The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Nature & Environment

Spotlight on: North Woods by Daniel Mason

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Daniel Mason, photo credit the author

“You know, even though I’ve – I love writing about nature, I had previously really mostly written about nature as a kind of setting. And this time around, I thought, I want to write about it as a kind of protagonist. What would it be like to treat it like I treat my human characters? And, of course, all the good stuff that makes up the stories that we want to hear about human characters – all the drama, the sex, the violence, the treason – are ones that we can find in the natural world, as well.”
― Daniel Mason, Interview, NPR

North Woods by Daniel Mason

What booksellers are saying about North Woods

  • Daniel Mason’s North Woods is a masterful literary art form exploring the four-hundred-year history of the woods surrounding a particular house in western Massachusetts. Mason uses songs, journals, letters, medical notes, and other techniques to share the lives of those who live, love, suffer, create, and die there. The manner in which this book reveals the life cycles of flora and fauna is lyrical, respectful, and full of wonder and awe. Throughout North Woods humanity shapes and changes the environment, but the natural world very much reveals itself to be omnipotent.
      ― Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia | Buy from Avid Bookshop

  • In times like these, art’s what gets us through. In North Woods, Mason meets us head-on: our fear of change, our place in nature, what it is we owe to the ancestors. It’ll be compared to The Overstory but its similarity to Lincoln in the Bardo ― the stories of those who came before us ― is what it recalls. That said: Mason’s his own man and his own master and doesn’t really need to be compared to anyone at all. He sits, at the top of the mountain, with the those to whom we give our eternal thanks for books we love.
      ― Erica Eisdorfer, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina | Buy from Flyleaf Books

  • Majestic and sprawling and a grand ol’ adventure through time of one singular, special place starring as the ultimate main character with deep ties that bind these stories into one. Incredible.
      ― Jill Naylor from Novel in Memphis, TN | Buy from Novel.

  • I read Daniel Mason’s book, North Woods, on a trip across the country. In the car, when I finished the last page, I turned to my husband and said, “Oh my gosh—I’ve got to start reading this again immediately!” Spanning around 400 years of inhabitants of a house in Massachusetts, this novel is haunting and haunted. Mason makes use of many literary forms, including the loveliest poetry and epistolary writing, to tell the story of the intertwined lives of the people who lived in the yellow house with the orchard of Wonder apples.
      ― Mamie Potter from Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, NC | Buy from Quail Ridge Books

About Daniel Mason

Daniel Mason is the author of The Piano Tuner, A Far Country, The Winter Soldier, and A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His work has been translated into twenty-eight languages, adapted for opera and the stage, and awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, the California Book Award, the Northern California Book Award, and a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His short stories and essays have been awarded two Pushcart Prizes, a National Magazine Award, and an O. Henry Prize. He is an assistant professor in the Stanford University department of psychiatry.

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The Free People’s Village by Sim Kern

In an alternate 2020, in which Al Gore once won the presidency and Democrats have held court for 20 years…we still live in an economically and racially unjust, imperialist, carceral state (now with more greenwashing!), and teacher and punk band guitarist Maddie Ryan finds herself and her community forever changed when she stands against the building of a new hyperway through the Black 8th Ward she’s inadvertently helped gentrify and gets swept up in a revolution. Achingly real, bitterly funny, and deeply moving, The Free People’s Village is a commentary, both compassionate and cutting, on the woke white activist’s journey and, above all, a full-throated ode to resistance and the found family that fuels it.

The Free People’s Village by Sim Kern, (List Price: $26.99, Levine Querido, 9781646142668, September 2023)

Reviewed by Megan Bell, Underground Books in Carrollton, Georgia

At the Edge of the Woods by Kathryn Bromwich

Out of necessity, Laura has chosen to live a simpler, yet, courageous life in a secluded, rustic cabin in the woods on the outskirts of an Italian village. Necessity turns into a reorganization of priorities, which I wholly admire, as Laura shares her thoughts with the reader on living with nature, interacting with others, and what it means to survive. Beautiful.

At the Edge of the Woods by Kathryn Bromwich, (List Price: 26, Two Dollar Radio, 9781953387318, June 2023)

Reviewed by Jill Naylor, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

The Nature Book by Tom Comitta

A deftly experimental book that seeks to portray a world sans humans, Nature Book borrows from a history of rich, descriptive prose to reconstruct the cycles of days, seasons, and migrations as they continue quiet and unobserved, separate from human society. And yet, human description and literary convention make up the entirety of this story! This beautifully avant garde novel from an organic and unfettered nonbinary perspective is an awe-inducing teleportation into a beautiful cosmos and a rapidly changing climate as captured throughout the history of literature. Great for reading piecemeal or overwhelmingly all at once.

The Nature Book by Tom Comitta, (List Price: $17.95, Coffee House Press, 9781566896634, March 2023)

Reviewed by Amanda Depperschmidt, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

Spotlight on: The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

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I think that re-wilding is an extraordinary thing, desirable perhaps, to see nature reclaiming itself. Southern Florida was and would like to be a swamp, you know? And yet we’ve dredged it and drained it and built on top of that. And so much of city management in a place like Miami is trying to keep that boundary between what the landscape wants to do and what the city wants the land to do – bridge it. And so to me, the idea of softening that boundary and trying to be a little harmonious is a good thing.” ―Lily Brooks-Dalton, Interview, Texas Public Radio

 

