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12 Southern Novels That Will Knock Your Boots Off

I always get homesick for my North Carolina hometown at this time of year. There’s nothing like a Southern summer with long lake days, surprise thunderstorms, lightning bugs, homemade Butterfinger ice cream, country music concerts, and nights at the drive-in theater. Here are the 12 books I’m reading for a dash of Southern comfort until my next trip home.

An immersive and breathtaking work of historical fiction, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PERSIMMON WILSON follows the epic journey of a slave who travels from a brutal New Orleans sugar plantation to the Texas frontier in search of his lost love and his own identity. This novel is perfect for readers who love COLD MOUNTAIN and THE INVENTION OF WINGS .

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By Taylor Noel | July 17, 2018

Despite swearing to never set foot back in the small Southern town of Peachtree Bluff, Caroline Murphy returns home after her marriage falls apart. Caroline's sisters soon join her in their childhood home and their mother, Ansley, begins to feel overwhelmed by her adult children. Then someone from Ansley's past shows up and the secret she's kept from her daughters for years might finally be exposed.

The 10 Most Popular Books That Captured Our Hearts This September

By Off the Shelf Staff | September 30, 2020

The 10 Most Popular Books We Added to Our TBR This August

By Off the Shelf Staff | August 31, 2020

7 Sunny Reads That Will Transform Your Reading Nook into a Beach Oasis

By Holly Claytor | August 12, 2020

Set in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina in 1929 and inspired by actual events, THE LAST BALLAD chronicles an ordinary woman's struggle for her dignity and rights in a textile mill. This lyrical novel also brings to life the forgotten struggle of the labor movement in early twentieth-century America, and pays tribute to the thousands of heroic women and men who risked their lives to win basic rights for all workers.

And the winner of most fitting title goes to SOUTHERNMOST—a stunning novel about judgment, courage, heartbreak, and chance. After a flood washes away a small Tennessee town, an evangelical preacher offers shelter to two gay men and risks losing everything: his religiously prejudiced wife, his unaccepting congregation, and his young son caught in the middle of a custody battle.

Grab a glass of sweet tea and hunker down with this gorgeous novel set in rural Georgia during the Depression and Prohibition eras. After two babies-one with light brown skin, the other dark-are born to Elma, a white sharecropper's daughter, a black field hand is accused of having raped her and is murdered. In the years that follow, as Elma begins the difficult task of raising her babies, everyone on the farm is forced to contend with the actions that led to this man's death.

9 Historical Novels That Offer New Perspectives of Our World

By Erin Madison | April 2, 2018

In this enchanting story set on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe captures the complex relationships between Dora, Carson, and Harper, three half-sisters scattered across the country—and a grandmother determined to help them rediscover their family bonds. Truths are revealed, mistakes are forgiven, and precious connections are made that will endure long beyond one summer.

Three sisters reunite on Sullivan’s Island off the coast of South Carolina after years of separation in this first installment of the Lowcountry Summer trilogy. Fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Dorothea Benton Frank will be charmed by this heartwarming series that explores the depths and complexities of sisterhood, friendship, and forgiveness.

13 Oceanfront Books to Tide You Over Until Your Next Beach Vacation

By Erin Madison | June 8, 2017

14 Books You Need in Your Summer Beach Bag

By Off the Shelf Staff | June 7, 2016

Girl Crazy: 15 Literary Ladies You’ll Want to Know

By Aimee Boyer | March 29, 2016

Celebrate Summer With Off the Shelf!

By Off the Shelf Staff | June 25, 2015

I've always loved the idea of living on an orchard. It seems so romantic to me. But life isn't that simple for Janie, the keeper of an orchard in Elberta, Alabama. As the world closes in on Elberta and threatens to destroy it, Janie tells the story of its people: her granddaddy who was determined to preserve the town's legacy at any cost, his wife whose sudden death throws everything into chaos, the black orchardist harvesting in a white locality where he is not welcome.

I'll read anything James McBride writes, and SONG YET SUNG is no exception. It's a rich, deeply affecting story about a runaway slave whose escape sets loose a chain of dramatic events among slave catchers, plantation owners, watermen, other runaway slaves, and free blacks. This is a novel about tragic triumph, violent decisions, and unexpected kindness.

Read Around America: 14 Superb Books That Span the States

By Off the Shelf Staff | July 2, 2021

In 1939 Memphis, Rill Foss and her four sisters are wrenched from their happy family life and thrown into a cruel orphanage. In present-day South Carolina, Avery Stafford's perfect life is disrupted when a chance encounter compels her to take a journey through her family's long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption. This is Southern historical fiction at its finest, and is actually based on one of America's most notorious real-life scandals.

SOIL is a darkly comic novel about an ambitious environmental scientist who moves his family to Mississippi to pursue his dream of cultivating new and progressive agriculture. But things don't pan out as Jay expects and he suffers financial ruin within a year. Then, a dead body appears on his farm and Jay is convinced he's being framed for murder. Drawing on elements of classic Southern noir, dark comedy, and modern dysfunction, SOIL is about the gravitational pull of one man's apocalypse and the hope that maybe, just maybe, he can be reeled in from the brink.

Tell About the South: 11 Southern Gothic Tales You Need to Read

By Kerry Fiallo | May 14, 2019

Set aboard a nineteenth century riverboat theater, this is the moving, page-turning story of a charmingly frank and naive seamstress who is blackmailed into saving runaways on the Underground Railroad, jeopardizing her freedom, her livelihood, and a new love.

FLYING SHOES is the stunning debut novel from Lisa Howorth, the cofounder of Square Books in Oxford Mississippi. It's based on the unsolved case of Howorth's stepbrother. An honest and luminous portrait of a particular time and place in the South, FLYING SHOES is the story of a reluctant woman forced to revisit her stepbrother's murder when a detective calls her 30 years later.

Want more Southern Lit? Here are 12 Overlooked Novels with Southern Roots

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Eight Books That Explain the South

The southern travelogue is a genre with a long history. These examples helped me write my own.

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For more than a century, readers have been fascinated by the American South, a place where the dialects remain distinct, raconteurs abound (I’ve never met a southerner who can’t tell at least one good story), and American music is rooted. Their interest is rewarded by the many books written over the decades about traveling to, or through, the region. Though its tone and scope have changed over time, that genre consistently focuses on the particularity of the area: its cultural beauty, its idiosyncrasies, the poverty of many of its people, and the cruelty of its racial regime.

My most recent book, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation , a hybrid work mixing history, travelogue, creative nonfiction, and personal discovery, is part of this tradition. I invite readers to reconsider the South along with me, and to confront its centrality in the building and being of the United States. Any honest rendering of who we are as a nation requires us to understand how much of our national abundance has depended on southern land and labor, and how many of our tastes and pleasures have depended on southern folk.

Because I am not the first to move through this history, place, and genre, the following list includes some of the titles that most affected me and shaped my writing. These authors employed various forms: fiction, scholarship, history, and poetry. Some found their voice while going to or departing from the South. I cherish these works as models because they are not simply depictions of the landscape or those who live there, but artistic and philosophical explorations as well. They each push the boundaries of literature, using the vivacity of southern culture as both context and inspiration.

Read: In the Black South, you’re always considered

Old Creole Days , by George Washington Cable

Cable was a writer, a social critic, and a New Orleans native. In his work, including this 1879 debut collection of stories, he walks readers through the streets of New Orleans, unspooling the city’s history and culture. After he took a strong position against Jim Crow, notably in the 1885 essay “The Freedman’s Case in Equity,” Cable was forced to leave home and became an exile in Massachusetts. But he continued to write about Louisiana for the next three decades, paying particular notice to the intimate cultural connections among African, Indigenous, and European people despite the restrictions of segregation. Old Creole Days , written while he was still in Louisiana, hums with loving observations about Cable’s home. For the rest of his career, he would masterfully blend his careful and respectful attention to the South, even from afar, with probing social critique.

The Souls of Black Folk , by W. E. B. Du Bois

Du Bois’s classic 1903 essay collection remains arguably the single most influential text in African American studies. Du Bois was a renaissance intellectual and a “race man”—an early-20th-century term of art for one who dedicated his extraordinary gifts to the cause of racial justice. Du Bois spent decades studying inequality while advocating for colonized and racially subjugated people. Born in Massachusetts, he first made his way south in adulthood when he attended Fisk University, in Nashville. The Souls of Black Folk , his work of appeal on behalf of Black Americans living under the long shadow of a Jim Crow society, is a multi-genre text that draws on music, economics, labor analysis, social history, and pedagogy. In particular, his chapters on Atlanta and Georgia’s Black Belt are remarkable for their accounts of the differences between the urban and rural South, as is his critical assessment of how land and commerce are integral to the American construction of races.

Chad Williams: Du Bois gave voice to pain and promise

Southern Road , by Sterling A. Brown

Brown, a celebrated blues poet, was a professor at Howard University for 40 years, where he taught literary figures such as Toni Morrison , Amiri Baraka, and Stokely Carmichael (before he was known as Kwame Ture). In this 1932 collection, the “southern roads” that lead him across states and into creative, resilient rural communities become fodder for his poems about folk characters and stories. Through Southern Road , Brown argued that southern culture was in fact still vibrant, despite claims from many of his peers that it was on its last legs. Careful listening and learning allowed Brown to praise the vitality, voice, and imagination of working people.

Mules and Men , by Zora Neale Hurston

Educated at Howard and Columbia, Hurston was an anthropologist and one of the nation’s most influential chroniclers of Black southern and Caribbean culture, as well as an extraordinary writer of fiction . Hurston was born in Alabama and came of age in the incorporated Black town of Eatonville, Florida. Her 1935 ethnographic collection, Mules and Men , is a written compilation of the African American folklore of that town, neighboring Polk County, Florida, and New Orleans. Despite her positioning, Hurston was no imperial scholar. Instead, she appears in the book as a participant observer who speaks the language of her subjects and places herself in the action—in one instance, she becomes a contestant in a toe pageant—to captivating effect. Hurston’s methodological irreverence, combined with her diligent research methods, leaves us with an important documentation of Black folkways.

Read: Zora Neale Hurston teaches Angela Flournoy how to write

The Southern Mystique , by Howard Zinn

Before he was known as the leftist social historian behind A People’s History of the United States , Howard Zinn, a Jewish man from Brooklyn, wrote a book describing his experiences working as an activist in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the civil-rights era. He details the complex social relationships that existed across the color line, while simultaneously rejecting the idea that racism was a uniquely southern affliction. Instead, he writes, when it came to race, the differences between North and South were of degree rather than kind. Zinn’s book reveals that even someone who might have been considered an “outside agitator” could make astute observations about life below the Mason-Dixon.

South to a Very Old Place , by Albert Murray

A close friend of influential artists such as Romare Bearden and Ralph Ellison, Murray was a groundbreaking music critic and novelist in his own right who experimented with form and style. Born in Alabama, Murray settled in Harlem in 1962. For South to a Very Old Place , however, he returned home, traveling to multiple southern cities and towns. He noted that though the civil-rights movement had changed the South in some ways, many of its traditional rituals, sensibilities, and habits were sustained: The color line remained, but so did intimacy across its border. While Hurston, among others, consistently traced the connections among Black cultures throughout the diaspora to their roots in West Africa, Murray made the case that the United States was deeply influenced by Black people and that Black Americans were fundamentally American. Much of the text takes issue with the cultural nationalism associated with the Black Power movement; he also rejects the designation African American . Though our politics aren’t aligned, Murray’s crotchety, insightful arguments directly inspired my own title and framing. I, too, moved about the South, grappling with my own relationship to the place and finding exceptional beauty and imagination—notwithstanding all the wounds.

The Evidence of Things Not Seen , James Baldwin

This book chronicles one of James Baldwin’s literary and literal forays into the South. In 1972, with the publication of No Name in the Street , Baldwin depicted his travels to cities such as Birmingham and Washington, D.C., as a sort of pilgrimage to his homeland while it was in social upheaval; fear and inspiration met him there. More than a decade later, he went to Georgia to report on the Atlanta child murders of 1979–81. Echoing Du Bois some 82 years earlier, he found a unique city, distinguished by its striving and stratification. In the text, a multipart essay, Baldwin despairs over the unfinished business of the civil-rights movement. He encounters a city devastated by the murders of Black children and maps the shifting grounds of Black experience at a time after the laws opening up doors had been passed, but economic and social barriers to equality remained.

Read: James Baldwin was right all along

A Turn in the South , by V. S. Naipaul

In the late 1980s, Naipaul turned his gaze away from his native Trinidad and ancestral India to the American South. He was not known for sensitivity to the politics of race in the Caribbean, or for an appreciation of Black diasporic cultures—Naipaul could be cutting in his assessments of the politics and economy of the Caribbean while also keeping himself at a distance as an Indo-Trinidadian. But his willingness to listen attentively to southerners, Black and white, and to trace a sense of belonging connected to land, ritual, and narrative, leads to a fascinating portrait of a place that he doesn’t know. He notes, for example, the resonances in language and musicality that the region shares with his own nation. He exposes how white southerners embraced the Confederacy and how some African Americans preferred the more honest racism of the South to the covert but no less intense racial animus of the North. And, crucially, he grasps why, for African Americans, a brutal setting could also be called “down home.”

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36 Deep-Fried Delish Southern Books And Writers

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Are you looking for some of the best Southern books and writers? Find classic and contemporary Southern novels, historical fiction, romance, literature, and so much more.

As native New Englanders who moved to Florida and then North Carolina, we could not imagine a better way to acclimate with the South than through Southern books.

Actually, first, we ate all of the deep-fried pickles and fried green tomatoes.  Hushpuppies are Southern too, right ? 

Then, we read some of the most famous Southern authors and their books about the South. We wanted to know: what is the South really about?

We also asked friends, librarians, teachers, bookstagrammers, and other bloggers for the best books set in the South that would transport us there and teach us more.

Equally, what were their favorite or best Southern books of all time?

Below, find Southern novels including romances, nonfiction, indie, YA, thrillers, and mysteries. 

Discover books about Southern culture, and find historical and gothic fiction that will transport you to a different time in history.

Please remember that the “best” books about the South is also subjective, and we’d love to hear your favorites in the comments. Let’s get started!

Read around America with our 50 States Book List .

P.S. Find some of these books about the South here:

• Audible Plus : From Amazon, listen to Amazon Originals, podcasts, and audiobooks. They add new titles every week.
• Book of the Month : Get the month’s hottest new and upcoming titles from Book of the Month. You might snag an early release or debut author. Along with selecting a book a month, find terrific add-ons, both trendy and lesser-known titles.
• Amazon Prime Video – Stream thousands of ad-free movies and TV series on demand with Prime Video.

What We Recommend

Most Talked About Contemporary Southern Books

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

One of the best books of 2020 and a strong book about sisters , The Vanishing Half  follows the lives of two Black sisters growing up in the Deep South.

The Vignes twins each choose a different path based on the color of their skin, embracing or denying who they are.

