Our picks for the best books by Southern authors or that take place in the South.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Full Review Here
(Our interview coming soon.)
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
Author Bio: Barbara Kingsolver is the author of ten bestselling works of fiction, including the novels The Lacuna, The Poisonwood Bible, and The Bean Trees, as well as poetry, essays, and creative nonfiction. She was awarded the National Humanities Medal as well as the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She lives with her family on a farm in southern Appalachia.
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
Horse-Brooks-cover
Full Review Here
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
Author Bio: Geraldine Brooks is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel March and the international bestsellers The Secret Chord, Caleb’s Crossing, People of the Book, and Year of Wonders. She has also written the acclaimed nonfiction works Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence. Born and raised in Australia, Brooks lives in Massachusetts.
Raising Lazarus by Beth Macy
Macy takes off where she stopped in her bestselling work, Dopesick (made into an Hulu TV series). Here we meet the ordinary people fighting for the least of us with the fewest resources, from harm reductionists risking arrest to bring lifesaving care to the homeless and addicted to the activists and bereaved families
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
Author Bio: Beth Macy is the author of the widely acclaimed and bestselling books Truevine and Factory Man. Based in Roanoke, Virginia for three decades, her reporting has won more than a dozen national awards, including a Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard.
The Good Left Undone by Adriana Trigiani
The Good Left Undone
This exploration of family history is sensational and leaves the reader wanting to dive into their own familial past. Trigiani works her magic in delivering a drama that enthralls with touches of romance, humor, and humanity. There’s a reason this Virginia author is so beloved by her readers and her peers.
See our interview: Here
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
Author Bio: Adriana Trigiani is the bestselling author of twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, including The Shoemaker’s Wife. She is an award-winning playwright, television writer/producer, and filmmaker. Adriana grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where she co-founded the Origin Project.
French Braid by Anne Tyler
Full Review Here
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
Author Bio: Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2015 and Breathing Lessons, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
We know John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln, but what do we know about his family? Author Karen Joy Fowler’s gripping historical novel takes us behind the scenes of the Booths, leaders in 19th-century American theater. She reveals their scandals and disasters, along with the ties that bind and, simultaneously, tear families apart.
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
Author Bio: Karen Joy Fowler is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels, including The Jane Austen Book Club and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which was the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.
Selected Books of the Beloved by Gregory Orr
Drawing from a rich tradition of lyric poetry, Orr’s Selected Books of the Beloved is the culmination of a love for the written word and the works that have come before. It’s a celebration of the transformative power of poetry, and humanity’s extraordinary capacity to feel and to love.
Buy a copy at The Bookshop.
Author Bio: Gregory Orr has written twelve poetry collections, a memoir, and several books of criticism. The recipient of Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, he lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins
Reckless Girls
Hawkins returns to her thriller writing with an “island murder drama” that reworks the idea of being stranded on a spot of sand. Reckless Girls is never boring and keeps the reader guessing and waiting impatiently for the final reveal.
See our interview: Here
Get a copy at The Bookshop.
Author bio: Born in Newport News, Rachel Hawkins is the New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs and Reckless Girls, as well as multiple books for young readers. She studied gender and sexuality in Victorian literature at Auburn University and currently lives in Alabama.
The Sisters of Luna Island by Stacy Hackney
Luna Island
Twelve-year-old Marigold Lafleur is the last of a long line of aromages: witches who blend scents into practical charms. But since an accident injuring her father and damaging Luna Island, Marigold and her sisters, Birdie and Lou, have vowed to abandon their family legacy. But when Marigold discovers a secret curse that threatens her family, she must uncover the origins of the curse and break the spell.
See our interview: Here
Get a copy at The Bookshop.
Author Bio: Stacy Hackney grew up in Virginia and graduated from Wake Forest University with a BA in English literature and received a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. Stacy is also the author of Forever Glimmer Creek.
