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The week of August 6, 2024  Books for rainy days Even as this issue of SBR is ready to go to press, the forward rain bands of Hurricane Debby are whipping at our office windows. To all who are in her path, we hope you come through the storm safe. Remember, even when the power goes out, you can still grab something to read. Thank goodness books don’t need batteries. 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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Vague Predictions & Prophecies by Daisuke Shen Adult Fiction, Short Stories (single author) A dazzling, surreal debut short story collection, Vague Predictions and Prophecies reads like an indrawn breath. Each story is sprawling and languid, crumbling the barriers between the real and the imagined. An angel falls in love with a cosmic other and is banished from heaven. Long-distance partners shack up with cyborg copies of each other, then start to lose their memories. Teenage bullies find a field full of hypnotized women, tip them like cows, and are eaten alive. Shen’s writing is a narrative compulsion, drawing you ever deeper into worlds you didn’t know you wanted to inhabit. Hypnotic, disturbing, breathtaking. I\’ve never read anything like it. Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia |
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The Wedding People by Alison Espach Fiction, Humorous
An August Read This Next! Title A big-hearted, smart story about figuring out who you want to be when you grow up when you are already a grown-up! Phoebe, queen of the sad girls, arrives at a posh wedding by mistake to the irritation of the micromanaging bride and things take off from there. A deep and charming story of family drama, wedding guest gossip, and how women can support each other in surprising ways. Reviewed by Susan Williams, M Judson Booksellers in Greenville, South Carolina |
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Bookseller Buzz |
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Spotlight on: Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark 
This story was absolute FUN to write. Yes, I have fun writing all my stories. Readers can see it in the humor I imbue in those tales, even when the topics are serious. But there was a different kind of freedom with The Dead Cat Tail Assassins. I wasn’t bound to our world. Or our histories. I wasn’t trying to deliver some deeper message on real-life colonialism or racism or the like. I set out to just tell a story that was fast-paced, punchy, full of action, thrills, and, when called-for, sheer hilarity. As I pitched it to my editor, this is John Wick meets Dungeons & Dragons. ― P. Djèlí Clark, Disgruntled Haradrim What booksellers are saying about Dead Cat Tail Assassins 
Born in New York and raised mostly in Houston, P. Djèlí Clark spent the formative years of his life in the homeland of his parents, Trinidad and Tobago. He is the author of the novel A Master of Djinn and the novellas The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, Ring Shout, The Black God’s Drums, and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. He has won the Nebula, Locus, and Alex Awards and been nominated for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Sturgeon Awards. His stories have appeared in online venues such as Tor.com, Daily Science Fiction, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Apex, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in print anthologies, including Griots, Hidden Youth, and Clockwork Cairo. He is also a founding member of FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction and an infrequent reviewer at Strange Horizons. |
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Hum by Helen Phillips Adult Fiction, Literary Hum is the kind of book that instantly changes your perception of your world. We are all acutely aware of the technology that surrounds us every day, the speed at which that technology is taking over, and the impact it’s having on our lives and our world. But Hum puts the sort of magnifying glass onto it that really makes it feel uncanny. Like Orwell’s 1984. While doing all of that though, Phillips manages to give us these vulnerable, complex characters that make us both root for humanity in a world of tech and pity them. You love them and feel exhausted by them. Because they are us. Hum is billed as speculative fiction… but is it really? Didn’t feel like it by the end. Reviewed by Emily Lessig, The Violet Fox Bookshop in Virginia Beach, Virginia |
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Loving Corrections by adrienne maree brown Activism & Social Justice, Adult Nonfiction, African American & Black, African American & Black Studies, American, Cultural & Ethnic Studies, Essays, Feminism & Feminist Theory, Social Science I’ve spent a week savoring this slim book and never want it to end. Thankfully, her footnotes give so many sources for further reading, so I can stay in this world much longer. A perfect book for changemakers to start. Reviewed by Alissa Redmond, South Main Book Company in Salisbury, North Carolina |
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Beneath These Cursed Stars by Lexi Ryan Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Young Adult Lexi Ryan knows how to ramp up the tension and keep you guessing. I absolutely loved being back in the Fae world from These Hollow Vows again! (Which I do recommend reading before diving into this book. Not that you have to, but it does offer insights that otherwise might get missed or feel confusing while reading this book). Beneath These Cursed Stars centers around Brie’s sister Jas (Jasalyn) and a new character, Felicity (who took me a little longer to feel invested in, but now I’m hooked). It took no time at all for me to jump right back into this world, and I was thrilled to experience it from a whole new perspective. Jasalyn’s story is heartbreaking and traumatizing, the loss of hope and representation of PTSD throughout was done well and had me either holding my breath or crying at certain parts. I will say this book really took off right at the very end. That CLIFFHANGER! My word. Lexi Ryan, what are you doing to us?! Reviewed by Brianne Wik, Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina |
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Go, Wilma, Go! by Amira Rose Davis Children, Juvenile Nonfiction, Olympics & Paralympics, Sports & Recreation Told with a chantable refrain and collage illustrations, this is more than just the story of how Wilma won a gold medal! This tells the story of what happens once Wilma got home after experiencing Europe where she wasn’t treated differently because of her skin color. This is the story of activist Wilma Rudolph, one that is not as well known but is just as important. This belongs on every bookshelf. Reviewed by Chelsea Stringfield, Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee |
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Unico: Awakening (Volume 1): An Original Manga by Osamu Tezuka Comics & Graphic Novels, Juvenile Fiction, Manga This was such an empowering story about friendship and redemption. It has strong Ghibli vibes with its "cozy granny," talking cats that get up to mischief — throw in time travel and morally gray characters! You find yourself rooting for Unico from the get-go, can he figure out the mystery of who he is and help those around him? Reviewed by Morgan DePerno, 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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The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould Banned Books, LGBTQ+, Occult & Supernatural, Paranormal, Romance, Supernatural, Thrillers & Suspense, Young Adult Fiction "In a few strides she hit the tree line, and then she was in the dark. Everything was different here, like the trees had tugged her out of the world of open water and night skies and into an empty void." Logan Ortiz-Woodley just graduated from high school and all she wants is to find a place to call home. But first, she has to go with her dads to their hometown, Snakebite, Oregon, to do some location scouting for their ghost-hunting show ParaSpectors. But things are wrong in Snakebite, and they might be getting worse. Ashley Barton is one of the popular girls and her boyfriend Triston has gone missing. Time is running out, things are weird, and Ashley just wants things to go back to normal, so she enlists Logan’s help. The Dead and the Dark is a book that takes some time to pull you in, but once it does, there is no escape. Readers of both YA and Adult thrillers and horror will find something to love in Gould’s writing, which keeps readers on edge. Keep the lights on and start this book in the early morning because you won’t be able to stop but you won’t want to read after dark! Content warnings for absent parent, homophobia, assault, harm to children. Reviewed by Faith Parke-Dodge, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina |
Southern Bestsellers What’s popular this week with Southern Readers. |
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Parting Thought “t is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” |
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Publisher:
The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance /
siba@sibaweb.com |
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