An intensely poignant and authentic novel about race and racism — set in Louisiana and California in the 1950s to 1990s — readers see just how deeply these mothers’ choices and feelings affect their lives and influence their children.

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

If you are looking for fictional books set in the south that read like nonfiction, don’t skip Transcendent Kingdom .

A book about racism, mental health, and science versus faith and religion, follow a family of Ghanaian immigrants living in Alabama.

Their lives are filled with depression and prescription pill addiction. A med student at Stanford, Gifty studies addiction within mice hoping to help her mother. She also tries to reconcile her belief in God. 

You can also read more about Transcendent Kingdom on our books set in and about Ghana reading list .

Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

One of the most talked-about southern books of 2018, Where The Crawdads Sing  topped all of the bestselling book charts.

Set in rural North Carolina, follow along with this coming-of-age story and shocking southern murder mystery.

Kya Clark, the “marsh girl,” is accused of the murder of Chase Andrews.  However, not everything is as it seems.

Discover the meaning of love and how to overcome a prejudiced society and the loneliness from that isolation.

In 2022, Where The Crawdads Sing was adapted into a movie . 

An American Marriage by Tayri Jones

An Oprah Book Club suggestion, readers follow along with newly married Celestial and Roy.  Unfortunately, the honeymoon ends early. 

Arrested and sent to jail for a crime he did not commit, Celestial loses her husband for what could be over a decade.

During that time, Celestial seeks comfort in Roy’s best man just as his sentence is suddenly shortened.  When circumstances are out of our hands, will the institution of marriage, love, and vows prevail?

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

Reminiscent of  Little Fires Everywhere  meets  Romeo and Juliet , the wealthy and white Whitman family moves into close-knit Oak Knoll, North Carolina, destroying the neighborhood.

The war waged is about way more than killing Valerie’s beloved tree, though.

Find one of the most gripping and heartbreaking Southern novels about racism, corruption, and men abusing power.

A Good Neighborhood  is also the perfect North Carolina novel for book clubs .

Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby

One of the best books set in the South from 2021, head to Virginia in Razorblade Tears .

This is a gripping and violent story about a Black father and a white father who become friends to seek revenge on the people responsible for killing their married sons.

Both Ike Randolph and Buddy Lee are ex-cons. They’ve been ashamed and unaccepting that their sons are gay.

Unfortunately, all were on bad terms when their sons were brutally murdered in front of their favorite wine shop.

The police don’t have many leads, and all that the families have left are Derek and Isaiah’s young daughter. Who would want to kill these law-abiding, community-oriented, and kind young men?

Although Buddy Lee and Ike have been trying to do their best since prison, their grief and guilt (and old habits) are far too powerful; they vow to find their sons’ murderers and kill them.

Thus begins a bloody road filled with gang violence, retribution, and self-growth.

Thought-provoking and fast-paced, this complicated story will engross you, break your heart, and smash assumptions. Talk about the ultimate friendship book too.

There are many TWs, including violence, homophobia, transphobia, alcoholism, abuse, and racism. 

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Southern book recommendation from Lindsey from To Make Much of Time

Winner of the National Book Award in 2017, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward explores one Gulf Coast Mississippi family’s struggle to survive.

The world is working against this family in many aspects: The socio-economic challenges of the rural south, racism, drug abuse, and the gaping maw left by absentee fathers.

Thirteen-year-old Jojo is at the epicenter of all of these factors.  Trying to make sense of the world as he comes of age, he fears the impending loss of his grandmother.

The characters are heartbreakingly real, and Ward adds a fascinating dimension of magical realism through the inclusion of deceased characters and other supernatural events.

Uncover even more ghost books to read.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Southern book submission from bookstagrammer, Jennia

The unconventional Bigtrees are as much of an attraction as their moldering, gator-centered, family-run amusement park.

The clan soon faces an uncertain future, both for themselves and their beloved park when star-of-the-show and mother Hilola succumbs to ovarian cancer.

The three adolescent children and their father scatter like seeds in the wind, each one embarking on an implausible journey filled with struggle and revelation.

The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson

Southern books submission from Rachel of Never Enough Novels

The Almost Sisters is a quirky southern novel featuring deep family ties, race relations, nerd culture, and an unsolved murder.

Leia returns to Alabama to take care of her aging grandmother and tell her family about her unexpected pregnancy.

When she discovers a family secret hidden in the attic, the discovery unleashes a torrent of consequences for the whole town.

The Almost Sisters has a multitude of storylines, but Jackson does an incredible job tying them all together. It’s humorous, thought-provoking, and ultimately a novel you’ll want to read more than once.

Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore

One of the hardest Southern books to digest on this reading list, meet 5 different women in Odessa, Texas in the mid-1970s.

All of these women are deeply affected by the brutal attack of Gloria, a young Mexican girl. Watch poverty, racism, abandonment, and a failed justice system at its worst.

The Removed by Brandon Hobson

A somber and moving 2021 book release set in Oklahoma, Hobson weaves a tale of Cherokee folklore and family in a powerful story about family, addiction, home, and grief.

Readers also get a glimpse into the painful and brutal ‘removal’ and murder of Cherokee families from their homes by white soldiers.

When a racist police officer kills Ray-Ray, the Echota family is never the same. With a father who battles Alzheimer’s, they take in a foster child while their own adult children are lost in and to the world.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

One of the most talked-about vampire books set in South Carolina, don’t miss The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix.

This Southern book comes with content and trigger warnings for domestic abuse, suicide, violence, and sexual assault.

Patricia wishes for more excitement in her life, especially after reading true crime stories for her book club.

It doesn’t help that she and her friends are deemed skittish, hysterical, and weak Southern housewives by their deplorable husbands.

When members of the community – including young children – start disappearing and taking their own lives, all clues point to the new guy in town.

“Patricia has reason to believe James Harris is more of a Bundy than a Brad Pitt.”

Unfortunately, proving that James is a vampire sounds impossible, especially when he’s bringing all of their families great wealth. He is a guy’s guy, and the husbands love him.

James is cocky AF and never sated, though, which might be his downfall. Not all of the women will come out alive, but can Patricia save her family?

For thrilling books set in the South and horrifying monster books , The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires has gore, feminism, and horror.

Discover even more great books about reading and book clubs .

Historical Fiction Set In The South

Guests on Earth by Lee Smith

  Thanks to the award-winning writer, Cat Michaels , for this recommendation

Guests on Earth is one of the southern books on this list inspired by a true story. Dr. Robert S. Carroll ran Highlands Hospital for Nervous Disorders, built in Asheville, NC, in the early 1900s. 

Highlands removed patients’ chains and straight jackets and instead, offered them fresh air, exercise, and creative arts along with counseling.

F. Scott Fitzgerald spent much of his time in residence at Asheville’s nearby Grove Park Inn.  Highlands treated Fitzgerald’s beautiful Zelda, a brilliant creative who likely was bipolar.

No spoiler here because of historical fact: Zelda was one of nine women who perished when the hospital burned to the ground in 1948. 

Told by a young woman who enters as a patient and later became an instructor at Highlands, Smith seamlessly weaves fact with fiction.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

A 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction award-winner, The Nickel Boys is based loosely on a true story about the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida.

Elwood Curtis, an ambitious and talented young Black man, battles growing up in a racist society filled with racist policies.

When he is unfairly sent to the ‘reform’ school, his life and promising future of higher education are over — no matter how hard he tries.

Sadly, the surprise ending isn’t a surprise in this society. The Nickel Boys is by far one of the best historical fiction novels about Florida .

All The King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

Thanks to Sheere of Keeping Up With The Penguins for this recommendation

Hailed as “the definitive novel about American politics” by the New York Times , All The King’s Men is a long and intense exploration of power and masculinity in the 1930s American South.

Jack Burden, a former history student turned political aide, witnesses and documents the rise of Governor Willie “The Boss” Stark.

Rumored to be based on the career of real-life Louisiana Governor Huey P. Long (a claim Robert Penn Warren always denied), this southern novel charts a remarkably similar fall from grace for the fictional protagonist, against the beautiful backdrop of an unnamed Southern state.

While the absence of women and people of color from the narrative is frustrating, the story remains startlingly resonant in today’s populist political climate. See the full review of All The King’s Men on KUWTP→

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Book recommendation from Tori of Tori-Leigh .

Freedom and the power of voice. Sue Monk Kidd – author of The Secret Life of Bees (another southern favorite) – brings us this masterpiece of historical fiction.

On her eleventh birthday, Sarah Grimke is uncomfortably gifted Hetty, a slave in the Grimke household. Kidd, a master at emotional storytelling, never once romanticizes the deep south.

Rather, she channels the sorrow into an opportunity to introduce that people are capable of something better. 

The Invention of Wings follows the two women over the next few decades as they both experience love, loss, guilt, betrayal, and hope.

Despite their many setbacks, both women  strive  to find purpose in their lives and discover their inner voices. 

Sarah’s character is based on her historical counterpart, a true abolitionist and catalyst for the women’s rights movement.

Themes of hope, freedom, storytelling, and discovering the power of using just one, small voice are seamlessly woven into this heartbreaking and empowering story. 

Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith

Southern books submission from Lindsey from To Make Much of Time

Fair and Tender Ladies , published in 1988, is an epistolary novel that follows Ivy Rowe from childhood through life’s milestones.

This masterpiece accentuates Ivy’s hardships, challenges, and culture unique to her Appalachian upbringing during the middle part of the 20th century.

Lee Smith grew up in such a community near Grundy, Virginia (near the Kentucky border).

Southern Romance Books

Glory Road by Lauren K. Denton

Recommendation from CJ of A Well-Read Tart

Glory Road follows three generations of women as they navigate life and love in their sleepy Alabama town.

Denton’s relaxed and evocative writing draws readers into a deliciously slow, Southern summer.  The days seem to stretch on forever and anything seems possible, making this book the perfect escape read.

Glory Road is brimming with long-lost love, budding new romances, and comfortable, small-town charm.  At the heart of it all is a message about taking chances and counting on the people you care about.

Flower buffs will love the gardening tips at the beginning of each chapter.  Foodies will love the Southern treats Gus bakes up, several of which inspired this mouth-watering Peach Cobbler Pound Cake .

First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen

Books set in the south submission from CJ of A Well-Read Tart

First Frost , the second book in the Waverley Family series, is set in the Southern town of Bascom, North Carolina.

This enchanting southern novel steeped in magical realism is a food lover’s delight; the story follows the culinary adventures of candy-maker and caterer Claire, who can magically inspire people with the delicious food she makes.

What would any charmingly sweet story be without a little romance, both for Claire and her teenage daughter, Bey, who starts falling for the wrong-but-oh-so-right boy.

First Frost  also brings all the cozy, seasonal vibes as Bascom prepares to throw its annual “First Frost” festival to celebrate the fall season.

Be sure to check out Claire’s signature  fig and pepper bread recipe , which it’s apparently not First Frost without. If you love magic and witchy books , this one is for you.

Read even more of our favorite novels about food .

Thrillers And Mystery Books Set In The South

The Night Swim by Megan Goldin

A 2020 psychological thriller set in small-town North Carolina, follow Rachel Krall, a true-crime podcaster.

Recruited into the coverage of a new trial as well as an unsolved murder case, deadly drama finds Rachel.  Can she solve the case before it’s too late?

If you love seriously spooky books , The Night Swim will fulfill your true crime obsession and have you looking over your shoulder.

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes (Rose Gardner Mystery #1) by Denise Grover Swank

Southern mystery submission from Kal of Reader Voracious .

Twenty-four-year-old Rose Gardner has lived a pretty sheltered life.  Afraid of her “curse” — premonitions — she foreshadows her death.

She is determined not to die before crossing off items on her bucket list – 28 and a half wishes for her life – all the while trying to uncover the mystery of her demise.

This first-in-series tale is one of first love, personal growth, and exploration, with a side of cozy sleuthing vibes.

Set in Fenton County, Alabama, Rose uncovers just how seedy the criminal underground is…and the more she digs, the more in danger she becomes.

The Marriage Lie by Kimberly Belle

Southern mystery and thriller from Lauren Elena of  Literary Dates

Set in Atlanta, Iris and Will seem to have the perfect marriage until Will goes on a business trip to Orlando.

However, now Iris learns that Will was instead on a flight to Seattle that crashed with no survivors. Presumed dead, is Will actually alive?

In Iris’s search for answers, she goes down a rabbit hole into Will’s past.  What she discovers may shock her and the reader. I stayed awake many nights as I tore through the pages while Iris uncovered new layers.

I love a good psychological thriller and this one definitely delivers.

Classic Southern Novels

Their Eyes Were Watching God  by Zora Neale Hurston

Set across Florida, if you are looking for one of the best classic love stories and infamous southern novels of all time, you cannot miss Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Janie Crawford is a firecracker with her own goals and dreams–and desire for love. 

In and out of relationships and eventually marriages, Janie finds herself trapped in the town gossip and as arm candy, a politician’s wife, and eventually an alleged murderer.

Watch Janie battle not only a hurricane but also the men, prejudices, and circumstances of her time. 

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Winner of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize,  The Color Purple  is one of the most famous contemporary classic books about the south.

It’s also one of the best books set in Tennessee and Georgia with a newer 2023 movie adaptation .

The story follows Celie’s impossibly hard life over the course of 40 years and focuses on the bigotry and prejudice of the time in rural Georgia and later Tennessee.

Celie is only 14 years old when the story begins.  Her mother dies, and her father constantly beats and rapes her. 

Forced into a loveless marriage, readers watch as Celie finds love elsewhere while reconciling a relationship with her sister who she thought had died years ago.

Can Celie come out on top after years of abuse and tragedy?

Find The Color Purple on our books with the color purple in the title as well as top ’80s books reading lists.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Named The Great American Read and a Pulitzer Prize winner, Lee is truly one of the most well-known southern writers with her infamous novel, To Kill A Mockingbird .

Plus, this is one of the best books to come from the 1960s .

Scout Finch lives in Maycomb, Alabama with her brother and father, Atticus.  Atticus is a lawyer during the Great Depression and an extremely racist time in American history. 

Even more trying, Atticus is representing a Black man accused of raping a white woman.  Atticus is truly and innately good.

Through it all, Scout learns about overcoming prejudice, and empathy, and that love prevails over hate. 

Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Book recommendation from Lori of Southerner Says.  Check out her boozy travel post if you are headed to Georgia .

You simply cannot have a list of books set in the south and not include Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil .

Set in Georgia’s coastal crown jewel, Savannah, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil tells a tale of gossip, intrigue, and yes, murder.

Full of eccentric personalities and secret insights on how southerners fill those humid nights, you’ll pack your bag and buy a ticket before you even finish it.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was published in 1994 by John Berendt and spent a whopping 216 weeks on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.

Further proof it’s a must-read for anyone who wants to get to know the south.

Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

Published in 1929, Look Homeward, Angel  is the most gossipy of classic Southern books on this reading list. 

While a fictional account of a young man growing up in Asheville, NC, Wolfe infamously bases his characters on real people.

