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The week of July 1, 2025 Read These Next! Bringing summer reading to a new level 
Cry for Me, Argentina: My Life as a Failed Child Star by Tamara Yajia Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez The Payback by Kashana Cauley The Satisfaction Café by Kathy Wang The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy: Book 1 of the Dearly Beloathed Duology by Brigitte Knightley Current Read This Next! books and what SIBA booksellers have to say about them can always be found at The Southern Bookseller Review. Read This Now | Read This Next | Book Buzz | The Bookseller Directory |
Read This Next! July brings "summer read" to a new level. Steamy enemies-to-lovers romance, fast and furious crime fiction, dark and haunting gothic horror — their Southern bookseller fans use a lot of "un" words when they talk about these titles: Unhinged. Uncanny. Unbelievable. Unforgettable.|
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Read This Now! Recommended by Southern indies… |
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You Gotta Eat by Margaret Eby Adult Nonfiction, Cooking, Methods, Quick & Easy I loved this book. I never learned how to cook and have spent most of my life struggling with feeding myself. What I would give to go back in time and hand this book to younger versions of myself. I’m also someone with a history of disordered eating and depression, and this book speaks so kindly to those parts of me. If you struggle with feeding yourself, either because you didn’t learn how to cook, or you’re depressed or low-energy, or you just have a demanding job and can’t deal with making yourself an involved, multi-step dinner, this book is the answer. It helped me so much that I told the registered dietitian I work with about it, and she bought one for her office. I’m also obsessed with one of the meals in the book: potstickers, broccoli, and ramen. And not for nothing, this is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. Three cheers for Margaret! Reviewed by Kim Baldwin, Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee |
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One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford Adult Fiction, Horror This was a fresh take on zombie horror. While zombies have been eradicated, the main character has chosen to secretly harbor her zombie husband in her apartment. As you can imagine, this does not go well! I loved the exploration of what the main character would do for her partner. Reviewed by Jackie Davison, The Lynx in Gainesville, Florida |
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Forest Euphoria by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian Adult Nonfiction, Fungi & Mushrooms, Nature I am beginning to love the way mycologists view the world—there is a particular exuberance, I believe, that comes along with understanding just how interconnected the world is. Kaishian’s brilliant Forest Euphoria finds joy down in the soil with mushrooms, snails, cicadas, and snakes; it revels in the air with crows; it glides through water with eels. As she celebrates the inherent queerness of the life around us—and how it helped her find herself—Kaishian rejects dominant categorizations and binaries and reveals our world in technicolor—richer and more magical and deeply connected than any science textbook would have you believe. With a lyrical, reverent tone, the writer implores us to look deeper and keep our minds open, to learn from the life around us to value and love all beings. Reviewed by Hannah DeCamp, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia |
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Bookseller Buzz |
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So Far Gone by Jess Walter
It was very easy at first for me to inhabit this character, Rhys, and then fill him with the rant that I find myself perpetrating in my own head all the time. And then, as always happens with fictional characters, the political becomes personal, and you start knowing much more about this cranky old guy who has moved up to the woods and spent the last seven years doing nothing but reading books and writing an incredibly ambitious book called The Atlas of Wisdom that he thinks is going to be the thing that people remember him by. ― Jess Walter, Interview, Lithub.com The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb 
Jess Walter is the author of seven previous novels, including the bestsellers The Cold Millions and Beautiful Ruins, the National Book Award Finalist The Zero, and Citizen Vince, winner of the Edgar Award for best novel. His short fiction, collected in The Angel of Rome and We Live in Water, has won the O. Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize and appeared three times in Best American Short Stories. He lives in his hometown of Spokane, Washington. |
Rhys is a former environmental reporter for a local newspaper. I was a newspaper reporter for about seven years, and still think of myself in many ways, almost as a spot-news novelist. So, I’m still drawn to write stories as they’re happening. |
