutifully spends the the rest of the season making all the cookies she remembers her own mother baking at Christmas time: Pfeffernusse , Mexican Wedding Cakes, Date Pinwheels, orange- and anise-scented pizzelle. Here are the cookbooks that stay stacked open on her ladyship's kitchen counter between Thanksgiving and New Years:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."I rode a mule on Granddad’s farm. I rode it a lot, no saddle. My reward for riding that mule sans saddle was pain."
Noteworthy poetry and prose from her ladyship's bedside reading stack.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.With every step, I heard a crunch in the thick forest floor of leaves. The air was crisp and laden with the musky scent of autumn. In South Carolina the winters come slow. Not till December do the icy winds and frosts hit us, unlike in Chicago where my uncle lives. There are already inches of snow on the ground. Or even in the mountains of North Carolina, where the roads are already slick with ice. People from off always yammer on about how the seasons never change here. They're used to looking up into the trees to see the colors go from green to yellow, orange, then red. They just don't know where to look when they're in our neck of the woods. Mama says that the most magical changes of season occur in the wetlands, where the grass turns gold in the fall, then brown in the winter, then come spring you see the bright green stalks peeking out at the base of all the brown grass, until summer, when the vast expanse is a wonder of waving green dotted with white egrets. We look up and see the migrating birds that stream along our coast on their long journey south in the winter, then back north in the spring. Every fall Mama and I get our binoculars and make a list of all the migrating birds we spot. Yes, sir, here along the coast the change of seasons is a living, breathing miracle.
-- Mary Alice Monroe, A Lowcountry Christmas (Gallery Books, 2016)
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Caleb loves Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone: Gladstone's Craft Sequence is the most finely-crafted Urban Fantasy I've seen in years. When money is your soul and corporations are gods and all-powerful skeleton men, who looks our for the little guys? (Magical necromancer lawyers.)
Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone (Tor Books, $27.99), recommended by Caleb at Avid Bookshop, Athens, GA.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The story is built around a family road-trip full of comic moments, but these aren’t the Griswolds, and they’re not headed to Walley World. Every member of the Wang family is fighting to hang onto his or her own very specific American dream as they journey from California to New York after the loss of the family fortune. Jade Chang’s voice is fresh, her take on the immigrant narrative is new, but her themes are timeless. A really fun read.
The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang (Houghton Mifflin, $26), recommended by Mary Laura at Parnassus Books, Nashville, TN.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Few of us know what to do when someone has lost a loved one, and when it's a child who has lost a sibling or parent or grandparent, the task is exponentially more difficult. I was searching for a book for a child whose mother had died and discovered the exquisite gem, The Fox and the Star, with arts and crafts style drawings by award-winning illustrator, Coralie Bickford-Smith. It is the story of Fox, who is guided through life by his Star until one day Star disappears. First he hides and grieves, and then he decides to go and find his Star. In the face of grief, we are all haunted stragglers, but this book will bring solace and hope to the child in all of us.
The Fox and the Star by Coralie Bickford-Smith (Penguin, $20), recommended by Mamie at Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.At one point while reading this book, I yelled out loud: “Don’t do it!” (I can’t tell you when or why — that would spoil it.) A haunting story about a disappearance, it’s also a portrait of a family — and one of my favorite releases of this fall.
Cruel Beautiful World by Caroline Leavitt (Algonquin Books, $26.95), recommended by Mary Laura at Parnassus Books, Nashville, TN.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dark, brutal, and atmospheric, The North Water is the story of an ill-fated whaling ship, peopled with men of dark conscience or no conscience. Reminiscent of The Revenant in its stark story of survival and revenge against all odds, this book is chock full of men being men, doing manly things and occasionally murdering each other. A rip roaring tale of viscera and ice.
The North Water by Ian McGuire (Henry Holt & Company, $27), recommended by Steve at Scuppernong Books, Greensboro, NC.