Initially poorly received — no one likes having their dirty laundry aired — once the townspeople (and more so Wolfe) became famous, Asheville took pride in their young author.

Look Homeward, Angel  is a coming-of-age story about a passionate young boy struck with restlessness and wanderlust.  Wolfe is also famous for later noting that “you can never go home again.”

Read more famous Asheville authors , and if you are headed to Asheville, don’t miss touring the Thomas Wolfe Memorial .

Indie Books That Take Place In The South

Meant To Be Broken by Brandy Woods Snow

One of my favorite southern indie novels of 2018, Meant To Be Broken  captures the essence of small-town South Carolina.  You cannot even buy off-brand Mayo without someone taking notice.

Rayne is different than the other girls at school yet somehow manages to catch the heart of Preston, high school jock, sweetheart, and cutie pie. 

Preston has an equally hunky black sheep and bad boy brother, Gage, who accidentally begins to build a strong friendship with Rayne.

Do we see where this story is going? 

Caught in a love triangle, Rayne must figure out who she loves amidst the lies, secrets, and angsty teen emotions. Meant To Be Broken  is the perfect YA book set in the south as well as a deep-fried summer romance.

See the full TUL book review of Mea nt To Be Broken →

Any Good Thing by Joy E. Rancatore

Looking for new southern writers?  Check out New Orleans resident, Joy E. Rancatore , and her September 2019 indie press release, Any Good Thing.  

One tragic night of drag racing changes the course of Jack Calhoun’s life forever.  He remains alive while four other teens will never see adulthood.  Like his now-estranged dad, Jack takes to the bottle.

Just when Jack has risen above the guilt and booze through rehab, another accident derails his life.  Jack must escape the suffocating and condemning town that blames him for everything gone wrong.

A coming-of-age story, Jack heads off to Iraq to find redemption and make the ultimate sacrifice.

Nonfiction Books About The South

In Cold Blood  by Truman Capote

Another southern classic as well as a true-crime story, Capote investigates the gruesome murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas.

In 1959, Hickock and Smith rob and murder all four members of the Clutters, baffling police. 

Eventually caught, Capote tries to reconstruct what happened on that fateful day while trying to pry into the mind of two murderers.

The Last Castle  by Denise Kiernan

One of our favorite nonfiction southern books set in Asheville , Kiernan tackles Biltmore Estate , the largest house in the US.

The Last Castle isn’t just your MTV cribs type of story, though.  There is romance, financial hardship, and of course, a plethora of births and pre-mature deaths. 

Kiernan wants readers to understand the true trials and tribulations behind Biltmore.

Edith and George invested in their North Carolina community, including areas such as forestry, education, and politics. 

They and members of their families shared their wealth and aimed to make society better with their progressive values.

Although this is a nonfiction book set in the south, catch a glimpse of New York socialites, Newport homes, and Parisian life. 

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

One of the most famous contemporary Southern books and nonfiction classics,  I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings  takes place in the 1930s and ’40s in the midst of the Great Depression and World War 2.

In Maya Angelou’s autobiography, she talks about being raised by her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas.

This coming-of-age story showcases the story of a promising young woman overcoming racism, abuse, and poverty. 

Of course, this is also one of those poignant yet sad books that will make you tear up and cry .

Dear Martin By Nic Stone

If you are looking for contemporary books about the South, head to Atlanta in Dear Martin . This YA novel emphasizes the Black Lives Matter movement and is a must-read book about racism. 

Justyce writes letters to Dr. Martin Luther King; he is trying to navigate his life as a young Black man in a very white private school system.

Time and time again, Justyce witnesses firsthand racist police brutality and even murder.  How can he rise up in a system so determined to maintain white supremacy?

Dear Justyce by Nic Stone

The sequel to  Dear Martin , Quan finds himself trapped in the juvenile (in)justice system as a young Black man growing up in Atlanta, Georgia.

The story begins with Quan in jail. Police are accusing him of killing the police officer who had previously profiled Justyce.

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee

Southern books submission from J.R. of Eternity Books

The Downstairs Girl is a YA southern novel about a young Chinese woman’s journey to finding herself in the midst of a Reconstruction Era Georgia.

Fired from her job as a milliner because of her race, Jo begins to secretly write a column for a newspaper challenging society’s ideals.  She becomes the voice of the modern independent woman in the South.

This story is also about Jo’s journey of finding herself, learning about her past, and sticking by her family and what she believes, no matter the consequences.

The Gravity Of Us by Phil Stamper

Head to Houston, Texas with YA LGBTQ+ romance ,  The Gravity Of Us.   Cal dreams of becoming a famous journalist and is about to start his upcoming BuzzFeed internship.

Unfortunately, Cal’s parents thwart his social media dreams, moving the family from Brooklyn to Houston to work on a NASA Mars mission.

In Texas, Cal finds himself falling head over heels for an astronaut’s son and with a new story to share with millions of young followers.

Books set in the south don’t get any sweeter than this.

 More Famous Southern Authors & Writers

I couldn’t include every Southern book and/or Southern author on this reading list.  There are just too   many  However, you may also want to check out these extremely popular southern writers, as well:

Fannie Flagg

Eudora Welty

Carson McCullers

Flannery O’Connor

William Faulkner

Which Southern Books Will You Read Next?

Which of these books set in the South will you read next? 

Are we missing some of your favorite Southern authors and their novels? 

Are there any Southern novels that you didn’t enjoy on this list?

You May Also Like:

Books Set In North America Ultimate 50 States Reading List

More Book Lists :

Books Set In Florida Books Set In Tennessee Books Set In North Carolina Books Set In Asheville

Christine Frascarelli

Christine (she/her) is the owner, lead editor, and tipsy book sommelier of The Uncorked Librarian LLC, an online literary publication showcasing books and movies to inspire travel and home to the famed Uncorked Reading Challenge. With a BA in English & History from Smith College, an MLIS from USF-Tampa, and a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship in Christine's back pocket, there isn't a bookstore, library, or winery that can hide from her. Christine loves brewery yoga, adopting all of the kitties, and a glass of oaked Chardonnay. Charcuterie is her favorite food group.

36 Comments

You included some many classic books. I enjoyed reading the classic novels you mentioned. But I am glad you included so many new books I am not familiar with yet. I would love to read the An American Marriage book.

Hi Lanae, We are so glad you appreciate the mix of classic books and new releases. Thank you for the feedback, and happy reading! We always update with more and more new great finds too.

I think I’ve been reading since birth, and once I discovered Southern writers in a college class, I am perpetually in search of additions. Your list reminds me of some favorites and gives me more than a few pieces that I want to explore. My favorite, TKAM, always shows me something that I’ve managed to miss in the years of teaching it. I love that Harper Lee teaches her invaluable lessons through the eyes of Scout.

One author that I have devoured in the recent past is Greg Isles who grew up in Natchez, MS, which is his primary setting. His trilogy, which begins with NATCHEZ BURNING, grabbed me and shoved me ungraciously into the decade of my youth, the 1960’s… Isles questions some major historical events of the time while exposing the best and the worse of human nature. His protagonist Penn Gage learns more about people than he wants. While each of the three can stand alone, the repetition of some information can be distracting. I didn’t mind the repeated story line as it reminded me of the significance across the volumes. I don’t know about y’all, but when I get engrossed in reading, everything else is secondary. I can “lose a crop” if I’m not careful. Thank you for reminding me how much I love the South and its storytellers.

Hi Pam! Thank you so much for the thoughtful comment.

Greg Isles is an author that I have been meaning to explore, and you definitely gave me a wonderful reason to get on it.

Sometimes I find that I need a slightly repeated storyline if the books are meant to be read in order (and only when I’ve read them farther apart…usually a year or more). For a lot of authors, though, I do find that repetition to be a little distracting, as well. I read Janet Evanovich for fun, and her Stephanie Plum series can also be a standalone per book (although it’s better as a series); she repeats a lot of the backstory each time. Drives me a little crazy, to be truthful. After 20-something books, regular readers can probably skip the first 10 pages or so. I totally understand.

Thank you so much for the kind words, too.

We never read TKAM in high school or college, which made me happy to dive in as an adult, especially when the second book came out–which I didn’t love as much. You really get a feel for the south.

Thank you for responding to my comments. Please explore Greg Isles. He has a number of “stand-alone” books that can introduce you to his writing if going for the trilogy seems too much at the moment. The trilogy is my favorite. If you decide to explore one of his solitary books, look up the protagonist Penn Cage. Your exposure to Penn reveals his values and shortcomings. You begin to “know” the characters and anticipate their actions and reactions while others continue to surprise you. Oh, my precious Harper Lee! No words truly capture her love for Maycomb and the many lessons it details. Lee did not want GO SET A WATCHMAN to be published, at least until after her death, as she stated. I believe WATCHMAN was her explorations of Maycomb but with varying circumstances. I believe she didn’t want it published because she KNEW it wasn’t the unequal novel she eventually published. Because of my respect for her and her desires for WATCHMAN to not be published, I refused to read it before her death. She shared her heart and soul with us in TKAM; the least I could do was honor her wishes and not explore its perspectives while she lived. It was the least I could do.

Oh, that’s so interesting about Lee and Go Set A Watchman that she knew the book wasn’t equal to To Kill A Mockingbird. I’m pretty sure most knew that (or possibly expected it) as well. Although, I am sure everyone was secretly hoping it would blow them away even more. That was so nice of you to respect her wishes, too. Putting out another related book, period, was pretty brave of Lee. Thank you for further explaining more about Greg Isles and his characters, as well. I’m intrigued.

What – no Harry Crews?? Big oversight for the best known Southern Gothic author of the last 50 years.

What is your absolute favorite Harry Crews novel? Please let me know.

We asked librarians, teachers, book bloggers, and the book community–plus our own experiences, education, and background–for this books set in the south reading list. “Best” is still pretty subjective–I am sure there are other authors that people love on this list or wish weren’t there at all. We also did not capture every single one. These are southern authors that we personally consider the best and enjoy. I wouldn’t call it an oversight so much as a decision not to add Crews to this list for this round.

I definitely appreciate your thoughts and opinions for future consideration, though. I update lists frequently, and if I read something that blows me away, I will definitely add the book/author.

How did I miss this post?! There are so many AMAZING books on here! Some of these are my all time favourites (namely To Kill a Mockingbird , In Cold Blood and The Color Purple , which is funny, cause I never think I read all that much southern US fiction. Turns out that might be the majority of the fiction I read from the US… I guess it’s my southern birth just fighting to get out.

I haven’t read An American Marriage , but I read Tayari Jones’ Silver Sparrow a few years ago and loved it so much I picked up Leaving Atlanta , which was also wonderful. So naturally her newest is on my list, but just so many books to get through!

I’ve also been meaning to read Swamplandia for ages! I should really get on that. Although there’s just so much on here I want to add to me TBR now!

Right? I actually didn’t realize how many southern novels that I had read too, even in high school and college. You just think of them as literature and not location-specific. Then again, I wasn’t looking for books set in places back then.

I haven’t read Silver Sparrow . I’ll have to add that one to my TBR list.

Another fab book list, there’s definitely a few on here that have caught my eye. Again sorry for not contributing, I staked out my Goodreads but couldn’t find any other than Mockingbird and Crawdads! I am keen to read more books set here though so will check some of these out 🙂

Thank you, and no worries! I definitely needed more help with my southern book lists. I knew the FL authors and books extremely well but my upcoming TN book list seems/ed daunting. Thankfully, I have quite a few submissions for TN. I’m trying to cover a lot of the south this fall with an upcoming TN press trip. I gotta get reading.

I read To Kill A Mockingbird in school and it’s still one of my favorite books.

I wish we had read To Kill A Mockingbird in school! For some reason, we skimmed right past it and went to A Tale of Two Cities. Our honors English classes missed out. Thankfully, I read the southern novel as an adult.

Did you read Go Set A Watchman ? If so, what did you think?

Flannery and Alice are both from the area I grew up in! Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful list. I have only read like 3 of them so I am looking forward to reading the others. So glad to see you listed Pat Conroy! He is amazing! Great post as always

Hey Dee– I am looking forward to updating the list as I read more and more books set in the south. There were just SO many to write about. Thank you so much, and happy reading!

Glory Road is definitely the title I’m most drawn to out of this fab list. I actually think I’m gonna dig back into To Kill a Mockingbird this Fall because it’s definitely a good “autumnal” pick! I’ve heard so many good things about The Downstairs Girl that I really need to check it out at some point. You definitely had me chuckling at that “I decided to ride a cowbo–horse” line haha!!

Thanks! Hehe! Gotta make sure that everyone is paying attention.

When I had heard that Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman was coming out, I decided to listen to the audiobook for To Kill A Mockingbird . I think Sissy Spacek narrated, and she did a fabulous job. We never read To Kill… in high school so I had felt like I was missing out–especially since a few of my librarian coworkers said the southern book was their all-time fav. I didn’t like the second book, though. Ek!

I love fall reading, and happy first day of autumn! Show me your decorations. ALL OF THEM!

I love your book lists!! They give me such great book inspiration. Crawdads is definitely in my TBR because of one of your other book lists. I have it on my Kindle! I will definitely be reading it!

Okay, so I had to google half-backs since I had never heard of that term either. The Urban dictionary used it in a sentence,”It was a nice, little town until it got ruined by a bunch of half-backs.” Might not be the exact quote but you get the gist. I hope people aren’t using it in that sense when they talk to you! Hopefully they don’t think of it in that way and they think they’re just being funny. Maybe they mean it in an endearing way, the way a mom might say their child is a holy terror- but mean it lovingly.???‍♀️

Anyway…I’ve definitely added Sing, Guest, Twenty-Eight, Almost Sisters, American Marriage, and Meant to be Broken to my TBR. Such a great mix there! I love the one that includes magical realism and the one with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda!? I have to read that book. Sounds like it will be heartbreaking. I love the story behind that mental institution. I’d love to learn more about it. Cool to think that it was the first place to take that approach. I don’t even want to think about how it used to be.

I don’t know if I’ve actually read the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. I’ve definitely read the play. My acting teacher assigned me a monologue from that play so I used to use it in auditions. What a story.

Thank you so much for including me in your awesome book list. This is another great one!

Ahaha, thanks so much for checking the urban dictionary for me. I definitely think *some* people in Asheville do probably feel that way about people moving in and ruining the town. I’ve heard there are mixed sentiments right now about people moving into the area in droves, economic development, and then, of course, congestion and changing city. Some want the growth for their small businesses to thrive and like seeing Asheville progress while others feel that their home is being taken over. It’s that way everywhere these days, it seems and I get it. Most people seem to be using half-back in a more light-hearted and joking manner with us. So many people aren’t native to Asheville.

I definitely want to read the book with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda too. I’m going to write a “books set in Asheville” book list for Uncorked Asheville, and this one sounds perfect. Plus, Fitzgerald had a lot of mental health issues, and it sounds like his wife was probably struggling with her own in a time that didn’t have as much information or help out there.

When I was older, I decided that it was finally time to read To Kill A Mockingbird , but I never had to read the southern literature novel for school. Then again, I never had to read Romeo or Juliet either.

