The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Adult Nonfiction

Partially Devoured by Daniel Kraus

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Partially Devoured by Daniel Kraus
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There is nothing better than people who love movies writing about why they love movies and how those movies impacted them!!! While I don’t have a huge connection to Night of the Living Dead I was still totally taken by this book. As a cinephile and filmmaker, I’m uber impacted by films, and seeing such a raw passion and love for a film on paper is really special. Educational and passionate, this is a great recommendation to horror/sci-fi film fans!

Partially Devoured by Daniel Kraus, (List Price: $28, Counterpoint, 9781640097155, March 2026)

Reviewed by Lily, E. Shaver, Booksellers in Savannah, Georgia

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Adult Braces by Lindy West

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Adult Braces by Lindy West
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I gobbled up this heartfelt, hilarious memoir about getting out of town and getting some perspective. I cannot wait to shove this into people’s hands. I think this whole country could use a good laugh through tears, and there is nobody more talented at facilitating that than Lindy West.

Adult Braces by Lindy West, (List Price: $29, Grand Central Publishing, 9780306831836, March 2026)

Reviewed by Chelsea Bauer, Union Avenue Books in Knoxville, Tennessee

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Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
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Between the World and Me” is an honest, raw love letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his fifteen-year-old son, Samori. The six-chapter letter was conceived after Coates watched his son’s heartache at the announcement that there would be no charges filed against Darren Wilson, the police officer who killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown. Coates reveals his own fears for his son and his frustrations with the world the boy is growing up in. He writes about the many senseless murders of black men; men who would still be alive if it weren’t for their black bodies. Coates tells his son, “You have every right to be you. And no one should deter you from being you. You have to be you. And you can never be afraid to be you.” Except the last sentence contradicts the world in which we live. Because Coates is afraid, both for his son and himself, but also of the world in which they live. The word body is repeated excessively in his letter. It is an insightful and persuasive argument that, first and foremost, we are a body. We are a body before any other distinguishing markers or features, and they embody a state of blackness. While this revelation isn’t new, the way Coates strings together his argument so elegantly causes one to pause and contemplate. His contrasts between human ideals and the stark realities of life rooted in racism are raw and painful. I found myself comparing this letter to Isabel Wilkerson’s masterpiece, Caste. While Coates points out the ways black bodies have been mistreated, his letter doesn’t provide the depth of contemplation and assessment that Wilkerson’s excellent work did.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, (List Price: $20, One World, 9780812983814, June 2025)

Reviewed by Nichole, Bodacious Bookstore and Cafe in Pensacola, Florida

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A Suit or a Suitcase by Maggie Smith

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A Suit or a Suitcase by Maggie Smith
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This beautiful poetry collection looks at the connection between mind and body and the ways our sense of self shifts over time. Moving through questions of memory, meaning, and connection, it asks how time shapes who we are and how we are seen. A quiet, powerful read that stays with you.

A Suit or a Suitcase by Maggie Smith, (List Price: $25, Washington Square Press, 9781668090053, March 2026)

Reviewed by Sandra, Hills and Hamlets Bookshop in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia

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In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man by Tom Junod

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In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man by Tom Junod
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In the days before caustic masculinity was recognized as such, when men could be men, and women could be, well, dismissed, abused, and ignored, along with so many other choice words. Thankfully, though, the public-school systems and Universities taught us to think for ourselves, and, with the help of our mothers, sisters, and friends, we were able to see past that dark tunnel of masculinity. But our fathers were still our fathers, and we loved them regardless of their foibles as this elegant and elegiac memoir shows. Tom Junod took me back to my childhood, and I saw my father, and with an honesty I don’t have, shares with us his father warts and all.

In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man by Tom Junod, (List Price: $32, Doubleday, 9780375400391, March 2026)

Reviewed by Pete, McIntyre’s Books in Pittsboro, North Carolina

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Traversal by Maria Popova

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Traversal by Maria Popova
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Maria Popova once again illuminates how science and poetry have reckoned with “the bewilderment of being alive” while reconnoitering truths of the body, soul, spirit, and space, all through the intertwining loves, lives, and labors of visionaries like Mary Shelley, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, Ruth Benedict, and others. Popova writes brilliant, fluid, lively nonfiction—like floating down a river of science, poetry, history, and stars.