One of New York Magazine's "45 New Books to Read This Fall" | One of The Millions' "Most Anticipated" for the second half of 2016 | One of The Huffington Post's "20 New Books You'll Need For Your Shelf in Fall 2016" |One of The Boston Globe's "most anticipated" for Fall 2016
Set in the American South, at the crossroads of a world that is both secular and devoutly Christian, April Ayers Lawson’s stories mine the inner lives of young women and men navigating sexual, emotional, and spiritual awakenings. In the title story, Jake grapples with the growing chasm between him and his wife, Sheila, who was a virgin when they wed. In “Three Friends in a Hammock” the tension and attraction is palpable between three sexy, insecure young women as they tug and toe the rope of their shared sack. “The Way You Must Play Always” invites us into the mind of Gretchen, young-looking even for thirteen, as she attends her weekly piano lesson, anxiously anticipating her illicit meeting with Wesley, her instructor’s adult brother who is recovering from a brain tumor. Conner, the cynical sixteen-year-old narrator of “The Negative Effects of Homeschooling,” escorts his mink-wearing mother to the funeral of her best friend, Charlene, a woman who was once a man. And in “Vulnerability” we accompany a young married painter to New York City, lured there by an art dealer and one of his artists. Both are self-involved and have questionable intentions, but nevertheless she is enticed.
Nodding to the Southern Gothic but channeling an energy all its own, Virgin and Other Stories is a mesmerizing debut from an uncannily gifted young writer. With self-assurance and sensuality, April Ayers Lawson unravels the intertwining imperatives of intimacy―sex and love, violation and trust, spirituality and desire―eyeing, unblinkingly, what happens when we succumb to temptation.
"Somehow it came to Harriet Mews, an illiterate maid, she later told family and friends that it came to her in a dream, that her long lost sons were with the circus."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The true story of two African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a 28-year struggle to get them back. The year was 1899 and the place a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia. George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever. Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even "Ambassadors from Mars." Back home, their mother never accepted that they were "gone" and spent 28 years trying to get them back. Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? TRUEVINE is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.
At the end of the year her ladyship posts a holiday gift guide of books to be found in the gift catalogs of Southern indie bookstores. You can find the full guide here. Or ask for a catalog from your local bookshop.
Love and Relationships
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. If you are shopping this season for somebody that enjoys reading true stories about relationships, you should consider these two books featured in the Holiday Catalog: First, is a story about recovering after things go wrong in your marriage. Glennon Doyle Melton, bestselling author of Carry on Warrior, thought she was on top of the world. She had just established an incredible career as an author, with 3 beautiful children and a doting husband. And then her world shattered when her husband confessed to being unfaithful. In Love Warrior Melton tells the story of how healing can be possible for any of us when we refuse to settle for good enough and begin to face pain and love head-on. Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. On a lighter note, When in French: Love in a Second Language by Lauren Collins is a laugh-out-loud funny and surprising memoir about the lengths we go to for love. When Collins is in her 30s she falls in love with a Frenchman who she eventually marries. Their entire relationship has been in English and she’s always wondered if she is missing out on knowing part of her husband by not knowing his native tongue. This story is about her learning French while living abroad. This is sure to be a hit with anyone who loves a good laugh.
Chefs
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. If you are shopping for any non-fiction fans this year who also happen to be foodies, you should check out Miss Ella of Commander's Palace by Ella Brennan or Generation Chef: Risking It All for a New American Dream by Karen Stabiner. In Miss Ella of Commander’s Palace Brennan shares her life starting from her childhood in the Great Depression to opening esteemed eateries. She candidly describes the drama, the disasters, and the abundance of love, sweat, and grit it takes to become the matriarch of New Orleans’ finest restaurant empire. Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. In Generation Chef journalist and food writer Karen Stabiner takes us inside 24-year-old Jonah Miller’s roller-coaster opening of the Basque restaurant Huertas in New York City. Miller is a rising star who has been named to the 30-Under-30 list of both Forbes and Zagat and a popular sous chef at a very young age. This story is fast-paced narrative filled with suspense giving us a behind-the-scenes glimpse at drive and passion in one of today’s hottest professions.