Thanks so much for contributing! I really appreciate it. These lists are always so much better with reading recommendations from others.

Whoa! As others already commented, what a juicy list! I found old friends ad several new titles to add to my stack. Thanks for including my review and for the lovely shout out to my children’s books, which are also set in the south. Sharing this TUL list with my book club and social media friends.

Hey Cat! I am so glad that you found some new titles to enjoy. Thanks so much for participating. I know that I had a double book here and there so if I can find a home for the submission (one of yours overlapped), I will add the title in and credit you. Thanks for sharing, too. I hope you had a great weekend.

What a fantastic list! Book clubs could have their agendas set for a couple of years with this one. Thank you for including me in such great company and for your kind words about my debut!

Thank you so much! Your debut is fantastic too!

Funny that you should mention book clubs: I am actually thinking of having an online book club paired with an Asheville meet-up book club at a local brewery (based on request). The books would, of course, focus on or inspire travel and be set all over the world. I still have to wrap my head around this one, though.

I love that idea!! Book clubs are near and dear to my heart for a multitude of reasons. I host a monthly online one via Facebook LIVE. It’s always fun to see who shows up live, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at just how many people watch later. I think something online is so much easier these days, but I do miss that in-person experience. And, meeting at a brewery? Yes, please!

I’d have to get brave to go online live lol! I avoid youtube for that very reason. I’ll definitely be interested to see the interest as well as how having a book club online and in-person will do. I haven’t run a book club since my librarian days a few years ago.

I have never heard the term half-back. Interesting. I was always called a gringa when I lived in PR. Hated it because it wasn’t always used as a term of endearment.

Anyways, what a great list of books. There is a great mix here and sadly I haven’t read any of them. Not even the classic To Kill a Mockingbird. I have seen the movie though. I purposely never read the Color Purple because I knew it would be a hard one for me to get through.

I added a few of these to my long list.

I hadn’t heard the term ‘half-back either’ until we moved here. It’s definitely different… Residents say it’s because I moved from the north to the far south and then decided to live at the halfway point to get the best of both worlds. I guess this is what I get for calling everyone snowbirds in FL lol.

I definitely didn’t think “gringa” was very nice (I heard it growing up here and there)–kind of like how Indonesians called me a ‘bule’ when I lived there. The signification isn’t technically meant to offend, but it means “white foreigner.” I kind of appropriated bule back while I was there to make light of it lol. People would shout bule at me in my tiny village market, and I know it wasn’t meant to be mean, but I didn’t love it. A 4-star hotel in Depok (on the outskirts of where I used to live) called me bule as I walked away from the desk LAST year (still being used 10 years later), and I may have said something in my Trip Advisor review lol.

Sadly, I didn’t read To Kill A Mockingbird until I was older–and I think it was right around the time that Lee’s Go Set A Watchman came out, which I didn’t love–there was too pressure there. The Color Purple is pretty brutal. I read that southern novel when I was much younger and eventually saw the movie. I’m due for a re-read, but it’s a hard one.

The TBR list never ends. Have a great weekend, and send me DevaCut pics ASAP!

Thank you so much for accepting my submission, and this is such a solid list of books! Many of these I didn’t realize where set in the south somehow. I still need to get around to reading An American Marriage.

Thank you SO SO SO much for participating. I love having guests so that my book lists are way more diverse. This southern book list came out fab with your submission!

Where The Crawdads Sing is one of the best books I read this year! I also didn’t remember that First Frost is set in the South, so that makes me want to go back and reread it. The Marriage Lie is also on my TBR. Love the variety!

I love the variety too, and I think TUL lists are WAY better when I have so many amazing contributors. Thank you soooooo much for your additions too! I really appreciate it. I need to read some of the southern book suggestions that others mentioned: I am eyeing First Frost first because Sarah Addison Allen lands on a lot of my book lists from other bloggers. Have a great weekend. XXxxx

What a great list of books!! There are so many I want to read in this post. Thanks so much for including my recommendations!!! And, for the record, I get some of my best recipes and recipe inspiration from Southern Living magazine. ? I’ve had a subscription for years! #noregrets. I say Treat Yo’self since there are tons of great Southern places to visit covered in the articles. You will love all the adventure ideas!

Thank you so much for contributing–I love having you on the blog. Your recipes paired with books are literally the best and so fitting. I definitely think the foodie aspect sparks up the summaries, too–which TUL readers will LOVE!

I do need to read Southern Living . I peruse their articles online all of the time, and I am glad to know that you recommend them too. Indulge away!

Thank you so much for accepting my suggestion!! I can’t wait to check out some of the books on here! Happy reading!!

Thank you so much for contributing! I am thrilled to have you on the blog, and I definitely love the diversity of books on this list. I might add some more–there were just SO many to cover. Have a great weekend. Xxx

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Contemporary Southern Writers To Read Right Now

Today's writers are reshaping the landscape of Southern literature.

We're always in the middle of a new book, how about you? Browse our bookshelves, and you'll find volumes spanning the genres. We love revisiting perennial favorites and the classics , but we're perhaps most excited about reading new books by contemporary Southern authors. Today's writers are reshaping the landscape of Southern literature and filling our bookshelves with important new stories that live in our minds long after we've turned the last pages. What follows is a list of some of the authors we always look forward to reading, though this is just a small selection of the many dynamic writers working today who are associated with the South. Read on to learn a little about these writers born in, residing in, or writing in the South today, and you'll also find a big collection of novels, short stories, and poetry collections to add to your reading list.

Ann Beattie

Novelist and short story writer Ann Beattie was born in Washington, D.C, and grew up in the Chevy Chase area. Her most recent work includes the collections The State We're In: Maine Stories (2015) and The Accomplished Guest (2017). Her latest novel, A Wonderful Stroke of Luck was published in 2019. Beattie's work has been included in several O. Henry Prize Story Collections as well as The Best American Short Stories of the Century.

Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry, a prolific poet, essayist, novelist, and farmer, explores the intersections between agriculture and the individual. Berry's popular Port William novels are located in a fictional Kentucky town and include The Memory of Old Jack (1974), Jayber Crow (2000), and Hannah Coulter (2004), among others. Berry was born in Henry County, Kentucky, and still lives in his home state.

Sarah M. Broom

Sarah M. Broom's first book, The Yellow House (2019), is a sweeping memoir tracing her family's history in the yellow New Orleans East house they called home. The book was awarded the 2019 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Broom, a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, divides her time between New York and New Orleans.

Jericho Brown

Jericho Brown is a poet and writer from Shreveport, Louisiana. His most recent collection, The Tradition 2019), was a National Book Award Finalist in 2019 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2020. His earlier work includes Please (2008), The New Testament (2014). He is currently an associate professor of English at Emory University and is also the director of the institution's creative writing program.

Casey Cep grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where a piece she reported unearthed the story that would become her first book, Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee (2019). The book examines Harper Lee's life in the context of an Alabama trial that took place in the 1970s—long after the best-selling debut that came with 1960's To Kill a Mockingbird— and was a story Lee struggled for years to write.

Kate DiCamillo

Acclaimed children’s book author Kate DiCamillo was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but grew up in Florida, where she moved when she was five years old. She has written more than 25 books, including Because of Winn-Dixie (2000) , The Tale of Despereaux (2003), Flora & Ulysses (2013) , and The Tiger Rising (2001), and has twice been awarded the Newbery Medal. 

Beth Ann Fennelly

Poet Beth Ann Fennelly served as the poet laureate of Mississippi from 2016 to 2021. She is based in Mississippi , where she teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Mississippi. She has been awarded a Pushcart Prize and has also been included in The Best American Poetry Series. In addition to her poetry, she has also co-authored a novel, a work of nonfiction, and a book of “micro-memoirs.”

Charles Frazier

Charles Frazier’s novels include Cold Mountain (1997)–which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1997 and was adapted into a film of the same name– Thirteen Moons (2006), Nightwoods (2011), and Varina (2018), as well as his soon-to-be-released fifth novel, The Trackers (2023). Frazier was born in Asheville, North Carolina. 

Nikki Giovanni

Acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. She was a major figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and has written twelve books of children's literature as well as many poetry collections, including 1998’s Love Poems and 2020’s Make Me Rain . 

The writer Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana and grew up in Huntsville, Alabama. She published her acclaimed debut novel, Homegoing, in 2016, and won the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the American Book Award. She was also named one of the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 in 2016. Her most recent novel , Transcendent Kingdom, was published in 2020.

Terrance Hayes

Born in Columbia, South Carolina, poet Terrance Hayes is the author of the collection Lighthead (2010), which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010. His recent books, How to Be Drawn (2015) and American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (2018), were both finalists as well. Hayes is currently a professor on the faculty at New York University.

Brandon Hobson

Brandon Hobson's most recent book is The Removed (2021). His 2018 novel Where the Dead Sit Talking , was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. Set in Oklahoma in the 1980s, the book tells the story of a Cherokee teenager navigating the foster care system. Hobson's other books include Deep Ellum (2014) and Desolation of Avenues Untold (2015). Hobson, a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, teaches creative writing at New Mexico State University and is a writing mentor at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Silas House

A native of Laurel County, Kentucky, Silas House set his first few novels in fictional Crow County. He was a mail carrier before he began publishing his novels, the first of which was Clay's Quilt (2001), followed by A Parchment of Leaves (2003) and others. Southernmost was published in 2018, and House's most recent novel, Lark Ascending, was published in 2022. His literary work also includes nonfiction, short stories, essays, and plays. He lives in Kentucky.

Ladee Hubbard

Ladee Hubbard’s works include the story collection The Last Suspicious Holdout and Other Stories (2022) and the novels The Rib King (2021) and The Talented Ribkins (2017) . She has been the recipient of the  Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction. Currently based in New Orleans, Hubbard was born in Massachusetts and raised in both the U.S. Virgin Islands and Florida. 

Tayari Jones

Tayari Jones, who was born in Atlanta and still calls the city home, wrote the novels Leaving Atlanta (2002), The Untelling (2005), Silver Sparrow (2011), and An American Marriage (2018), which was published to wide acclaim and won the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction. Jones is on the English and creative writing faculty at Emory University and is also an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University.

Barbara Kingsolver

Born in Annapolis, Maryland, and raised in rural Kentucky, Barbara Kingsolver traveled the world before moving to southwestern Virginia, where she now lives. Her work includes poetry, essays, and novels, including the bestsellers The Poisonwood Bible (1998), Prodigal Summer (2000), Flight Behavior (2012), and Unsheltered (2018).

Kiese Laymon

Kiese Laymon was born in Jackson, Mississippi. He is the author of a novel, Long Division: A Novel (2013); a collection of essays, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays (2013); and a memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir (2018), which won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Laymon is currently the Hubert H. McAlexander Chair of English at the University of Mississippi, and he is the recipient of a 2020-2021 Radcliffe Fellowship.

Attica Locke

Texas-born writer and producer Attica Locke has written an array of page-turning crime thrillers set in and around the South, including Black Water Rising (2009); Bluebird, Bluebird (2017); and Heaven, My Home (2019). As a television and film writer, she has also brought many popular projects to the screen, including Empire, When They See Us, and Little Fires Everywhere.

Mesha Maren

Mesha Maren is from Alderson, West Virginia, and her debut novel, Sugar Run, is set in a fictionalized county in her home state. Her short stories and essays have been published widely, including in Tin House, The Oxford American, The Guardian, and The Southern Review. Maren is currently an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing at Duke University, and she lives between North Carolina and West Virginia, where she is a National Endowment of the Arts Writing Fellow at the federal prison camp in her hometown.

Bobbie Ann Mason

Bobbie Ann Mason was raised on a dairy farm in Mayfield, Kentucky, and many of her stories are set in western Kentucky. Her work spans the genres, and her 1999 memoir, Clear Springs, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Most recently, Patchwork: A Bobbie Ann Mason Reader (2018) was published in celebration of her life's work so far.

Cormac McCarthy

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Cormac McCarthy was raised in Tennessee and has lived in Spain, Texas, and New Mexico, where he currently resides. His novels include Blood Meridian (1985) , All the Pretty Horses (1992) , The Road (2006) , and many others, including two released in 2022, Passenger and Stella Maris.  

Mary Miller

Born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, Mary Miller is the author of two short story collections, Big World (2009) and Always Happy Hour (2017), and two novels, The Last Days of California (2014) and Biloxi (2019). Her work has appeared in The Paris Review and Oxford American. She currently lives in Mississippi.

Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett was born in Los Angeles and moved with her family to Nashville, Tennessee, when she was a child. She still lives and writes in Music City, where she co-owns the beloved local bookstore Parnassus Books. Her recent novels include Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and the upcoming Tom Lake (2023) . 

Mary Laura Philpott

Nashville-based writer Mary Laura Philpott's most recent book, I Miss You When I Blink (2019), is a memoir in essays and was a finalist for the 2019 Southern Book Prize in Nonfiction. Philpott's work appears both on the page and on the airwaves; she is the cohost of A Word on Words, a Nashville Public Television program in which she interviews writers and has conversations about books. Her forthcoming collection of essays is called Bomb Shelter (2022).

The novelist Ron Rash was born in South Carolina and grew up in North Carolina, where he still lives. Rash is currently a professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, as well as the author of novels, books of short stories, and poetry collections. His novels, many of which are set in southern Appalachia, include The Risen (2016), Above the Waterfall (2015), The Cove (2012), and Serena (2008), among others.

Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Born and raised in New Orleans, Maurice Carlos Ruffin published his debut novel, the Southern-set satire We Cast a Shadow, in 2019. It was a finalist for The PEN/Open Book Award and was long-listed for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Ruffin is an assistant professor of creative writing at Louisiana State University, and he is also the 2020-2021 John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence at The University of Mississippi.

Karen Russell

The short story collection Orange World and Other Stories (2019), is suffused with the strange and the fantastic—elements which can be found Karen Russell's earlier story collections St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (2006) and Vampires in the Lemon Grove and Other Stories (2013). Swamplandia! (2011), a novel about alligator wrestlers living off the Florida coast, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012. Russell grew up in Miami, Florida, and now lives in Oregon.

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton grew up in New Orleans and made her literary debut in 2017 with the National Book Award-nominated novel A Kind of Freedom. The story spans three generations in a New Orleans family during the second half of the 20th century. Her second book, The Revisioners, was published in 2019, and her third, On the Rooftop, arrived in 2022.

Lee Smith was born in the mountains of Grundy, Virginia, and incorporates the landscape of her childhood into much of her work. Her books include a memoir, Dimestore: A Writer's Life (2016); short story collections; and the novels Guests on Earth (2013), On Agate Hill (2006), The Last Girls (2002), and Fair and Tender Ladies (1988), among others. Smith currently lives in North Carolina.