Traversal by Maria Popova, (List Price: $36, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 9780374616410, February 2026)

Reviewed by Megan, The Underground Bookshop in Carrollton, Georgia

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On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

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On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
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I read this one in two sittings. While a lot more Eurocentric than I was expecting, this little book was simple to follow and SUPER informative. I would recommend to all of “my fellow Americans”.

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, (List Price: $22, Crown, 9798217087952, May 2025)

Reviewed by LJ, Shelf Life Books in Richmond, Virginia

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Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

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Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
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An introspective and entertaining story of an unusual bond between a woman and a hare – and you learn a lot about hares! I enjoyed the author’s sens of wonder and curiosity and how her thoughts about nature and life changed through this experience. Quietly transformative, a joy to read!

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton, (List Price: $27, Pantheon, 9780593701843, March 2025)

Reviewed by Cathy, Copperfish Books in Punta Gorda, Florida

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The Typewriter and the Guillotine by Mark Braude

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The Typewriter and the Guillotine by Mark Braude
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This book checks so many boxes for different reader interests. There is a true crime story in the vein of Devil in the White City, alongside a fascinating look at life in Paris in the run-up to World War II. We also get a portrait of pioneering journalist Janet Flanner, who gradually shifted from gossipy columns about expats in Paris to meatier pieces about the Nazis’ growing influence in Europe in her role as New York columnist. History and true crime readers will both appreciate this one.

The Typewriter and the Guillotine by Mark Braude, (List Price: $32.50, Grand Central Publishing, 9781538767115, January 2026)

Reviewed by Amanda, Pearl’s Books in Fayetteville, Arkansas

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Linger by Hetty Lui McKinnon

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Linger by Hetty Lui McKinnon
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I love to sip morning coffee and page through a cookbook looking for dinner inspiration, so when it’s as much fun to READ a cookbook as it is to cook and eat from it, I’m in heaven. Hetty Lui McKinnon’s Linger offers up not just healthy recipes for salads (think both hearty and delicate) and desserts (think healthy and easy) but her tips on making food ahead, entertaining and creating community with food- in a warm and engaging style that will have you trying new things even on weeknights. Bonus! Her daughter has short essays about music and food with accompanying playlists (via QR code).

Linger by Hetty Lui McKinnon, (List Price: $40, Knopf, 9780593804193, October 2025)

Reviewed by Jamie, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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When Trees Testify by Beronda L. Montgomery

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When Trees Testify by Beronda L. Montgomery
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I studied trees for my senior project in undergrad, and I remember the looks I would get when I tried to explain how magical these living beings are. My work explored plant autonomy and the ways humans interpret nature’s agency, but When Trees Testify deepens that understanding in ways I could have never imagined. The book’s poetic assertion that the breath of loved ones can remain alive through scientific processes is an astounding observation. It redefines the boundaries between the human and the natural. It reminds us that our actions are linked to the lives of the ecosystems we shape. When Trees Testify presents trees not as passive organisms, but as active participants—beings with resilience and a shared history.

When Trees Testify by Beronda L. Montgomery, (List Price: $27.99, Henry Holt and Co., 9781250335166, January 2026)

Reviewed by Chloe Strong, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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Mega Milk by Megan Milks

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Mega Milk by Megan Milks
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I’ve never consumed milk. If I did, my throat would close up, and I’d stare down death. Nevertheless, I drank Mega Milk straight from the udder. In a truly brilliant essay collection, Megan Milks takes a few seemingly simple things–a name, a glass of milk–and spirals them outward into a quiet, encompassing portrait of a life. Written with an intimate detail that causes forgotten memories to bubble to the surface, these essays cast a keen and penetrating eye to the small moments that make up a person. I will read and reread Mega Milk for years to come.