History
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. If you’re looking for a fun read for that history buff on your list, we’ve got four great books for you to consider! Indestructible: One Man's Rescue Mission That Changed the Course of WWII by New York Times bestselling author John R. Bruning is a story about a renegade American pilot who fights against all odds to rescue his family. This hit book takes readers from the blistering skies of the Pacific to the jungles of New Guinea and the Philippines to one of the war's most notorious prison camps. It’s a page turning adventure of one man's bare-knuckle journey to free the people he loved. Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Another great book to consider is The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel. In this elegantly written story you’ll find excerpts from letters, diaries, and memoirs revealing the hidden history of a group of remarkable women who, through their hard work and groundbreaking discoveries, disproved the commonly held belief that the “gentler sex” had little to contribute to human knowledge. This is the captivating, true story, of a group of women whose remarkable contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe. Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. The third book you might want to look at is also about to be in a theater near you: Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly. Set during the height of the civil rights movement we find the untold true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America’s space program and whose contributions have been unheralded, until now.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. The fourth book you should check out is called Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South by Beth Macy. This story takes us back to 1899 and follows the fascinating true story of two African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and their mother who endured a 28-year struggle to get them back.
Country Music
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. If you’re still hunting for the perfect gift for someone who likes to get an inside glimpse into the lives of the rich and famous, we’ve got three great autobiographies for you to put under their tree! Waylon: Tales of My Outlaw Dad, by Terry Jennings with David Thomas, delves into the crazy life of mega-famous country music singer Waylon Jennings. This inside look is written by his son Terry who was directly affected by Waylon's successes--critical acclaim, bestselling albums, sold-out tours, and even TV stardom on The Dukes of Hazzard—and his demons-- three divorces, crippling debt, and depression. Through it all, Terry worked on the touring crew, helped manage Waylon's career, and became one of his father's closest confidantes. Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Another great option is River of Time: My Descent into Depression and How I Emerged with Hope by Naomi Judd with Marcia Wilkie. In this autobiography by famous country music singer Naomi Judd, she describes the agonizing toll depression took on her and shares her message of hope after surviving the most painful period in her life. This story follows her life following the successful 2010 and 2011 music tours she made with her daughter Wynonna when she fell into a debilitating and terrifying depression that seemingly came out of nowhere. Naomi truly believed she had every reason to end her life. Facing severe depression, terrorizing panic attacks, PTSD, toxic drug poisoning, and addiction, she spent the next two and a half years in psychiatric hospitals undergoing treatments and searching for answers. Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. The final book you might want to check out isn’t about one specific famous person but about the lives of many football players in Texas. Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas: A Year in the Life of Lone Star Football, from High School to College to the Cowboys by Nicholas Eatman gives us an inside look at Texas football written by a veteran Texas sports writer. This book offers us a lively, up-close look at football in arguably the most serious football state in the country. Combining the power of Friday Night Lights and the inspiring insight of Remember the Titans, this read offers a fresh perspective on this beloved sport, and is a must for football fans.
Misc.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Winner of the National Book Award and the author of numerous highly praised works of fiction and nonfiction, Ellen Gilchrist brings us Things like the Truth: Out of My Later Years, a collection of nonfiction essays. Gilchrist is a daughter, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother who takes delight in her large, wonderful family. In her collection of short stories, you’ll find a mixture of topics from family, home, work, aging, and the fun of fighting to stay healthy in an increasingly undisciplined culture.
For the week ending December 4. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Whistler John Grisham, Doubleday, $28.95, 9780385541190 2. Moonglow Michael Chabon, Harper, $28.99, 9780062225559 3. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 4. The Whole Town's Talking Fannie Flagg, Random House, $28, 9781400065950 5. Night School Lee Child, Delacorte, $28.99, 9780804178808
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 2. Killing the Rising Sun Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard, Holt, $30, 9781627790628 3. Born a Crime Trevor Noah, Spiegel & Grau, $28, 9780399588174 4. Thank You for Being Late Thomas L. Friedman, FSG, $28, 9780374273538 5. Deep Run Roots Vivian Howard, Little Brown, $40, 9780316381109
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.15. Two by Two Nicholas Sparks, Grand Central, $27, 9781455520695 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.8. A Lowcountry Heart Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.7. Serafina and the Black Cloak Robert Beatty, Disney/Hyperion, $7.99, 9781484711873
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Lady Banks is sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, in support of independent bookstores in the South. SIBA | 3806 Yale Dr. | Columbia, SC 28409
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In which Mr. William Faulkner explains how to make a hot toddy, Ms. Shellie Rushing Tomlinson's grandchildren would like a snack and the answer to the meaning of life, and her ladyship, the editor, purchases some socks.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Dearest Readers
This week her ladyship, the editor, is packing. She will be spending the holidays with her family up north for a change, rather than having the lot of them come south to visit her. The situation has presented certain logistical problems, such as "how to travel with an armful of presents?" (her ladyship sent them on ahead), or "how much room in her suitcase should be devoted to clothes, and how much to books?" (given her neurotic need to always have twice as many books as she could possible read at any given time in easy reach, this is a question that requires much consideration and a certain willingness to ball up non-wrinkle shirts into tight spaces.)