Michael Farris Smith

Novelist Michael Farris Smith's books include The Hands of Strangers (2011), Rivers (2013), Desperation Road (2017), The Fighter (2018), and most recently, Blackwood (2020), which takes place in the fictional rural Mississippi town of Red Bluff, and Nick (2021), which is an exploration of the life of the narrator of The Great Gatsby. Smith was born in Mississippi, and he has set his last four novels in and around the state. His upcoming novel is Salvage This World, which will be published in 2023.

Laurel Snyder

Laurel Snyder is a poet and children's book author from Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of many children's books, including My Jasper June (2019), Bigger Than a Bread Box (2011), and Penny Dreadful (2010). Her 2017 book, Orphan Island, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Snyder currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Natasha Trethewey

Acclaimed poet Natasha Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi. She served as the Poet Laureate of Mississippi and was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 2012 and 2013. Trethewey won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in recognition of her 2006 collection Native Guard. Her most recent publication is a memoir entitled Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir, which was published in 2020.

Anne Tyler was born in Minnesota, grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and now lives in Baltimore, Maryland. A prolific novelist, Tyler has written more than 20 novels, many of which are set in and around Maryland, including A Spool of Blue Thread (2015), which was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, and Breathing Lessons (1988), which won the Pulitzer Prize. Her most recent book is French Braid, a novel published in 2022.

Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward was born in California and grew up in DeLisle, Mississippi. Her novels include Where the Line Bleeds (2008); Salvage the Bones (2011); and Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017). Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing were awarded the National Book Award for Fiction in 2011 and 2017, respectively. Ward also published the memoir Men We Reaped and edited the 2016 collection The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race. Ward is currently on the faculty at Tulane University.

Bryan Washington

Bryan Washington's first book, Lot: Stories (2019), explores Houston, Texas, his hometown. He was recognized as one of the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 in 2019 and has written for The New Yorker and The Paris Review. Washington's second book, a novel entitled Memorial , was published in 2020.

Mississippi native Nick White published his debut collection of Southern-set short stories, Sweet & Low, in 2018. White's work also includes the novel How to Survive a Summer (2017), and pieces published in The Kenyon Review, Guernica, and LitHub, among other outlets. He is currently on the creative writing faculty at The Ohio State University.

John Edgar Wideman

A writer whose career has spanned genres and decades, John Edgar Wideman was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His work includes novels as well as memoirs, short stories, and essays. Wideman's most recent book is American Histories, a collection of short stories about history, loss, and the legacy of slavery in America. Among Wideman's many honors is the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, a prize the writer won twice, and multiple O. Henry Awards.

Kevin Wilson

Sewanee writer Kevin Wilson's books include the story collections Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (2009) and Baby, You're Gonna Be Mine (2018) and the novels The Family Fang (2011), which was adapted into a 2015 film; Perfect Little World (2017); and Nothing To See Here (2019). Wilson currently teaches creative writing at Sewanee: The University of the South. His most recent novel is Now Is Not the Time To Panic, which was published in 2022.

De'Shawn Charles Winslow

Writer De'Shawn Charles Winslow grew up in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and is currently based in Atlanta, Georgia. His debut novel, In West Mills, was published in 2019 and takes place in the fictional North Carolina town of West Mills. Following its publication, Winslow won the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. His second novel, Decent People, which is also set in the world of West Mills, was published in 2023.

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A new book shows how the South – and its history – shapes our nation

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NewSouth Books

Frye Gaillard and Cynthia Tucker are old enough to remember Jim Crow in the South. But they recognize the part of the country they grew up in for both its flaws and its significant role in the history of the country. In their new book, The Southernization of America , Tucker and Gaillard make an argument about how the South shapes the nation's political and cultural landscape – for good and bad. In an interview with Debbie Elliott on Weekend Edition Saturday, they discuss the South's problematic contradictions and pushback now by some against learning about them.

Author Interviews

A new book argues the u.s. south shapes the nation's political and cultural landscape.

New book explores how the American South has ‘done the dirty work of the nation’

Jeffrey Brown Jeffrey Brown

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/new-book-explores-how-the-american-south-has-done-the-dirty-work-of-the-nation

In her new book "South to America," author Imani Perry seeks to change how people view the American South and, thus, the country’s history as a whole. Jeffrey Brown spoke with Perry, who traveled through the southern regions of the U.S. and explored the complexities and misperceptions she found along the way.

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Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Judy Woodruff:

A new book seeks to change how people view the American South, and thus the country's history as a whole.

Jeffrey Brown spoke to author Imani Perry, who traveled the South and explored the complexities and misperceptions along the way.

It's part of our ongoing series of Race Matters, as well as our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Imani Perry, Author, "South to America": It's sort of like trying to get to the root and help readers from all over the place understand that it's the root.

Jeffrey Brown:

The root of the country, for Imani Perry, is the South. And even on a recent walk in New York, she saw connections everywhere.

Imani Perry:

So, Harlem is filled with Southern culture. Wall Street, right, is dependent upon the history of the U.S. slave trade.

Perry's new book takes us on trips she made all over the region below the Mason-Dixon Line, from Maryland to Mississippi, and takes on what she sees as a misperception of the South's continuing role in who we are today. It's called "South to America."

The South is really not only where the idea begins, right, of what this nation would become, but it also has moved the country about because it was the bounty of the South that allowed for the nation to become wealthy, to become a global power.

And it has continued to shape our tastes, our habits, our culture in ways that we often deny, in part because it's done the dirty work of the nation in many ways.

Perry is a professor of African American studies at Princeton, whose work explores race, law, and history, often through the lens of culture and cultural figures, such as the writer Lorraine Hansberry.

Her last book, "Breathe," was written as a letter to her two teenaged sons on the perils of growing up Black in America. She describes her sense of mission this way:

I'm trying to figure out why we have this choreography of two steps forward, one step back, or sometimes three steps back.

We meaning?

Americans, the United States.

And so I want to use history, tradition, very particularly the history and tradition of African American art, intellectual life, civic culture, to think creatively about how to move towards freedom, notwithstanding the fact that retrenchment happens over and over and over again.

She was born, she says, nine years after and a few miles from the site of the 1963 Birmingham Church bombing that killed four young Black girls.

Birmingham remains the place she calls home.

I always think, you know, that's the place I learned to walk, talk, laugh, read, dance. And so there's a core part of me that I see as having created there.

At age 5, with her mother and her adoptive father, a white civil rights activist from the North, she moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, returning South regularly to visit her close extended family.

But for "South to America," she did something different, visiting people and places she knew less well to see the present interacting with the past.

Everywhere I went — and I expect this will always be the case, to a certain extent — in the South, you feel history. You feel the ghosts of the past.

Even when the Confederate monuments come down, it's still present. It's present in the way land is used, and it's present in the sort of quiet, but collective memories of what happened in those places.

Jeffrey Brown From her Northern perspective, she saw a place people look down on for its racism and backwardness, ignoring how the entire country's history, economy and culture was shaped and implicated.

To say, well, that's down there, without acknowledging there, without acknowledging that that is actually what made the wealth and the prosperity for the entire nation, it's just insincere, but it allows for a deep inconsistency between the truth of the nation and the way we narrate it, right? So…

This is what you mean by saying that the South did the dirty work.

The South did the dirty work.

And the rest — and everyone else could look sort of noble.

Our habit of being OK with people working hard and suffering or having very little, our habit of people being pushed out of their homes, there are ways of doing things in this country that I argue begin with the ways of that region.

And so, in order to fully understand what this place is, and hopefully make it something closer to fair and just and kind to everybody who participates in it, I think we have to acknowledge, that's us. It's not some other place. That's us.

At the same time, she says, that other South, the place where social justice movements began and so much is happening today, isn't celebrated enough.

Her travels included Montgomery, Alabama, its profile changed by the work of the Equal Justice Initiative in fighting mass incarceration, including the powerful National Memorial for Peace and Justice. And political and social change in Georgia and elsewhere impacting the direction of the country, all of this, of course, continuing to be fought over.

People say, how can you be someone who is hopeful about the future? And I say, it's easy. I'm from Birmingham, right?

If that place could change, known as Bombingham, known as the most racist, violent part of the South, coming from that place, I have to have faith in the possibility of transformation.

But the openings are still quite narrow for people to occupy different social positions. And retrenchment is so common, right, so that every movement forward has to be so jealously guarded, or else there can be almost immediate backsliding.

The book is "South to America."

Imani Perry, thank you very much.

Another way to think about the South and about the entire country.

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In his more than 30-year career with the News Hour, Brown has served as co-anchor, studio moderator, and field reporter on a wide range of national and international issues, with work taking him around the country and to many parts of the globe. As arts correspondent he has profiled many of the world's leading writers, musicians, actors and other artists. Among his signature works at the News Hour: a multi-year series, “Culture at Risk,” about threatened cultural heritage in the United States and abroad; the creation of the NewsHour’s online “Art Beat”; and hosting the monthly book club, “Now Read This,” a collaboration with The New York Times.

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Interviews with scholars of the American South about their new books.

June 30, 2024

Behind crimmigration.

In recent years, dozens of counties in North Carolina have partnered with federal law enforcement in the criminalization of immigration--what many hav…

June 27, 2024

Denmark vesey's bible.

In Denmark Vesey's Bible: The Thwarted Revolt that Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial (Princeton UP, 2022), Dr. Jeremy Schipper tells the story of a f…

June 22, 2024

Mae mallory, the monroe defense committee, and world revolutions.

Mae Mallory, the Monroe Defense Committee, and World Revolutions: African American Women Radical Activists (U Georgia Press, 2024) explores the signif…

June 19, 2024

When emancipation came.

Linked by declarations of emancipation within the same five-year period, two countries shared human rights issues on two distinct continents. In When …

June 11, 2024

Death at the edges of empire.

Hundreds of thousands of individuals perished in the epic conflict of the American Civil War. As battles raged and the specter of death and dying hung…

June 8, 2024

Financial institutions and enslavement.

In this special episode, we talk to two authors about the role of financial institutions in enslavement. Sharon Ann Murphy, associate professor of his…

June 7, 2024

In Vibe: The Sound and Feeling of Black Life in the American South (University of Mississippi Press, 2023), Corey J. Miles narrates how southern Black…

June 6, 2024

"southern humanities review" magazine.

Justin Gardiner is the author of two nonfiction books and a collection of poetry. His most recent title is the book-length lyric essay Small Altars, p…

June 5, 2024

Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States (U California Press, 2024) explores the sonic history of blackface minstrelsy and the r…

June 1, 2024

Haunted man's report.

Robert Cochran’s Haunted Man's Report: Reading Charles Portis (U Arkansas Press, 2024) is a pioneering study of the novels and other writings of Arkan…

May 29, 2024

The uaw's southern gamble.

The UAW's Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants (IRL Press, 2023) is the first in-depth assessment of the United Auto Wo…

The History of Washington D.C., America’s New Rome

Renowned Asia expert Michael Auslin is pivoting from Asia instead of towards it: today, he joins Madison's Notes to discuss his new project on the his…

May 27, 2024

Dirt don't burn.

The system of educational apartheid that existed in the United States until the Brown v. Board of Education decision and its aftermath has affected ev…

May 11, 2024

A road running southward.

In 1867, John Muir set out on foot to explore the botanical wonders of the South, keeping a detailed journal of his adventures as he traipsed from Ken…

May 10, 2024

Romancing the gullah in the age of porgy and bess.

Dr. Kendra Y. Hamilton’s Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess (University of Georgia Press, 2024) is a literary and cultural history of t…

An Unholy Traffic

The Confederate States of America was born in defense of slavery and, after a four-year struggle to become an independent slaveholding republic, died …

May 2, 2024

Praisesong for the kitchen ghosts.

Years ago, when O. Henry Prize-winning writer Crystal Wilkinson was baking a jam cake, she felt her late grandmother’s presence. She soon realized tha…

April 28, 2024

Southern enclosure.

Historians of the American South have come to consider the mechanization and consolidation of cotton farming—the “Southern enclosure movement”—to be a…

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Cold war country.

Country music maintains a special, decades-long relationship to American military life, but these ties didn't just happen. This readable history revea…

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Our trespasses.

Greg Jarrell's book Our Trespasses: White Churches and the Taking of American Neighborhoods (Fortress Press, 2024) uncovers how race, geography, polic…

A Southern Primer: 20 Non-Fiction Books About the American South

The American South is an intriguing place with a complex past and since moving here I’ve learned a bit about this slice of America and the Southern way of life. Below are some books I’ve enjoyed (anything by Julia Reed!) or are on my reading list about the place we now call home. Most are light-hearted and focus on Southern interiors, cooking, and entertaining, but many touch on the region’s complicated history as well. Are there any non-fiction Southern classics I’m missing in my library? Do tell!

Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns, and Other Southern Specialties: An Entertaining Life (with Recipes) by Julia Reed Order your copy here .

Southern Lady Code: Essays by Helen Ellis Order your copy here .

Deep South by Paul Theroux Order your copy here .

Some Day You’ll Thank Me for This: The Official Southern Ladies’ Guide to Being a “Perfect” Mother by Charlotte Hays and Gayden Metcalfe Order your copy here .

Southern Women: More Than 100 Stories of Innovators, Artists, and Icons by the Editors of Garden & Gun Order your copy here .

Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena by Julia Reed Order your copy here .

South Toward Home: Adventures and Misadventures in My Native Land by Julia Reed Order your copy here .

The Southerner’s Handbook: A Guide to Living the Good Life by the Editors of Garden & Gun Order your copy here .

S Is for Southern: A Guide to the South, from Absinthe to Zydeco by the Editors of Garden & Gun Order your copy here .

The Art of Southern Charm by Patricia Altschul Order your copy here .

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz Order your copy here .

Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide by Tony Horwitz Order your copy here .

What Southern Women Know (That Every Woman Should): Timeless Secrets to Get Everything you Want in Love, Life, and Work by Ronda Rich Order your copy here .

A Southern Belle Primer: Why Princess Margaret Will Never Be a Kappa Kappa Gamma by Marilyn Schwartz Order your copy here .

Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love, and Baking Biscuits by Reese Witherspoon Order your copy here .

Talk Southern to Me: Stories & Sayings to Accent Your Life by Julia Fowler Order your copy here .

Secrets of the Southern Belle: How to Be Nice, Work Hard, Look Pretty, Have Fun, and Never Have an Off Moment by Phaedra Parks Order your copy here .

Sue Ellen’s Girl Ain’t Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy by Shellie Rushing Tomlinson Order your copy here .

Suck Your Stomach in and Put Some Color On! by Shellie Rushing Tomlinson Order your copy here .

I hope you’ve found this list helpful (or at least entertaining—some of the titles alone gave me a good laugh!). For those interested there’s a new Daily Hunt full of finds for your home and wardrobe available here !

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03/04/2021 at 3:58 am

I do love anything I can get my hands on by Julia Reed, from her books, to recipes in the NYT to her political writing. I would also highly recommend Bailey White, another funny observant Southern writer. Mama makes up her mind, is terrific. I loved Bailey White’s stories on All Things Considered on NPR. My favorites are her tales of her kindergarteners, just so tender.

03/04/2021 at 4:56 am

Kumi – Adding some Bailey White titles to my wish list! Thank you so much for the rec!

