The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Reference

The Book of Difficult Fruit by Kate Lebo

Lovers of early Diane Ackerman, Michael Pollan, and possibly Ruth Reichl will enjoy this collection of alphabetically saluted fruits! Essayist, poet, and pie lady Kate Lebo expertly blends the culinary, medical, and personal in a book of essays, accompanied by recipes that you will probably never use but are fascinating to read! Lebo’s chops both literary and gustatory are fully exercised in this fascinating collection. It’s full of surprises! One page you’ll be drooling and the next will make you nauseous, even fearful for our intrepid explorer of all things fruit. Much of the book is personal and shares some common ground with Cheryl Strayed. Great gift for a young chef, plant lover, or poet!

The Book of Difficult Fruit by Kate Lebo (List Price: $18, Picador, 9780374110321, 4/12/2022)

Reviewed by Kelly Justice, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig

A hug of a book. Koenig pulled me in with the idea of new words, but I kept reading because this book is more about assigning new words to feelings. It’s about how we are not alone in our feelings or alone in the world. By the end you realize you’ve read a philosophical book on living and all that includes. Very encouraging and needed in this time.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig, (List Price: $19.99, Simon & Schuster, 9781501153648, November 2021)

Reviewed by Tanya Corbella, Midtown Reader in Tallahassee, Florida


What’s the Difference? by Brette Warshaw

Many culinary items are similar, but do you know their differences? Such as what is the difference between corned beef and pastrami, or grits and hominy? Told in short chapters, this is a book you can put down and pick back up over and over, and a perfect gift for the foodie in your life.

What’s the Difference? by Brette Warshaw (List Price: $27.99, HarperWave, 9780062996190, June 2021)

Reviewed by Beth Carpenter, The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina

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