But this particular trip has highlighted a new problem for her ladyship, one that she has rarely needed to confront in the normal course of her life. It is winter. It will be cold in the part of Western New York for which she is bound. Her ladyship owns exactly one warm sweater.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Winter on the coast of North Carolina can be a little damp and chilly on occasion, but her ladyship, who hails from Buffalo, New York, finds it on the whole very easy to deal with. She has a flannel shirt for when temperatures drop into the forties, and that one warm sweater for the rare occasions when it goes below thirty. She has gloves and a hat that she never wears, and a scarf that she does. She does not have boots or warm socks, or indeed any socks at all. In fact she has taken to wearing sandals year round thus dispensing with the need for socks altogether.
She has no winter coat, only a fleece cape that lost its zipper at some point in the past and can't be closed against the wind.
Her ladyship has duly taken steps to prepare for her visit. She called a family member and informed them that she would need to borrow a coat. And she bought socks. Some things should never be borrowed.
And she made more room in her suitcase for books, because she has a feeling she will be spending an inordinate amount of time indoors, by the fire, reading.
Read Independently. And shop local!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. her ladyship, the editor
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."The book has a lot of helpful information about the U.S. immigration system, but I found it most valuable in helping me better appreciate the challenges young undocumented immigrants face."
"We will continue to be the Charis Books and Charis Circle you know and love: we will continue to be a home for independent and marginalized voices, and a popular education center for intersectional feminist justice"
My brother Paul always supported me. He never was afraid to be decent. And in the field he cared for dogs always. Boogie would lick his hand and hold their days Together in beauty, a gift of love. It's simple; no ideas exist more Passionately unforgettable, core Of the heart's undying, permanent nerve.
When I see a rabbit limp down a path, I see the dead leaves, a lair, and I stand With that rabbit and the small game of youth, And of my brother's time--he is a mist Of lasting voices speaking in my heart.
--Shelby Stephenson, Elegies for Small Game (Press 53, 2016) 9781941209417
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."Pappy alone decided when a Hot Toddy was needed, and he administered it to his patient with the best bedside manner of a country doctor"
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.” — William Faulkner
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Perfume River is a haunting reflection on the psychic scars inflicted by the Vietnam War on three men. There are brothers Robert, who went to Vietnam, and Jimmy who went to Canada. And there's Bob, whose father was a Vietnam vet. In economically direct prose, Butler finds his way into the souls of men and the way they deal with their thoughts and emotions, particularly in the context of the complex relationship of father and son. It took just one paragraph for me to understand why Butler is a Pulitzer winner.
Perfume River: A Novel by Robert Olen Butler (Atlantic Monthly $25), recommended by Samantha at Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.A beautifully written, complex story of war, love, intrigue and shifting loyalties in occupied Italy towards the end of WW II. This novel pairs very nicely with All The Light We Cannot See, again showing the complexities of everyday life-- not the least of which include being young and passionate about life -- while living in occupied territory.
The Girl from Venice by Martin Cruz Smith (Simon & Schuster, $27.00), recommended by Jamie at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.I don’t know about you, but I like to know what I am eating. This book gets into practical solutions ranging from making sure you are buying the fish you think you are, to what makes good olive oil (looking at you, Ina Garten), and the various ways in which we can and should be conscious about what we buy.
Real Food Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do about It by Larry Olmsted (Algonquin Books, $27.95), recommended by Catherine at Parnassus Books, Nashville, TN.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.This was my first Tana French novel, and now I have to go back and read them all. A taut procedural with a healthy dose of paranoia, The Trespasser finds Detective Antoinette Conway navigating a hostile work environment while solving what seems to be an open-and-shut murder case. French is a master manipulator, and this novel had me thinking in an Irish accent.