03/04/2021 at 5:05 am

Hey! One of THE best books ever is Rick Bragg’s “It’s All Over But the Shoutin”…..an amazing story of rising from the depths of poverty in the South to become a NY Times Reporter…Cannot recommend enough….!

03/04/2021 at 6:15 am

I love Helen Ellis’ books! Another Southern author I’ve recently picked up is Rick Bragg. His latest book of stories from the South is spot on!

03/04/2021 at 6:41 am

Victoria – Googling it now. Sounds like something my husband and I would both enjoy reading! Thank you so much!

03/04/2021 at 6:42 am

Catherine – Another Rick Bragg rec! My readers are the best. I just ordered his first memoir and hope to start it this weekend. Thank you so much!

03/04/2021 at 7:42 am

Rebecca Wells, Pat Conroy, Fannie Flagg, Wiley Cash. And Faulkner, of course!

03/04/2021 at 7:59 am

Eliza – Yes! I need to do separate list all for the fantastic fiction from the area!

03/04/2021 at 10:53 am

As a girl raised in the south (a “GRITS,” as so many tea towels will tell you), there is a lot I love about it, but I have also developed much more awareness of its complexities as I’ve gotten older. If you haven’t read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, I highly recommended it. He is an amazingly powerful storyteller; his is the most gripping and meaningful non-fiction book I’ve ever read. If you have a chance post-COVID, definitely consider a visit to his museum in Montgomery as well!

03/04/2021 at 11:26 am

MBT – Thank you so much for this tip. Adding it to my reading list and am hopeful we’ll be visiting AL sometime soon!

03/04/2021 at 12:41 pm

Lewis Grizzard is a much beloved southern humorist and wrote lots of great stories about Southern life, including his beloved Georgia Bulldogs! Pat Conroy is a must also.

03/04/2021 at 4:04 pm

I also highly recommend anything written by Rick Bragg! I learned so much…

So, now that you have been in the South for some time, do you have a deviled egg plate? The true mark of a Southern woman. I lived there for 25 years and was married for 23 of them to a true FFV. Flat out refused one. I am a Yankee of many generations and there is just so far I was willing to go.

The make-up thing – true story! My late MIL was admitted to the hospital and ended up in the CCU where it was one nurse to two patients. The nurses couldn’t stop talking about her as they had never had a 90 year-old patient who had a screaming red mani/pedi and who kept her lipstick and a mirror on her bed tray along with a pick for her hair! MIL was a nurse way back when and the staff asked her some questions about what nursing was like back then (she graduated nursing school in 1942, at the height of the war). She proceeded to tell the story of how she and another student sneaked out of their dorm to get the other girl’s BF to Baltimore to be shipped out. Back then if any military person needed a ride, it was common practice to just get them to their destination. Well, some Marine got in the back seat with her and started to get fresh which included running his hand up her legs. She was properly horrified and smacked him across the face – like any true Southern woman would! I suggested that the staff might be more interested in how they nursed, what they did, etc. She looked at me like I had three heads and said, “Well, Honey, they just laughed their asses off when I told them.” I gave up but still, 10 years later, the story makes me laugh.

How is Gabe doing? We all need some new pics!

03/07/2021 at 1:37 pm

Read Dispatches from Pluto

03/09/2021 at 6:22 am

I agree that you definitely should add Rick Bragg to the list. I did read Whiskey in a Tea Cup and found it terribly disappointing. I am from a more rural area than Nashville so possibly it was due to that, but Reese’s vision of the South seemed like a shallow caricature. A lot of what she wrote seemed overly concerned with appearances, missing the real reason for our traditions, cooking skills, manners and social graces: to make OTHER people feel comfortable & welcome so as to foster a lasting connection. Most cultures have a “flavor” of hospitality and traditional family values….African American, Middle Eastern, Hispanic; British, French, Italian, even Midwestern US culture is interesting and unique….we can all learn from each other, but we have to remember the point of most cultural idiosyncrasies surrounds fostering relationship, not showy flamboyance for the sake of personal attention. There is enough Me, Me, Me in our present day. I am sorry to say that book left a sour taste in my mouth.

03/09/2021 at 7:18 am

Denise – Sounds like a very fair criticism. I’ve only flipped through Reese’s book. I’ll have to take a deeper dive and see for myself! Enjoying Rick Bragg’s memoir immensely. Thank you for weighing in!

03/26/2021 at 3:15 pm

Just Mercy, The Warmth of Other Sons and Caste are all wonderful books that offer a much different perspective on the South than many of the books on your list. The South has a complex history…as Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

03/27/2021 at 2:49 pm

I’d suggest How the South Won the Civil War by Heather Cox Richardson. The South has a complicated history, and HCR does a fabulous job explaining it!

03/28/2021 at 10:21 am

Rani – Thank you so much for these suggestions. My husband and I watched the Just Mercy film recently and it was so powerful. I found myself wishing I had first read the book.

09/12/2023 at 7:17 pm

A wonderful list! I might also add, The Potlikker Papers by John T. Edge. It has been a fabulous read. I also cannot put down Old Southwest to Old South by Mike Bunn and Clay Williams.

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The 10 Most Popular Books Based in the South, According to Goodreads

One even earned a spot in Oprah's Book Club .

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Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Rating: 4.29 out of 5

Gone with the Wind offers one of the greatest historical romance stories thanks to its protagonists, Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. Not to mention, Margaret Mitchell's ability to keep readers' attention for more than 1,000 pages is worth the praise. The 1936 novel, which takes place on a Georgia plantation, was later adapted into a movie in 1939 . The film will  return to theaters on February 28 in celebration of its 80th anniversary.  

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Rating: 4.27 out of 5

Sure,  To Kill a Mockingbird  was probably required reading at your high school. But the book's gripping story about lawyer Atticus Finch, his family, and an Alabama town marred by racism and tragedy is worth re-reading. Harper Lee's debut novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961, and is ranked by Guinness World Records as the top-selling novel of all time, further proving its influence in literature and film .

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Rating: 4.19 out of 5

In 1982, Alice Walker weaved an intricate tale about a Black woman's journey to love and self-discovery while growing up in the rural South. The Pulitzer Prize - winning novel would later spawn the 1985 film of the same name, starring Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah , and Danny Glover. Currently, Steven Spielberg is working on a movie musical—and yes, Oprah is involved .

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Rating: 4.04 out of 5

A popular choice for book clubs everywhere, Ward’s third novel tackles heavy-hitting issues like racism, poverty, and criminal justice, while telling the tragic story of the Mississippi mother-son duo Leonie and Jojo. Despite the fact that the past permeates most of the book, its subject matter is just as relevant today. Ward won the National Book Award for fiction in 2017.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Rating: 4.03 out of 5

Though Sue Monk Kidd's novel was released in 2001, the coming-of-age tale actually takes place in 1964 in a fictitious South Carolina town. It follows the story of 14-year-old Lily Owens, a motherless teenager who has a fondness for bees. Soon, she discovers her sense of place, purpose, and a love of honey through the Boatwright sisters and her maid, Rosaleen. The book became a 2008 blockbuster movie  starring Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, and Alicia Keys . 

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead uses characters Cora and Caesar to offer a valuable history lesson on slavery in the South. In a courageous act of rebellion and resistance, Cora and Caesar decide to escape their harsh life on the Georgia plantations where they're forced to work. They do it through the Underground Railroad. Whitehead's tale will serve as the inspiration for an upcoming Barry Jenkins-directed Amazon TV series . It also won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Oh, and it became a 2016 Oprah's Book Club  pick.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Rating: 3.91 out of 5

The city of Savannah, Georgia has a rich colonial history. But the "Hostess City of the South" is also known for something else, other than its deep Irish roots, cobblestone streets, and giant oak trees: ghosts. John Berendt explores the dark forces and stories that took place in Savannah and Beaufort, South Carolina in this 1994 nonfiction novel. Director Clint Eastwood adapted the Southern gothic book for the big screen in 1997. 

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Rating: 3.89 out of 5

Zora Neale Hurston's literary works often highlighted the plight of African Americans, and her words would go on to influence contemporary Black authors such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. This 1937 novel is among her most celebrated because of its vivid depiction of heroine Janie Crawford on her journey to love and self-exploration, while living in the poor South. The empowering story was released as a made-for-TV movie on ABC in 2005, featuring Halle Berry and Michael Ealy as love interests. 

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

Rating: 3.85 out of 5

It’s not a surprise to see Charles Frazier's 1997 war novel top this list. Thanks, in part, to the 2003 eponymous movie starring Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, and Jude Law, many voracious readers still come back to the story of deserter W.P. Inman (Law). Frazier's colorful depiction of Inman's trek through South and North Carolina to return to the love of his life, Ada Monroe (Kidman), is why it stayed at the top of The New York Times best-seller list for 61 weeks. 

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

Rating: 3.81 out of 5

This compelling story is told through the eyes of 9-year-old Cassie Logan, who details the racism she and her family experience during the height of the Depression era in Mississippi. Mildred D. Taylor's 1976 novel is a sequel to her 1975 book, Song of the Trees . The book won the prestigious Newbery Medal in 1977, and Taylor followed up its success with two more sequels:  Let the Circle Be Unbroken in 1981 and The Road to Memphis in 1990.  

Michelle is the Culture & News Writer for OprahMag.com, where she writes about celebrities (she considers herself an expert on Beyoncé and Reese Witherspoon), plus the latest in pop-culture news, binge-worthy TV shows, and movies. The transplanted Southerner turned ambitious New Yorker lives her best life by listening to hip-hop and Pod Save America, watching The Office on repeat, quoting Oprah-isms, eating dessert before dinner, and avoiding avocado. Seriously, she doesn’t get the hype.

It should say, “Michelle is the former Culture & News Writer for Oprahmag.com...”

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23 Atmospheric Books Set in the South

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Are you looking for the best books set in the South?

The southern United States is a fascinating region that is steeped in rich culture and history. Many people are familiar with the South’s elegant cities like New Orleans, Savannah, and Charleston. And Southern cuisine is famous for its “comfort food” flavors.

But what is the South really about?

That’s what these books set in the South seek to answer. The books on this list span a variety of genres, from classics to contemporaries, set in the South of the past and the South of the present.

If you are looking for great books set in the South that will transport you and make you feel like you are there, look no further than these atmospheric Southern novels:

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Best Books Set in the South

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This classic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is set in a small, rural town in Alabama in the 1930s. It’s a coming-of-age story set in a South poisoned by virulent hatred and prejudice.

It’s told through the eyes of a young white girl, as she witnesses her father, a crusading local lawyer, risks everything to defend a black man who has been unjustly accused of committing a terrible crime.

Buy on Amazon | View in Goodreads

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owen

Set in a small coastal town in North Carolina in the 1960s, this story follows the wild and barefoot Kya Clark, who has been abandoned by her family. Nicknamed the “Marsh Girl” by locals, she is treated with disgust and suspicion.

When a popular local athlete is found dead, Kya is the main suspect. This book juxtaposes a profound coming-of-age story with a haunting mystery.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

The award-winning novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is set in Savannah and tells a story of intrigue, gossip, and murder.

This fictionalized account of a sensational true event that happened in Savannah, Georgia in the early 1980s paints a lush and vivid picture of this atmospheric Southern city.

For nearly a decade, a shooting in one of Savannah’s grandest mansions and the aftermath of the case reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

One of the most famous books set in the South, The Color Purple , having won both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize, is one of the best books set in Tennessee and Georgia.

Celie has grown up poor in rural Georgia, despised by the society around her and abused by her own family. She strives to protect her sister, Nettie, from a similar fate, and while Nettie escapes to a new life as a missionary in Africa, Celie is left behind, married off to a harsh and brutal husband.

In an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear, Celie begins writing letters directly to God. The letters record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Set in South Carolina in 1964, this novel tells the story of Lily Owens, a young white girl whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.

Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, this is a touching coming-of-age story.

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Originally published in 1936, this classic novel tells the story of a privileged young woman, Scarlett O’Hara, coming of age on a Georgia plantation on the eve of the Civil War.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

This lyrical, poignant novel set in the South follows a drug-addicted black woman named Leonie on a road trip with her two children to bring their white father home from prison.

Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing won the National Book Award in 2017 and is a powerful and moving novel about race, family, and what it means to be human.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. She is an outcast even among fellow slaves and lives in constant fear. When Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Another great classic novel and one of the best classic love stories set in the South,  Their Eyes Were Watching God was originally published in 1937 and tells the story of a woman named Janie living in Florida after the Emancipation when black Americans were freed but still not free.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

This historical fiction novel follows a disillusioned Confederate soldier named Inman, who deserts the war and decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge mountains to Ada, the woman he loves.

His trek across the disintegrating South allows him to meet slaves, marauders, bounty hunters, and witches. At the same time, the intrepid Ada is trying to revive her father’s derelict farm and learning to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family’s struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

This prize-winning novel tells the story of twin sisters who are raised as light-skinned black women in Louisiana and run away to New Orleans as teens.

As adults, their paths diverge as one sister marries a white man and the other marries a dark-skinned black man. The Vanishing Half explores themes of race, identity, and family in an impactful way.

Buy on Amazon  |  View in Goodreads

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

This contemporary novel is a powerful, intimate, layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama. It’s a deeply moving portrait of a family ravaged by depression, addiction, and grief.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career.

But as they settle into the routine of their life together, their life is upended when Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit.

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

Set in the small town of Oak Knoll, North Carolina, this novel examines the complicated relationship and entanglements between two families who live next door to one another.

A gripping Southern novel about racism, corruption, and men abusing their power.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

This historical fiction novel that was made into a popular movie follows three women in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962 who join together to write a tell-all about working as a black maid.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

This book is about a young, white Irish woman named Lavinia who arrives in Virginia and becomes an indentured servant in a plantation home in the years before the Civil War.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Set in Charleston in the early nineteenth century, this historical fiction novel inspired by real characters follows the remarkable lives of two women: one enslaved and one free.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

This classic novel centers around a deaf-mute man named John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s.

The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson

Set in Alabama, this is a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality

The Summer Girls by Mary Alice Monroe

This summery beach read is set on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, and follows three half-sisters who come together at the behest of their grandmother to spend the summer at their family home, Sea Breeze. There, they reconnect in a way that will last long beyond the summer.

Midnight Bayou  by Nora Roberts

In this atmospheric romantic suspense novel, Declan Fitzgerald purchases a crumbling old mansion called Manet Hall on the outskirts of New Orleans where strange things occur.

Only the companionship of alluring Angelina can distract him from the mysterious happenings in the house, but she has secrets of her own and a surprising connection to Manet Hall.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in 1960s Tallahassee, Elwood is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy. he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner.

These are some of the best books set in the South.

Have you read any of these books set in the South? Do you have any favorite books set in the South that I should add to this list? Let me know in the comments below!

Where next?

Inspire your wanderlust with this list of  Travel Memoirs by Women  for the best travel books written by women!

