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The week of October 17, 2023 How a book gets on the bestseller list.
…here’s a hint: It’s all about pure indie bookseller love! It is a fact of internet life that people rarely read all the way down to the end of email newsletters, so SBR readers may not realize that is where they can find the pot of gold at the end of this newsletter that is the Southern Independent Bestseller List. Unlike other book bestseller lists, the Southern Indie list is specific to what books are selling best at indie bookstores in the South. And what’s even more interesting, there are always several books on the list that have been highlighted as Read This Next! books. Read This Next! is a monthly list of books-to-watch-out-for because they are getting exceptional "buzz" from Southern indie booksellers. In this week’s bestseller list, there are no less than five current or past Read This Next books: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff The Art Thief by Michael Finkel Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng (now in paperback) There is a lesson here: The books indie booksellers are really excited about are the ones they will be recommending to their customers, and the ones worth taking a chance on. See all the October Read This Next books and browse through the past selections. Read This Now | Read This Next | Book Buzz | The Bookseller Directory |
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Read This Now! Recommended by Southern indies… |
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Our Strangers by Lydia Davis Adult Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories (single author) Picking up the same one-to-three-page story by Lydia Davis ten times gives the reader ten different experiences, like taking a plate of gourmet food from a fussy child with her right hand, passing it behind her back to the left hand and returning it to the child saying “fine, eat your magic boopie beans” to the child’s ravenous delight. And the beauty of a book full of one-to-three-page, multidimensional gems is that you’ve got a book jam-packed with multidimensional gems. Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia |
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Bookseller Buzz |
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Spotlight on: Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare 
Usually for me, the first thing that comes in a story is the characters, and then the story weaves itself around them. With Sword Catcher, for the first time the people and the place came at the same time, in a sort of burst of images and color…from the beginning of my working on it, Sword Catcher has been a story about adults rather than about teenagers, so it was always going to be an adult fantasy. The big difference to me is that in YA, your characters are working on problems of identity: What kind of person am I? What are my values? What does it mean to love someone new? But the characters in Sword Catcher are in their early twenties, and they’re facing a different question: What does it mean to take on the responsibilities of adulthood? What booksellers are saying about Sword Catcher 
About Cassandra Clare Cassandra Clare is the author of the #1 New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestselling Shadowhunter Chronicles. She is also the coauthor of the bestselling fantasy series Magisterium with Holly Black. The Shadowhunter Chronicles have been adapted as both a major motion picture and a television series. Her books have more than fifty million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Cassandra lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and three fearsome cats. |
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Family Meal by Bryan Washington Adult Fiction, Coming of Age, Fiction, LGBTQ+, Literary
An October Read This Next! Book There are two things I expect from a Bryan Washington narrative: food rendered so exquisitely I could lick the page and an emotional excavation so expansive it swallows the book and me with it. Family Meal delivered on these expectations and more. It’s propulsive and harrowing, the brittle edges of its characters encapsulating a world and giving way to its perfectly tender center. Reviewed by Miranda Sanchez, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
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Omega Farm by Martha McPhee Adult Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs When you return home, everything looks smaller. When you go home after a messed up childhood, you go back to an almost fetal position. You feel like the child you were-not the adult who has been successful. This memoir by Martha McPhee will lead you down her rabbit hole grieving for what she lived through while taking care of her mother during the pandemic. It is not all sad though, there are so many layers of hope, love and forgiveness. Reviewed by Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina |
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Those Pink Mountain Nights by Jen Ferguson Indigenous, People & Places, Young Adult Fiction My favorite YA book of the year! I went into this thinking it would be a bit like Empire Records with a twist of mystery, but this book is so much more. Three teens are struggling with the disappearance of their friend Kiki, who has now joined a long line of missing Indigenous girls and women. One night at the pizza shop they all work at, Berlin thinks she catches a glimpse of Kiki, and so begins the story of trying to save a girl, a community, and a pizza shop. This book is raw and real and unforgettable, the author lending an #OwnVoices perspective that needs to be heard. Reviewed by Kate Towery, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia |
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Hellaween by Moss Lawton Childrens, Halloween, Holidays & Celebrations, Juvenile Fiction For a very special few days each October, young witch/skater Gwen gets to hang out with her best friends: a werewolf and vampire from the monster realm who can only cross over right around Halloween. Together, they do spooky things like go to the mall and haunt normies! A super fun series opener (I hope), perfect for whatever the Zoomer/Alpha version of Hot Topic tweens is. Reviewed by Talia Smart, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
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Scaredy Squirrel Gets Festive by Melanie Watt Comics & Graphic Novels, Humorous, Juvenile Fiction Children (and their adults) will love reading about Scaredy Squirrel’s approach to the holidays! Once again, Melanie Watt gives us a way to treat a child’s nerves with gentleness and humor. We love displaying our Scaredy Squirrel books alongside the plush stuffed animal at Main Street Books! Reviewed by Jessica Nock, Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina |
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Decide for Yourself Books that appear on PEN America’s list of challenged books. |
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The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta Banned Books, Novels in Verse, Young Adult Fiction The Black Flamingo is a poetic look into the coming of age and coming out stories of a young biracial teen in England. When he goes off to university, he explores who he is through the beauty of drag. This novel is a raw look at the complexity of identity with the beauty of poetry. Reviewed by Nannette Matthews, Story on the Square in McDonough, Georgia |
Southern Bestsellers What’s popular this week with Southern Readers. |
[ See the full list ] |
Parting Thought “Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” |
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Publisher:
The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance /
siba@sibaweb.com |
SIBA | 51 Pleasant Ridge Drive | Asheville, NC 28805
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