The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Adult Nonfiction

Lawless by Leah Litman

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Lawless by Leah Litman
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Leah Littman of Crooked Media takes the post-Warren Supreme Court and explains just exactly how they run on “conservative grievance, fringe theories, and bad vibes.” Using pop culture analogies at times, Littman compares the court to Mean Girls, Game of Thrones, and Arrested Development. If you’re looking for a book that clearly states exactly how we got to where we are today, this is absolutely the book for you.

Lawless by Leah Litman, (List Price: $29.99, Atria / One Signal Publishers, 9781668054628, May 2025)

Reviewed by Jennifer Jones, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia

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What Is Queer Food? by John Birdsall

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What Is Queer Food? by John Birdsall
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John Birdsall is the winner of two James Beard awards for food and culture writing and the author of The Many Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard (which I also devoured!!). Focused on the European and American food scenes starting in the late 19th century. Birdsall deftly combines food writing and cultural history in this book he was born to write. Swinging by the tables of Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Alice B. Toklas, and others, we are shown the intersections between fashion, music, art, and food. It’s deliciously dishy, but also deeply substantive. If I could give Michelin stars to a book, I would give this 3 stars! (That’s the most you can give, btw).

What Is Queer Food? by John Birdsall, (List Price: $29.99, W. W. Norton & Company, 9781324073796, June 2025)

Reviewed by Kelly Justice, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li

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Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
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A transcendent work that I’ll be thinking about forever. A book about living–applying precision to life’s formless mysteries, chiseling them out–much more than a book about grief. An act of generosity and courage, undertaken with breathtaking intelligence.

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li, (List Price: $26, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 9780374617318, May 2025)

Reviewed by Kristen Iskandrian, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama

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Sharks Don’t Sink by Jasmin Graham

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Sharks Don't Sink by Jasmin Graham
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Such an entertaining and important memoir. Not only does Jasmin pack the book with super interesting shark facts, she also talks about important issues – racism, sexism, workplace and educational abuse, marine conservation, and mental health. The ways in which she describes her experiences (good and bad) and how they sometimes relate to sharks, is so poetic.

Sharks Don’t Sink by Jasmin Graham, (List Price: $18, Vintage, 9780593685273, July 2025)

Reviewed by Stephanie StJohn, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

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Forest Euphoria by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian

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Forest Euphoria by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian
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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.

Forest Euphoria by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, (List Price: $30, Spiegel & Grau, 9781954118904, May 2025)

Reviewed by Hannah DeCamp, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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You Gotta Eat by Margaret Eby

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You Gotta Eat by Margaret Eby
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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!

You Gotta Eat by Margaret Eby, (List Price: $19.99, Quirk Books, 9781683694427, November 2024)

Reviewed by Kim Baldwin, Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee

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Cry for Me, Argentina by Tamara Yajia

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Cry for Me, Argentina by Tamara Yajia
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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.

Cry for Me, Argentina by Tamara Yajia, (List Price: $26.99, Bloomsbury Publishing, 9781639733910, July 2025)

Reviewed by Emily Liner, Friendly City Books in Columbus, Mississippi

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Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green

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Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green
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Confession: Until less than a decade ago, I thought TB was an illness of the past, an affliction that no longer debilitated or killed in any significant way. Wrong. It took having a friend with deep expertise in TB for me to learn that millions are impacted and/or killed by TB (even if in the US, we’re sheltered from it). It took John Green‘s book for me to begin to grasp the magnitude and urgency of the situation. This is an exceptional book.

Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green, (List Price: $28, Crash Course Books, 9780525556572, March 2025)

Reviewed by Janet Geddis, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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The Dry Season by Melissa Febos

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The Dry Season by Melissa Febos
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Truly, everyone should read this book. I’m happy that it found me in this moment of my life. As Melissa Febos travels back through an inventory of her past relationships, each section imparted so much on me as I considered my own relationship to sex and love. There is a delicious sort of ache in each chapter as she reflects on personal desire and the things we deny ourselves for the sake of those we love. In the same way that you shouldn’t scarf down a decadent meal, I could not push myself to read this book quickly. I savored and reflected on each chapter. She teaches the reader so much, using her own story as a guide to pull me in and point me towards histories of powerful women (beguines, mystics, writers) I hadn’t yet considered. I am left satisfied and inspired.

The Dry Season by Melissa Febos, (List Price: $29, Knopf, 9780593537237, June 2025)

Reviewed by Alyssa Sotelo, Tombolo Books in St Petersburg, Florida

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It’s Only Drowning by David Litt

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It's Only Drowning by David Litt
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This is about so much more than surfing! It’s about family and friendship and how we move through this world together, despite our differences! Love it!

It’s Only Drowning by David Litt, (List Price: $29.99, Gallery Books, 9781668035351, June 2025)

Reviewed by Laura Taylor, Oxford Exchange in Tampa, Florida

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A Flower Traveled in My Blood by Haley Cohen Gilliland

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A Flower Traveled in My Blood by Haley Cohen Gilliland
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A Flower Traveled in My Blood is the masterful account of the Abuelas of Plaza de Mayo: women in Argentina whose children were “disappeared” by the brutal dictatorship in the mid-1970s, and whose grandchildren were stolen. The story is remarkable in many ways – not just for the tenacity of the grandmothers, who refused to give up on their missing families, but also for the way in which their struggle helped further international law and science, most notably in DNA identification. Blending painstaking research with a nuanced exploration of family ties, identity, and memory, A Flower Traveled in My Blood is heartbreaking, complex, and utterly enthralling.

A Flower Traveled in My Blood by Haley Cohen Gilliland, (List Price: $30, Gilliland, Haley Cohen, 9781668017142, July 2025)

Reviewed by Jude Burke-Lewis, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi

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Murderland by Caroline Fraser

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Murderland by Caroline Fraser
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In this freewheeling braided memoir/true crime/environmental expose Pulitzer Prize winner Fraser builds a damning case, harsh detail by harsh detail, that the 70’s & 80’s serial killer zenith (think Ted Bundy, Green River Killer, Night Stalker) was, in part, caused by environmental pollution which poisoned millions but warped some young men into infamy. Not for the faint of heart, this book scares and infuriates in equal measure.

Murderland by Caroline Fraser, (List Price: $32, Penguin Press, 9780593657225, June 2025)

Reviewed by Sam Miller, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky

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The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey

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The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey
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I was once graced the chance to go behind the scenes of a city aquarium and surprise-allowed to hand feed a shark. Noticing my hesitation, the friend-of-a-friend who got us “backstage” assured me I was totally safe: just hold the food a certain way, as once the shark’s eyes break the waterline they are near-to-completely blind. I don’t know why this fact dazzled me, as my vision also goes all weird below the waterline, but it stuck with me. The bifurcated-’n’-flipped novella/biography The Möbius Book gives us the above/below-the-waterline view into an epic point in Catherine Lacey’s life, but is also a wonderfully entertaining example of the Where’s-Waldo-ness of any author’s personal life hiding in plain sight within their fictions. And CL’s “shark” story is way more jaw-droppingly interesting.

The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey, (List Price: $27, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 9780374615406, June 2025)

Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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We Might Just Make It After All by Elyce Arons

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We Might Just Make It After All by Elyce Arons
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I found myself smiling as I read We Might Just Make It After All by Elyce Arons. It was fun to get an inside look at her beautiful friendship with Kate Spade and the story of how they teamed up to build such a successful company. It’ll make you want to do two things: hug your best friend and go buy a really great Kate Spade handbag.

We Might Just Make It After All by Elyce Arons, (List Price: $28.99, Gallery Books, 9781668069073, June 2025)

Reviewed by Barb Rascon, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina

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