More recommended reading from The South:

• Books Set In Florida
• Books Set in New Orleans

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Edgemont Library

the south Books: 2024’s Updated Collection of 20 Must-Reads

Are you looking for a captivating book on the south? Whether you’re a history buff, a fiction lover, or just someone eager to explore the rich culture and heritage of the southern United States, we’ve got you covered. From classic tales of the antebellum South to modern-day stories of love and loss, this list has something for everyone. Get ready to be swept away by the charm and allure of the south with these 20 best books about the south.

• 1 The Underground Railroad
• 2 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
• 4 A Confederacy of Dunces
• 5 The Color Purple
• 6 To Kill a Mockingbird
• 7 The Sound and the Fury
• 8 Gone with the Wind
• 9 The Prince of Tides
• 10 The Secret Life of Bees
• 11 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
• 12 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• 13 The Yearling
• 14 The Optimist’s Daughter
• 15 The Known World
• 16 Cold Sassy Tree
• 17 The Last Picture Show
• 18 The Water is Wide
• 19 The Orchard Keeper
• 20 The Glass Castle
• 21 Conclusion

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The Underground Railroad

By colson whitehead.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead is a captivating and harrowing novel that takes readers on a journey through the antebellum South. The story follows the life of Cora, a young enslaved woman who escapes from a Georgia plantation and embarks on a treacherous journey via a literal underground railroad, seeking freedom and safety. Whitehead’s masterful storytelling and vivid descriptions bring to life the brutal realities of slavery, as well as the resilience and courage of those who fought against it. This powerful exploration of the ‘book about the south’ is a gripping and thought-provoking read that challenges readers to confront the dark history of America’s past while offering a glimmer of hope for a better future.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

By john berendt.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a captivating nonfiction novel that delves into the eccentricities and mysteries of Savannah, Georgia, a city steeped in history and charm. John Berendt’s book about the south transports readers into the heart of the Deep South, where they encounter a colorful cast of characters, from socialites to drag queens, and get entangled in a web of scandal, murder, and secrets. Berendt’s vivid storytelling and sharp observations bring the vibrant and enigmatic atmosphere of Savannah to life, making it a compelling read for anyone drawn to the allure of the south. Whether you’re a fan of true crime, southern culture, or simply love a good story, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is sure to captivate and enthrall.

by Kathryn Stockett

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is a compelling novel set in the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi. This book about the south explores the lives of African American maids working for white families, and the complex relationships and social dynamics that exist in the segregated society. Through the perspectives of three women – Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter – the novel delves into the racial tensions, discrimination, and the courage of those who dared to challenge the status quo. The south book sheds light on the struggles, resilience, and strength of the characters as they navigate through the harsh realities of the Jim Crow era. The Help is a powerful and thought-provoking story that portrays the deep-rooted issues of inequality and the courage to stand up for what is right.

A Confederacy of Dunces

By john kennedy toole.

A Confederacy of Dunces, a comical masterpiece by John Kennedy Toole, is a satirical novel set in the vibrant city of New Orleans. The story follows the misadventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, a larger-than-life, eccentric character who is both intelligent and bumbling. As he navigates the colorful world of New Orleans, the novel offers a humorous and insightful commentary on the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the southern culture. With its witty dialogue, memorable characters, and rich portrayal of the unique atmosphere of the South, A Confederacy of Dunces is a must-read for anyone looking for a book about the South that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.

The Color Purple

By alice walker.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a powerful and evocative novel set in the American South. It follows the life of Celie, a young African American woman who faces a lifetime of abuse and struggles to find her own identity and voice in a society dominated by racism and sexism. Through a series of letters to God and her sister, Celie shares her journey of resilience, self-discovery, and empowerment. The novel explores themes of love, friendship, and the resilience of the human spirit, while also shedding light on the harsh realities of life in the South for African Americans during the early 20th century. With its vivid storytelling and compelling characters, The Color Purple is a moving and unforgettable exploration of the human experience in the South.

To Kill a Mockingbird

By harper lee.

To Kill a Mockingbird, a classic novel by Harper Lee, is a captivating book about the south. Set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, the story follows Scout Finch, her brother Jem, and their father, lawyer Atticus Finch. The novel explores themes of racial injustice, moral growth, and the innocence of childhood. Through the eyes of Scout, the reader is immersed in the southern culture and society, witnessing the challenges and prejudices of the time. The southern setting plays a vital role in the story, creating a rich and immersive backdrop for the characters and their experiences. With its timeless themes and memorable characters, To Kill a Mockingbird remains a powerful and thought-provoking book about the south.

The Sound and the Fury

By william faulkner.

The Sound and the Fury, a book on the south, is a classic novel by William Faulkner that explores the decline of the Compson family in the American South. Set in Mississippi, the novel is divided into four sections, each narrated by a different character, offering a unique perspective on the family’s unraveling. The story delves into themes of race, class, and the changing social landscape of the South, making it a compelling book about the south. Through beautiful and evocative prose, Faulkner captures the complexities of family dynamics, the weight of tradition, and the passage of time. The Sound and the Fury is a poignant and immersive exploration of the southern experience, making it a must-read for anyone interested in delving into the heart of the south.

Gone with the Wind

By margaret mitchell.

Gone with the Wind is a classic novel set in the antebellum South. This epic tale follows the life of Scarlett O’Hara, a headstrong and determined Southern belle, as she navigates the hardships of the Civil War and its aftermath. The novel captures the essence of the Old South, depicting the lavish lifestyle of plantation owners and the devastating impact of war on their way of life. With themes of love, loss, and resilience, this book about the South is a timeless portrayal of the human spirit and the enduring power of the Southern landscape. Margaret Mitchell’s vivid storytelling brings the beauty and complexity of the South to life, making Gone with the Wind a must-read for anyone interested in the rich history and culture of the region.

The Prince of Tides

By pat conroy.

The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy is a captivating novel set in the American South. This compelling story delves into the complex dynamics of a dysfunctional Southern family, addressing themes of love, loss, and the resilience of the human spirit. Through vivid prose and richly drawn characters, Conroy paints a vivid portrait of the beauty and brutality of life in the South. The novel explores the impact of trauma and the enduring power of family bonds, all against the lush backdrop of the Southern landscape. With its evocative storytelling and poignant exploration of Southern culture, The Prince of Tides is a mesmerizing read that offers a deep and immersive experience of the South.

The Secret Life of Bees

By sue monk kidd.

The Secret Life of Bees is a captivating novel set in the American South during the 1960s. It follows the story of a young girl named Lily Owens, who is searching for the truth about her mother’s past. Along the way, she is taken in by three African American sisters who are beekeepers, and she learns about love, forgiveness, and the power of female friendship. The novel is a heartwarming coming-of-age story that explores themes of racism, family, and resilience. With its rich imagery and vivid characters, The Secret Life of Bees is a poignant and touching book about the American South and the transformative power of love. It’s a must-read for anyone looking for a compelling and insightful story about this particular region.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

By carson mccullers.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, written by Carson McCullers, is a captivating novel set in the American South during the 1930s. This poignant tale explores the lives of several characters in a small Southern town, each struggling with their own personal challenges and yearnings for connection. The novel beautifully delves into themes of isolation, longing, and the human need for understanding and companionship. McCullers masterfully weaves together the stories of her characters, creating a rich and evocative portrayal of life in the south. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a powerful and moving book about the south that delves into the complexities of human emotions and relationships, making it a timeless and compelling read for anyone interested in the human experience.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

By mark twain.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, is a classic novel set in the antebellum South. The story follows the escapades of Huck Finn, a young boy, and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, as they navigate the Mississippi River. Twain’s portrayal of the southern landscape and culture provides a vivid and often humorous insight into the complexities of the region. The novel touches on themes of freedom, morality, and societal norms, making it a thought-provoking and thrilling read. With its richly detailed setting and engaging characters, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a quintessential ‘book about the south’ that continues to captivate readers of all ages.

The Yearling

By marjorie kinnan rawlings.

The Yearling, a novel by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, is a classic ‘book on the south’ that tells the story of a young boy named Jody and his adventures in the rugged wilderness of rural Florida. Set in the 1870s, the novel captures the harsh yet beautiful landscape of the ‘southern’ wilderness and the struggles of a family trying to make a living off the land. Jody’s bond with his pet fawn, whom he names Flag, becomes the heart of the story as he navigates the challenges of growing up in a harsh environment. The novel beautifully depicts the ‘south’ through its vivid descriptions of nature and the deep sense of community that permeates the ‘southern’ culture. The Yearling is a timeless ‘book about the south’ that explores the complexities of life in the backwoods of Florida, and the enduring connection between humans and the land.

The Optimist’s Daughter

By eudora welty.

The Optimist’s Daughter is a poignant novel by Eudora Welty, a celebrated American author. Set in the South, the story follows Laurel Hand, a woman who returns to her hometown to be with her father as he undergoes eye surgery. After his death, Laurel grapples with grief and memories of her past, reflecting on her relationships with her father, stepmother, and her own late husband. Through lyrical prose and vivid imagery, Welty delves into themes of loss, family dynamics, and the complexities of southern life. The novel beautifully captures the essence of the south and the nuances of human emotions, making it a compelling and evocative read for anyone interested in a book about the south.

The Known World

By edward p. jones.

The Known World by Edward P. Jones is a captivating book about the south that explores the complex and often forgotten history of slavery in Virginia. Set in the antebellum South, the novel delves into the lives of both enslaved people and their owners, shedding light on the intricacies of power, freedom, and identity. The narrative weaves together the stories of various characters, offering a multifaceted portrayal of the region during this tumultuous time. With its richly detailed storytelling and thought-provoking themes, The Known World immerses readers in a world that is both familiar and unsettling, inviting them to confront the legacy of slavery and its impact on the southern landscape. Jones’s powerful prose and vivid characterizations make this a must-read for anyone interested in the complexities of the southern experience.

Cold Sassy Tree

By olive ann burns.

Cold Sassy Tree is a captivating coming-of-age story set in the American South during the early 1900s. This novel, often described as a ‘book on the south’, follows the life of a young boy named Will Tweedy as he navigates the complexities of love, loss, and family in a small Southern town. The book captures the essence of the ‘the south book’ with its rich portrayal of Southern culture, traditions, and values. As Will’s story unfolds, readers are immersed in a world filled with colorful characters, Southern charm, and the timeless beauty of the rural South. Olive Ann Burns’ evocative prose and vivid storytelling make Cold Sassy Tree a heartwarming and poignant ‘book about the south’ that resonates with readers of all backgrounds.

The Last Picture Show

By larry mcmurtry.

The Last Picture Show is a novel by Larry McMurtry that captures the essence of small-town life in the American South. Set in the 1950s in a small town in Texas, the book follows a group of high school friends as they navigate the challenges of adolescence and adulthood. McMurtry’s vivid prose and authentic portrayal of the South’s landscape and culture bring the setting to life, immersing readers in the rich and complex world of the region. Through its compelling characters and poignant storytelling, The Last Picture Show offers a captivating glimpse into the heart and soul of the South, making it a must-read for anyone interested in exploring the intricacies of life in this part of the country.

The Water is Wide

The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy is a compelling and eye-opening book about the south. Based on the author’s experiences as a teacher on Yamacraw Island, the book captures the challenges and complexities of life in the American South. Conroy’s vivid storytelling brings the setting to life, painting a rich picture of the people and culture of the region. The book provides a unique insight into the social and educational issues that were prevalent in the South during the 1960s, shedding light on the racial tensions and inequalities of the time. With its powerful narrative and thought-provoking themes, The Water is Wide offers a poignant look at the south book and the struggles faced by its inhabitants, making it a must-read for anyone interested in Southern literature.

The Orchard Keeper

By cormac mccarthy.

The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy is a riveting book about the southern United States, filled with evocative descriptions of the landscape and the people who inhabit it. Set in the hills of Tennessee, this novel weaves together the lives of a young boy, a mysterious man named John Wesley Rattner, and an elderly moonshiner as their paths intersect in unexpected ways. With its rich prose and atmospheric storytelling, this book offers a compelling glimpse into the rugged and raw beauty of the southern countryside, as well as the complex relationships that unfold within it. McCarthy’s masterful writing captures the essence of the South, making The Orchard Keeper a must-read for anyone fascinated by the rich history and unique culture of this region.

The Glass Castle

By jeannette walls.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a captivating memoir that delves into the author’s unconventional and tumultuous childhood in the American South. This powerful narrative takes readers on a journey through Walls’ upbringing in a dysfunctional and impoverished family, as they travel from place to place in search of a better life. The book explores themes of resilience, love, and the enduring human spirit amidst adversity. Walls’ vivid storytelling and raw honesty paint a vivid picture of her experiences, leaving a lasting impact on readers. The Glass Castle is a poignant and thought-provoking book about the south that will resonate with anyone who has ever faced challenges and triumphed against all odds.

In conclusion, these 20 best books about the south offer a rich and diverse exploration of the region’s history, culture, and people. Whether you’re interested in fiction, history, or memoir, these books provide a captivating glimpse into the complexities and beauty of the American South.

Which the south book is best?

The best book on the south can vary with personal preference, but three widely recommended titles are:

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead ,
• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt ,
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett .

Each offers valuable insights and could be a great starting point.

What are the best books to learn about the south?

For those looking to learn about the south, there is a wealth of literature that can provide a comprehensive understanding of the subject. Some of the most highly recommended books include:

• The Help by Kathryn Stockett ,
• A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole ,
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker ,
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee ,
• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner ,
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell ,
• The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy ,
• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

These books offer a range of perspectives on the south, covering various aspects and approaches to the subject.

What are the best books on the south?

The best books on the south include:

• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers ,
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain ,
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee .

Each offers unique insights into the subject. While these books on the topic of the south are highly regarded, it’s important to note that any list of ‘best’ books is subjective and reflects a range of opinions.

What are the best the south books of all time?

Choosing the best the south books of all time can vary depending on who you ask, but seven titles that are often celebrated include

• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd ,
• and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers .

Each of these books has made a significant impact in the field of the south and continues to be influential today.

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Origins of the New South, 1877–1913: A History of the South Paperback – August 1, 1981

Winner of the Bancroft Prize After more than two decades, Origins of the New South is still recognized both as a classic in regional historiography and as the most perceptive account yet written on the period which spawned the New South. Historian Sheldon Hackney recently summed it up this way: “The pyramid still stands. Origins of the New South has survived relatively untarnished through twenty years of productive scholarship, including the eras of consensus and of the new radicalism. . . . Woodward recognizes both the likelihood of failure and the necessity of struggle. It is this profound ambiguity which makes his work so interesting. Like the myth of Sisyphus, Origins of the New South still speaks to our condition.” This enlarged edition contains a new preface by the author and a critical essay on recent works by Charles B. Dew.