The Trespasser by Tana French (Viking, $27.00), recommended by Travis at Flyleaf Books, Chapel, NC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Will loves Look by Solmaz Sharif: "Until now, now that I've reached my thirties; / All my Muse's poetry has been harmless." This line, from the poem "Desired Appreciation," speaks to the shock that aging into "a brain born into war" can bring; it's this shock, this coming-through-the-numbness, that drives Solmaz Sharif's masterful Look. These poems do not offer narratives of aging beyond trauma. Instead, they are prayers of the most desperate and urgent order. Look is made to break us. It drowns us in the language of war and devastates. It will also, likely, be the boldest, most masterful collection to be released in 2016. Do NOT turn a blind eye to it.”
Look by Solmaz Sharif (Graywolf Press, $16.00), recommended by Will at Avid Bookshop, Athens, GA.
The List: Tolerance, empathy and expanding horizons.
". . . will speak to anyone navigating the everyday realities of 6th grade"
". . .a tale of the redemptive power of finding and harnessing your own magic, particularly in a world where you may not look like everyone around you."
". . .it's about soccer, sesquipedalia (look it up!), separation/divorce, and standing up for friends"
The staff at Flyleaf Books has compiled a list of middle grade books that emphasize tolerance, empathy, and expanding horizons.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."Winter's Bone" seems to be fueled with clichés of Southern life and poverty at first glance: the Dolly clan is surrounded by the familiar images of drugs, violence and crime. But its central character elevates it – making this novel both an unusual and exciting coming-of-age story."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.A Question of Mercy, set in a vivid landscape of the mid-twentieth-century South, is the fifth novel from Robert Penn Warren Award–winning writer Elizabeth Cox. As she challenges notions of individual freedom and responsibility against a backdrop of questionable practices governing treatment of the mentally disabled, she also stretches the breadth and limitations of the human heart to love and to forgive.
Adam Finney, a young man who is mentally disabled, faces sterilization and lobotomy in a state-supported asylum. When he is found dead in the French Broad River of rural North Carolina, his teenaged stepsister, Jess, is sought for questioning by their family and the police. Jess’s odyssey of escape across four states leads into dark territories of life-and-death moral choices where compassion and grace offer faint illumination but few answers.
Jess Booker, on the run and alone, leaves the comfort of her home near Asheville, recklessly trekking through woods and hitchhiking her way to a boarding house in tiny Lula, Alabama, a perceived safe haven she once visited with her late mother. Pursued by a mysterious car with a faded “I Like Ike” sticker, Jess is also haunted by memories of her mother’s early death, her father’s distressing marriage to Adam’s mother, the loving bond she was able to form with Adam despite her initial resistance, and her boyfriend Sam’s troubling letters from the thick of combat in the Korean War. In Lula, Jess finds, if only briefly, a respite among a curious surrogate family of fellow displaced outsiders banded together under one roof, and there she finds the strength to heed the call homeward to face the questions she cannot answer about her stepbrother’s death.
Through her vibrant depictions of characters in crisis and of the lush, natural landscapes of her southern settings, Cox brings to the fore the moral, ethical, and seemingly unnatural decisions people face when caring for society’s weakest members. Grappling with the powerful bonds of love and family, A Question of Mercy recognizes the countless ways people come to help one another and the poor choices they can make because of love—choices that challenge the boundaries of human decency and social justice but also choices that can defy what is legal in the course of seeking what is right.
Jill McCorkle, a Dos Passos Prize–winning novelist and short story writer and the author of Life after Life, provides a foreword to the novel.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."I could read before I could talk. I mean, I wasn’t reading Tropic of Cancer or anything and granted, I didn’t talk until I was 4 (I’ve since, my coworkers will tell you, made up for lost time), but I could read."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view."My oldest grandchild is very observant. I’ve learned to recognize his pensive look. It means a question is coming and it’s going to be a lot deeper than, “Can I have a snack?”"
At the end of the year her ladyship posts a holiday gift guide of books to be found in the gift catalogs of Southern indie bookstores. You can find the full guide here. Or ask for a catalog from your local bookshop.