The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

What booksellers are saying about The Light Pirate

  • Wanda is born in the middle of a devastating hurricane that claims two of her family members and frays the edges of a fragile environment. Set in Florida, we see Wanda grow into a young adult while the only place she has ever known as home becomes a victim of climate change. Brooks-Dalton shows us the crumbling of civilization and the strength of one person’s determination to find beauty in the loss. Wanda’s story asks us to see both magic and hope in an uncertain future.
      ―Mary Jane Michels from Fiction Addiction in Greenville, SC | Buy from Fiction Addiction

  • Ethereal and haunting, The Light Pirate tells the story of Wanda, who is born on the day that the hurricane that she was named after rips through Florida, leaving devastation in its wake. A meditation of what’s to become of our landscape and livelihood, and how we survive when everything is stripped away. I can’t wait to recommend The Light Pirate to fans of Emily St John Mandel, Lydia Millet, and Climate Fiction readers.
      ―Jessica Nock from Main Street Books in Davidson, NC | Buy from Main Street Books

  • An essential read, especially for those of us making our home in Florida. Tragic but hopeful and completely enthralling. highly recommends.
      ―Emily Berg from Books & Books in Coral Gables, FL | Buy from Books and Books

  • In a novel that mirrors the latest news about the urgency of our environment, Lily Brooks-Dalton takes the reader to a terrible end place. Kirby Lowe and his heavily pregnant wife and two sons are about to be hit by another hurricane in their small town in Florida. Wanda is born into this weather crisis, and we watch her whole life as weather patterns and rising sea levels take away the life we all have known. Bioluminescence plays a part as large as Phyllis—the survivalist who finds she was right all along. This novel will leave the reader breathless, turning pages while hoping life and love will survive.
      ―Nancy Pierce from Bookmiser, Inc. in Marietta, GA | Buy from Bookmiser

About Lily Brooks-Dalton

Lily Brooks-Dalton’s novel, Good Morning, Midnight (Random House, 2016), has been translated into 17 languages and is the inspiration for the film adaptation, The Midnight Sky. Her memoir, Motorcycles I’ve Loved (Riverhead, 2014), was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

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The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

A 2022 December Read This Next! Title

What happens when nature isn’t natural? When in the end, Climate Change is unstoppable? Lily Brooks-Dalton renders a shockingly real depiction of this possibility in the harrowing and beautiful novel, The Light Pirate. Florida’s struggle with the aftermath of violent weather has always been a reality, but in this story, the rapidly changing landscape overwhelms the will and stamina of most human beings. Wanda, who was born during, and named after, a particularly vicious hurricane, frequently navigates a new, storm-carved home as the Florida coast shifts and neighborhoods are swallowed by wind, water, and human dereliction. Wanda adapts as nature does, to a strange new world–one dependent not on human infrastructure–but on that which matters most in the end: humility, kindness and bravery. This story is important. This story could happen. This story is happening. A must-read.

The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton (List Price: $28, Grand Central Publishing, 9781538708279, December 2022)

Reviewed by Laura Simcox, Sunrise Books in High Point, North Carolina

Spotlight on: Lark Ascending by Silas House

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Silas House Photo Credit C. Williams

I think The Lark Ascending, by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is one of the greatest pieces of music to ever be created. I cannot listen to it without tearing up. I listened to it the entire time I was writing the novel and the book is my interpretation of it. The composition is a journey, sonically. It captures flight, and it is full of both sorrow and joy, grief and hope, so it was the perfect soundtrack for this book that was centering on those themes. To me, it is a transcendent piece of music, and I hope that readers will seek it out while reading the novel. I’ve already created a playlist for the novel, containing all the music that was important to me while I wrote the book. ” ―Silas House, Interview, Still Journal

 

Lark Ascending by Silas House

What booksellers are saying about Lark Ascending

  • I passed this on to one of good customers who is a huge Silas House fan knowing she would much eloquent than I, and, boy was I right. Here’s what she said “You read other dystopian novels and think, “that could never happen.” You read Lark Ascending and you see that it could. I hope this novel gets the attention it deserves. Lark Ascending could save us ―Pete Mock from McIntyre’s Books in Pittsboro, North Carolina
    Buy from McIntyre’s Books

  • The urgency of the opening chapters is breathtaking, and then the source of it is laid bare: this is the imagined not-so-distant future resulting from the chaos and painful transformational change similar to what we’re going through right now in our world. The young man, the dog and the older woman at the center of the story are trying to survive in a world on fire, one burning to the ground with fire and hatred. Each choice they make – big and small – may cost them their lives, or someone else’s. A haunting story, one that makes you really think about the trajectory of our collective lives. I couldn’t put it down!
      ―Cathy Graham from Copperfish Books in Punta Gorda, Florida
    Buy from Copperfish Books

  • Set in a near future that seems to be closer and closer to becoming a reality, Lark Ascending follows Lark as he survives ordeal after ordeal. As harrowing as Lark’s story is, Silas House manages to imbue it with humanity and hope. This is a story that will stick with you for a long time.  ―Chelsea Bauer from Union Ave Books in Knoxville, Tennesse
    Buy from Union Ave Books

About Silas House

Silas House is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, one book of creative nonfiction, and three plays. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the AdvocateTimeGarden & Gun, and other publications. A former commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered, House is the winner of the Nautilus Award, the Storylines Prize from the NAV/New York Public Library, an E. B. White Honor, and many other awards.

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The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott

Arnott’s writing evokes the deep anxiety that can only be touched by the power and quiet, terrifying fury of nature. The Rain Heron is a contemporary mythos and environmental dystopian, with talons.

The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott (List Price: $16, FSG Originals, 9780374539306, 2/9/2021)

Reviewed by Cat Chapman, Oxford Exchange in Tampa, Florida

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