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Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart Adult Fiction, Literary Shteyngart is one of the funniest living novelists, so much so that he once (gently) insulted me at a book signing over a decade ago, and I took it as a compliment. In Vera, he twists words to his will with (if you’ll pardon the obvious, Russian émigré cliché, especially in a book named after the man’s wife) Nabakovian genius. With a neurotic, precocious ten year old protagonist as the vehicle through which we view the unfolding of a dystopian near-future; a manic, pants-dropping younger brother for comic relief ("the family psychiatrist had to periodically check Dylan for ADHD as if for lice"), and a father and step-mother combo keeping things on track (until they don’t), Shteyngart does what he does best: identifying and skewering the signifiers of liberal, middle-class comfort (a class to which he himself undoubtedly belongs). Thus copies of The Power Broker are faced out to impress guests, the tension between wanting your kids’ grades not to matter whilst, of course, desperately wanting them to get straight A’s is ever-present, and empathy for those trying to deny our existence is a must. All of which makes this slim novel sound heavy and imposing, when in fact it reads like a breeze; funny, touching, educational, and filled with sly linguistic and cultural winks – all the things us liberal, middle-class intelligentsia love! Reviewed by Doron Klemer, Octavia Books in New Orleans, Louisiana |
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Cry for Me, Argentina by Tamara Yajia Adult Nonfiction, Humor, Memoir
A July Read This Next! Title Tamara Yajia’s cracked coming of age memoir is required reading for Weird Girl Summer. Her life story is absolutely bonkers, her family members are completely unhinged, and at times it gets quite dark and vulnerable, but Tamara writes with the poise of a veteran comedian who understands that everything is material. Tamara gives readers the gift of permission to laugh through Cry for Me, Argentina, and the payoff is a total triumph.Reviewed by Emily Liner, Friendly City Books in Columbus, Mississippi |
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Tenderly, I Am Devoured by Lyndall Clipstone Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult Fiction Yearnful, beautifully haunting, and seeping with emotion, Tenderly, I Am Devoured is an exquisite blend of gothic fantasy and folk horror. This book is for those of us in our soft-goth era and was written to be read on a seaside cliff in the last rays of summer daylight. Reviewed by Courtney Ulrich Smith, Underbrush Books in Rogers, Arkansas |
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Blood in the Water by Tiffany D. Jackson Children, Juvenile Fiction, Mysteries & Detective Stories Tiffany D. Jackson’s signature style transitions beautifully to middle grade in Blood in the Water. Tackling heavy subjects with the gravity they deserve while letting her characters have just a bit of fun, Jackson navigates racism, classism, and the concept of controlling the narrative. Reviewed by Carly Crawford, Novel in Memphis, Tennessee |
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Jazzy the Witch in Broom Doom by Jessixa Bagley African American & Black, Children, Comics & Graphic Novels, Juvenile Fiction Jazzy the Witch is such a relatable character! She is really struggling with her identity as a witch, and realizes that she is different than everyone around her. This was such a fun graphic novel! I enjoyed the witchy sayings and phrases and I loved that it has such an amazing message which is that it’s OK to be who you are. Reviewed by Sarah Blackwell, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina |
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Decide for Yourself Books that appear on PEN America’s list of challenged books. |
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A Clash of Steel: A Treasure Island Remix by C. B. Lee Action & Adventure, Banned Books, Pirates, Young Adult Fiction I am very much a fan of these Remix Classics. I read several of these as a kid, and I never saw anyone who resembled me, and I’m sure other people of various backgrounds, abilities, and sexual orientations did not see themselves either. Just providing a slight twist to these stories breathes new life into these classic tales, and they feel great to read. Reviewed by Kim Brock, Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington, Kentucky |
Southern Bestsellers What’s popular this week with Southern Readers. |
[ See the full list ] |
Parting Thought “Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.” |
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Publisher:
The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance /
siba@sibaweb.com |
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