Historical Fiction
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.If you have any historical fiction fans on your list, a great option is The Orphan Mother: A Novel by New York Times bestselling author of The Widow of the South and A Separate Country, Robert Hicks. This novel follows Mariah Reddick, the star of The Widow of the South. She’s now free and has built a new life for herself as a midwife to the women of Franklin, Tennessee but when her ambitious son is murdered she sets out on a mission to find who killed him. This is a masterful story with themes of motherhood, love, loss, racism and relationships is bound to be hit with most lovers of this genre!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Another post-Civil War novel to consider is News of the World by Paulette Jiles, author of Enemy Women. This story center’s around an aging migrant news reader who agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people. This 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself. This is an exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Finally, a WWII historical fiction, The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, takes us into an intimate side of the war that we seldom get to see: the women’s war. This story takes us into the heart of Nazi occupied Paris and into the lives of two very different sister’s Vianne and Isabelle. Younger, bolder Isabelle lives in Paris while Vianne is content with life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. But when the Second World War strikes, Antoine is sent off to fight and Vianne finds herself isolated so Isabelle is sent by their father to help her. This is a gripping story about women who are forced to house Nazi soldiers, who are manipulated into betrayal, and women who wish they could fight for their country and the women who secretly did.
Mystery
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.If you’ve got any mystery lovers on your list this year, you should check out Descent by Tim Johnston. This story takes place in the Rocky Mountains in which the Courtland’s decide to take one last retreat before their 18-year-old daughter Caitlin goes to college. Caitlin’s parents are secretly hoping that this trip will repair their broken marriage while Catlin is looking forward to running some of the magnificent trails. One morning when she and her younger brother go out for a morning run, the Courtland’s find themselves living the kind of nightmare you only see on TV. This is an intense thriller that keeps readers on their toes from start to finish!
Romance
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The king of fictional romance, Nicholas Sparks, has returned with a huge hit, Two By Two, an emotionally powerful story of unconditional love and the challenges, risks and most of all, the rewards that come with it. The story is about Russell Green who has it all, the gorgeous wife, an adorable 6 year-old, cushy job, stunning house… and then in a matter of months, Russ finds himself without a job or wife, caring for his young daughter while struggling to adapt to life as a single parent and its baffling reality. This story is about Russ as he embarks on a journey both terrifying and rewarding—one that will test his abilities and his emotional resources beyond anything he ever imagined.
Contemporary Fiction
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult brings us another riveting page-turner in Small Great Things. This story follows Ruth Jefferson, an African American labor and delivery nurse with more than twenty years' experience. During a routine shift, Ruth begins a checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she's been reassigned to another patient because the parents of this child are white supremacists and don't want Ruth to touch their baby. The following day the child goes into cardiac arrest and Ruth must decide whether to comply with the parents request or save the babies life- the consequence is her being charged with a serious crime. With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn't offer easy answers.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Another great book to consider for fans of fiction is the highly anticipated Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. This epic tale spans the course of 40 years, strolling through the lives of two broken families that are brought together by an affair. It begins with the brokenness of four parents and six children and then grows into a story about the strong and lasting bonds that are forged between the kids based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them. Told with a bit of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a brilliant tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.
For the week ending December 11. Books on the Southern Indie Bestseller List that are southern in nature or have been recently recommended by southern indie booksellers.
1. The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385542364 2. The Whistler John Grisham, Doubleday, $28.95, 9780385541190 3. A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles, Viking, $27, 9780670026197 4. Moonglow Michael Chabon, Harper, $28.99, 9780062225559 5. Night School Lee Child, Delacorte, $28.99, 9780804178808
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance, Harper, $27.99, 9780062300546 2. The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds Michael Lewis, Norton, $28.95, 9780393254594 3. Thank You for Being Late Thomas L. Friedman, FSG, $28, 9780374273538 4. Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South Vivian Howard, Little Brown, $40, 9780316381109 5. Born a Crime Trevor Noah, Spiegel & Grau, $28, 9780399588174
Also of note:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.8. Two by Two Nicholas Sparks, Grand Central, $27, 9781455520695 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.10. A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life Pat Conroy, Nan A. Talese, $25, 9780385530866 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.14. Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta Richard Grant, S&S, $16, 9781476709642 Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.8. Serafina and the Black Cloak Robert Beatty, Disney/Hyperion, $7.99, 9781484711873
Click on a book to purchase from a great indie bookstore! See the full Southern Indie Bestseller list and the books that are Special to the Southern List here.
Authors Round the South www.authorsroundthesouth.com
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