Mega Milk by Megan Milks, (List Price: $17.95, The Feminist Press at CUNY, 9781558613584, January 2026)

Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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The Barn by Wright Thompson

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The Barn by Wright Thompson
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This incredible book connects hundreds of dots, centering the murder of Emmett Till in a stream of events, characters and circumstances going all the way back into prehistory. Wright Thompson grew up in the same Mississippi township as Till’s relatives and Till’s murderers, and he is quick to point out how all the local families, white and black alike, have been connected throughout history. Thompson approaches his topic with the eye of an insider while bringing in all the research one would expect of a journalist. One of his central themes is that the tragedy didn’t have to go down like it did—there were inflection points throughout history that could have sent events in a different direction altogether. Thompson does a masterful job of showing how, one social and economic event at a time, the Mississippi Delta came to be ruled by an insular bunch of poor, desperate, white terrorists, who by their actions destroyed the very place and way of life that they were trying so hard to cling to. The tragedy and the irony that are the hallmarks of the Delta’s history drip from every page. Till’s murder, in Thompson’s you-are-there retelling, wasn’t the result of an incident in a store, but rather a product of a cascade of events and circumstances that left Mississippi with a powerless but violence-prone white population who were desperate to subjugate their Black neighbors as a means of making sure they themselves weren’t at the bottom of the social order. I’m in awe of this book. Vivid storytelling, thorough research and interviews, beautiful prose, insights and turns of phrase that I wanted to share with whoever was nearby—a must-read.

The Barn by Wright Thompson, (List Price: $22, Penguin Press, 9780593299845, September 2025)

Reviewed by Amanda Grell, Pearl’s Books in Fayetteville, Arkansas

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Book Buzz: Family of Spies by Christine Keuhn

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Christine Kuehn, photo credit Emily Burkhard“My dad never spoke much about his family growing up. I knew some basics. He had grown up in Hawaii. His Aunt Ruth lived in New York, and his parents had passed. So when he called me and said Aunt Ruth wants to meet you, do you want to go meet her? I was like, so excited. This was like finally a step into my father’s past. We drove to Charleston and went and met my Aunt Ruth and we walked in and she was just this sweet little old lady. We sat and had a great conversation. I was really enjoying getting to know her. And on the coffee table next to where she was sitting, I noticed this wedding picture, and I looked at it. And I’m like, Oh, are those my grandparents? And she nodded, Yes. And I was like, Can you tell me something about them? My father never speaks of them. And she just sat there and didn’t respond. [I asked] Can you tell me anything? How did they meet, when did they get married? And she cut me off and she said, You have a good life. Don’t ruin it with the past.”
  ― Christine Kuehn, Interview, WBUR.org Boston Public Radio

Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn

What booksellers are saying about Family of Spies

  • Family of Spies is mind boggling!! I kept thinking how I would feel finding out these unbelievable and frightening secrets in my family’s past… whew… it made my heart pump harder and faster. And yes, I know it’s not a thriller novel, but it definitely could be. Highly recommended.
      ― Horton’s Books & Gifts in Carrollton , Georgia | BUY

  • Family of Spies is a compulsively readable true story about the German family who spied on Pearl Harbor for the Japanese before the attack and the after effects on their descendants. Author Christine Kuehn discovers the truth about her grandfather after being contacted by a screenwriter. That call led her down a long journey to discover the hidden past of her family, eventually leading her to write this fascinating story. Family of Spies is a very accessible story for anyone and I highly recommend it!
      ― Jennifer Jones, Bookmiser, Inc. Marietta, Georgia | BUY

  • I couldn’t put this book down! What do you do when you discover that your grandparents, aunt, and uncle were Nazis? This is a fascinating story about one family’s involvement with the Nazis and how they helped bring about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. I have a feeling this will be THE non-fiction book of the fall.
      ― Claire McWhorter, River & Hill Books in Rome, Georgia | BUY

  • Wow! So much is packed into under 300 pages. I can’t fathom how someone uncovers the secrets of their grandparents 50 years after some of the very darkest days in the history of our country. There are so many layers to this incredible story. Family, politics, and history make you ride a wave of emotion on every page. Failed espionage and greed factor heavily into the guilt the author understandably didn’t originally want to share. Hoping this never happens again.
      ― Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina | BUY

About Christine Kuehn

Christine Kuehn Schiponi was cocooned in the sanctity of a quiet suburban life when a letter from a historian in 1994 pierced that bubble, sending her on a 30 year quest to discover the truth behind a horrendous family secret kept hidden for half a century. Following a career in journalism, public relations, and non-profit, Christine now lives in Maryland with her husband close to their three grown children.

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