Some books entertain you. Some books educate you. And some books grab you by the collar and refuse to let you look away. Demon Copperhead is that third kind. Barbara Kingsolver’s 2022 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel drops the reader into Lee County, Virginia — deep in southern Appalachia — and tells the story of Damon Fields,…
Category: Books
Southern Reads: On Trails
For our January 2026 Book Club selection, we read On Trails, a book that quietly reshapes how you understand movement, land, and the invisible systems that guide both. Robert Moor’s On Trails is not a hiking memoir in the traditional sense, nor is it a straight work of natural history. Instead, it is a slow,…
Southern Reads: All Sinners Bleed
Some Southern novels announce themselves with gothic excess — creaking houses, Spanish moss, and ghosts that refuse to stay buried. All the Sinners Bleed by SA Cosby does something quieter and far more unsettling. It opens in the daylight, in a modern Southern town that looks familiar enough to pass without comment. That familiarity is…
Southern Reads: Southern Stock
There’s a certain kind of book that doesn’t just land in your hands — it lands in your life at precisely the right moment. That’s what happened when I picked up Southern Stock by Gena Elliott this month for our Hidden Pine Lodge Book Club. What I thought would be a good Southern racing novel…
Southern Reads: The Lion and the Fox
Espionage, Ironclads, and the Quiet War That Decided a Nation History has a funny way of spotlighting the generals and forgetting the shadows behind them. But if you want to understand how wars are really won—or lost—you’ve got to look where the cannons weren’t firing. That’s where Alexander Rose takes us in The Lion and…
Southern Reads: Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told
Some stories sound like whiskey-soaked tall tales told over a backroom poker table. This one just happens to be true. The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told by Mark Paul is not your typical memoir. It’s a red-blooded, high-octane, sun-bleached nail-biter. Part underdog sports story, part cartel thriller, and part ode to the gambler’s gut instinct,…
Southern Reads: Heaven, My Home
Sequels are a tricky thing. They carry the weight of expectation, the shadow of their predecessor looming large over every page. Heaven, My Home, the follow-up to Attica Locke’s Bluebird, Bluebird, is a strong novel in its own right, but does it quite match the power and punch of its predecessor? That’s where opinions start…
Southern Reads: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
Grady Hendrix’s Witchcraft for Wayward Girls isn’t your typical horror romp—it’s an experience that challenges you to lean into discomfort and examine your expectations. The premise sets the stage for something atmospheric and unsettling: a group of young women in a 1970s unwed mothers’ home, navigating not only their oppressive circumstances but the unexpected discovery…
Southern Reads: Nothing But The Bones
The Weight of Blood and Redemption: Brian Panowich’s Nothing But the Bones Brian Panowich’s Nothing But the Bones hits the literary landscape like a freight train barreling through the heart of the Southern noir tradition. With his sharp prose and unflinching narrative, Panowich delivers a prequel to his Bull Mountain series that grips readers from…
Southern Reads: The Barn
The barn isn’t just a structure in Wright Thompson’s The Barn. It’s a living, breathing metaphor—creaking under the weight of memory, history, and the ghosts of the South’s sins. It stands as a silent witness, marked by the blood, sweat, and tears of generations past—a stark reminder of the injustices and violence that linger in…