• Print length 656 pages
• Language English
• Publisher LSU Press
• Publication date August 1, 1981
• Dimensions 6 x 1.35 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 0807100196
• ISBN-13 978-0807100196
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

From the back cover, about the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ LSU Press; Revised edition (August 1, 1981)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 656 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0807100196
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0807100196
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.95 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.35 x 9 inches
• #4,469 in Sociology (Books)
• #6,828 in U.S. State & Local History

About the author

C. vann woodward.

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Nine Southern Fiction Books To Read On The Beach

When it comes to the quintessential beach read, we love southern stories set at the beach or a bay, a cove or an island. You get the picture, right? Sunny suns, cool breezes and gentle waves… ahhh . And we’ve found nine new releases that provide all the southern summer vibes you need in fictional and real towns up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

We’ve got two sweet romances, three heartfelt women’s fiction and four cozy mysteries to entertain you this summer. Which one will you take to the beach? Or enjoy by the pool? Or on your porch…

Second Chance On Cypress Lane by Reese Ryan

Rising-star reporter Dakota Jones is usually the one breaking the news—until an inadvertent scandal wrecks her career. The only place she can go to regroup is Holly Grove Island. But her small North Carolina hometown comes with a major catch: Dexter Roberts, the first man to break Dakota’s heart, is her new boss. Working alongside Dexter, who is more attractive than he has a right to be, shows Dakota what might have been . . . but she isn’t giving him another chance to break her heart.

Dexter has always regretted the way things ended between him and Dakota. Her return could be his opportunity to finally make amends. But the more time he spends with Dakota, the more he realizes his feelings for her never went away. Now he has just a few months to convince her to give their love a second chance. But for Dakota to agree to stay, Dexter will have to reveal the devastating truth about why he let Dakota go all those years ago.

Get the book.

Four Cozy Mysteries Set On The Beach You Should Read

The Beach House by Jenny Hale

When her gram passes away, Melanie Simpson   feels utterly lost. But her grandmother’s will gives her a purpose: an inheritance to buy a crumbling house in Rosemary Bay, Florida. They used to visit the village every summer, sit by the sparkling water on a beach the color of pearl , and daydream about turning the place on the corner into a bed and breakfast.

On her first night in her new hometown, Melanie meets local contractor and landowner Josh Claiborne, whose eyes match the dazzling sea. Melanie plans to restore the beach house to its original glory, and Josh is the perfect person to help renovate the wrap-around porch weathered by the coastal breeze and the peeling white paint faded by the sun.

But hiding in a closet is a yellowing stack of letters that could change everything. The looping handwriting reveals the mystery of the rickety house—a buried history that touches everyone in Rosemary Bay. Will its secrets bring Melanie and Josh together or tear them apart?

Purchase the book.

Six Southern Beach Reads For The Summer

The Lights of Sugarberry Cove by Heather Webber

Sadie Way Scott has been avoiding her family and hometown of Sugarberry Cove, Alabama, since she nearly drowned in the lake just outside her mother’s B&B. Eight years later, Sadie is the host of a much-loved show about southern cooking and family, but despite her success, she wonders why she was saved. What is she supposed to do?

Sadie’s sister, Leala Clare, is still haunted by the guilt she feels over the night her sister almost died. Now, at a crossroads in her marriage, Leala has everything she ever thought she wanted—so why is she so unhappy?

When their mother suffers a minor heart attack just before Sugarberry Cove’s famous water lantern festival, the two sisters come home to run the inn while she recovers. It’s the last place either of them wants to be, but with a little help from the inn’s quirky guests, the sisters may come to terms with their strained relationships, accept the past, and rediscover a little lake magic.

Buy the book.

The Shell Collector by Nancy Naigle

Two years after her husband’s death, Amanda Whittier has two children to raise alone, an abandoned dream of starting a business, and a fixer-upper cottage by the sea. She has no room in her life for anything else and little interest in moving on after losing the man she loved. 

Paul Grant is a relative newcomer to the area, and his work with former military dogs needing rehabilitation has been good for the town. Though he loved once before, he’s convinced he’s not suited for romance and is determined to find meaning—alone—through his work and role in the community. 

Widowed Maeve Lindsay was born and raised on Whelk’s Island. Spirited, kind, and a little mischievous, she pours her life into the town. But she carries a secret that shapes her every move. 

Together, these three souls find encouragement in the most mysterious places and discover a love that’s bigger than their pain, healing their wounded hearts in ways none of them could have hoped for or expected.

Buy the book .

Bookshop By The Sea by Denise Hunter

After her mother became bedridden and her father bailed on the family, Sophie found herself serving as a second mother to her twin brother, Seth, and younger sister, Jenna. Sophie supported her siblings through their college years, putting aside her own dream of opening a bookshop in Piper’s Cove—the quaint North Carolina beach town they frequented as children.

Now it’s finally time for Sophie to follow her own pursuits. Seth has a new job, and Jenna is set to marry her college beau in Piper’s Cove. But the destination wedding reunites Sophie with best man Aiden Maddox, her high school sweetheart who left her without a backward glance.

When an advancing hurricane strands Aiden in Piper’s Cove after the wedding, he finds the hotels booked to capacity and has to ask Sophie to put him up until the storm passes. As the two ride out the weather, old feelings rise to the surface. The delay also leaves Sophie with mere days to get her bookshop up and running. Can she trust Aiden to stick around? And will he find the courage to risk his heart?

Closely Harbored Secrets by Bree Baker

It’s almost Halloween, and the small island of Charm, North Carolina is decked out for the festivities. When Everly Swan agrees to close her iced tea shop early to help her aunts host their annual haunted historic walking tour, she expects some good-natured spooks. But the night turns grave when one of the ghostly actors is found dead. To complicate matters, the victim scratched Everly’s name into the ground before she died, making her a key suspect.

The murder mystery heats up when Everly’s potential boo, Detective Grady, takes the case—and he definitely doesn’t want her getting involved. Will their seaside romance be threatened by all the ghostly drama? But when a phantom sailor straight out of local legend starts leaving Everly threatening messages, she has to get involved… With a local election under way , ghosts on the loose, and a search for long-lost buried treasure, Everly can’t help but stir the pot!

Purchase the book .

A Hex For Danger by Esme Addison

The small town of Bellamy Bay has its share of skeletons in its closet, but it isn’t used to bodies turning up in the local history museum. After all, this coastal North Carolina town is much like any other…except, of course, for the mermaids.

Helping to run the family business, an herbal apothecary while keeping her supernatural secret hidden is no easy feat for water witch Aleksandra Daniels.  But somehow she’s still found time to help her friend Celeste, who has her own Caribbean mermaid heritage plan the annual Mermaid Festival. As fun-seekers throng the beaches, Alex gets to know and is intrigued by renowned artist Neve Ryland, who’s in town to decorate the local park with a mermaid-themed mural. Celeste, however, is less enamored with the artist, as Neve has been spending entirely too much one-on-one time with her boyfriend Jasper, director of Bellamy Bay’s history museum. Then, a reception for Neve ends abruptly when the artist is found dead in his office. 

The police investigation nets Celeste who asks Alex to find the true culprit. With the help of her magically-inclined aunt and cousins, Alex dives in to clear her friend’s name. But there was more to Neve Ryland than met the eye…and Alex fears she may be in way too deep. Will she catch the crook or be next on the hook?

Reserved For Murder by Victoria Gilbert

Beaufort, North Carolina, is home to Chapters Bed and Breakfast, owned and operated by former schoolteacher Charlotte Reed. This historic 18th-century inn draws in voracious readers from far and wide with its lovingly curated special events celebrating a host of genres and authors. On this sunny July weekend, a visit by one of the biggest names in romantic fantasy attracts throngs of admirers to the quaint coastal village. That’s not ideal, as the author retreated to Chapters to get away from it all for a while. No matter–she’ll appease her fans with a “Tea and Talk” meet-and-greet at the B&B celebrating her bestselling series (starring a devilishly dashing, time-traveling pirate), follow that up with a quick book signing at Bookwaves, the hip indie bookstore across town, and spend the remainder of the weekend in delightful repose.

But when the president of the reclusive writer’s fan club is found dead in the harbor by the Beaufort docks–done in by a blunt-force blow to the head–it’s up to Charlotte Reed, her neighbor Ellen, and Ellen’s trusty Yorkshire terrier to sniff out the killer. Because if they can’t, a spectacularly successful book series–and its author–may come to a sudden, lethal conclusion.

Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates

They’re getting married! Lucy Richardson and Connor McNeil have announced their engagement. Their friends throw a party for the couple at Coquina Beach, close to Lucy’s beloved Bodie Island Lighthouse Library. 

As they’re packing up the presents and the (few) leftovers from Josie’s Cozy Bakery, who should arrive but Richard Eric Lewiston III, Lucy’s former almost-fiancé, and his overbearing mother Evangeline. Push comes to love when Evangeline makes no secret of why she’s there: to get Lucy and Ricky back together. 

Lucy isn’t tempted in the least, and Ricky is nothing but embarrassed at his mother’s desperate ploy. Before returning to Boston, Evangeline throws a dinner party at Jake’s Seafood Bar for a reluctant Lucy and her family. Lucy hopes to get the dinner over with and see Evangeline and Ricky returning to Boston, but when a body is found at the restaurant’s kitchen door, Lucy is again forced to unwillingly put on her detective’s hat and do what she can to save her family and her engagement. 

Meanwhile, the classic-novel reading club is reading  The Hound of the Baskervilles , and open war breaks out in the Lighthouse Library when Lucy agrees to temporarily take care of a dog named Fluffy.

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New book sheds light on how one lawman shaped policy, and perception, of the southern border

Stories and events found in “William Hanson and the Texas-Mexico Border” echo in contemporary rhetoric around immigration.

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Kristen Cabrera / Texas Standard

The lore of Texas’ frontier days is filled with tales of shootouts and lawlessness. But as the Wild West was being tamed at the turn of the last century, justice often took a gray hue, especially along the border.

This is no more evident than in the tale of a Texas Ranger captain and a top Immigration Service official at the time named William Hanson. His story and the impact of his actions are recounted in the new book, “ William Hanson and the Texas-Mexico Border: Violence, Corruption, and the Making of the Gatekeeper State .”

Author John Weber joined Texas Standard to discuss his new book. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

As I understand it, you are now a professor in Virginia, but your roots are in Texas, right?

Yes, sir. I’m from San Antonio, but I teach in Virginia now.

Did you hear of the story of William Hanson when you were here in Texas, or is this part of your research?

This was something that I discovered when I was researching, writing my dissertation, which became my first book: “ From South Texas to the Nation .” William Hanson just kept popping up in strange places, both in primary research and in the secondary literature.

Throughout the process of sort of writing that and then revising it into the book, I kept sort of finding him, sort of coming back to this very strange character who had a number of top law enforcement positions, but also who just seemed to sort of appear at key moments during the kind of late 19th century into the early 20th century.

So who is William Hanson? Why was he popping up so much in your research?

For much of his career he was a law enforcement officer. He begins as a deputy sheriff in Gonzales County. He eventually becomes a deputy U.S. Marshal. He then, at the very beginning of the 20th century, became a U.S. Marshal.

He then leaves for Mexico during the kind of late Porfirian years, the years before the Mexican Revolution, and is there trying to basically kind of make himself into a major landowner and kind of oil company official and all these other things. But he ends up being booted out of Mexico, one step ahead of being executed in 1913, 1914.

In fact, I understand Hanson had a small role in the infamous pursuit of Gregorio Cortez. Is that right?

Yes. As a deputy U.S. Marshal in 1901, he is one of the many people involved in trying to sort of chase down Gregorio Cortez.

So if you look up kind of newspaper accounts of him, from various newspapers in Texas while it’s happening, Hanson will often be quoted as a deputy U.S. Marshal who’s involved in the chase of him. So, yeah, that’s one of the many moments where he just sort of randomly pops up.  

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And I guess as part of polishing his own luster, if you will, he seemed to have friends in very high places – politicians, oil bigwigs, that kind of thing.

I would actually argue that his greatest skill was gaining patrons. He was really good at sort of kissing up to powerful people, getting them to give him jobs. That is what basically his entire career is built on.

He was a kind of confidante and kind of advisor to Albert Bacon Fall, the New Mexico senator who eventually becomes Secretary of the Interior, infamously leading into Teapot Dome. He is connected to, oddly for Texas, Republican Party officials both at the state and more importantly, really national level. Because the state Republican Party hardly existed in the early 20th century.

That’s a little surprising. What was the thinking there?

Well, so I’ve never found any evidence that he, William Hanson, had any firm political beliefs or ideological commitments.

He, along with those people who were connected to the Republican Party in the early 20th century, figured out in particular – this is the case in the 1920s when Republicans controlled the White House – they figure out that the Republican Party in the state of Texas is pointless as an electoral operation. You’re never going to get anyone elected governor or statewide in the state.

But as long as Republicans are in control of the White House and are in control of patronage positions, the spoil system means that if you’re a Texas Republican, you are in line for whatever comes down the pike.

Political positioning is what it sounds like. But more central to the book that you’ve written, how did Hanson get involved in influencing, I suppose you could say, the U.S.-Mexico border policy?

He was, again, somebody who was sort of intimately kind of involved in events in both the U.S. and Mexico. He has a law enforcement background before he goes to Mexico. He then is involved, obviously, in a whole bunch of sort of economic and kind of law enforcement matters while he’s in Mexico.

When he gets back to the United States in 1914, he commits himself to doing everything he can to punish the people he blames for his failures in Mexico, which basically means, the kind of forces that are successful coming out of the Mexican Revolution, but mostly on Carranza and the sort of faction around him.

How does he perceive the U.S.-Mexico border during this period?

He perceives it as a place. And really, this is one of the kind of consistent throughlines of his entire career. He both perceives it as a place of danger, a place that needs outside control.

But really, I think even more importantly and I think that speaks more to current-day issues, he views it as a place where he needs to scream as loudly as he can for everyone listening and for everyone who has more power than him, that this is a place that has to be controlled, that has to be violently subordinated. Basically the people who go through it, the commerce that goes across it, all of these things are inherently dangerous and only by an expansion of federal power – by an expansion of the gatekeeper state, by an expansion of the efforts of people like William Hanson –  can we gain control of an area that inherently is dangerous.

So he points at revolutionary Mexico as being a thing that needs to be controlled, if not absolutely overthrown and he spends years actively trying to convince the U.S. government to launch an invasion of Mexico to overthrow Carranza, unsuccessfully.

Short of an invasion, I mean, how is his impact on U.S. immigration policy? We note that it has changed over the years. And, in fact, you could look back at recent decades and see that shift as well. But how influential was he in shaping how we know immigration policy today?

So in a lot of ways my argument about sort of the importance of his time in the Immigration Service… So he is a key Immigration Service official between 1923 and 1926. And the timing here is important.

He is in the Immigration Service right as the 1921 and 1924 immigration laws were passed. These are the first laws that set immigration quotas, that are built on the idea that we need to limit the number of people who can come in according to a racial and ethnic preference system. So these are the laws that absolutely cut out immigration – legal immigration – from Asia, for all intents and purposes. Completely cut off immigration from Africa, and are meant to specifically drastically reduce immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. The Western Hemisphere is left, unaffected by those quotas.

But what Hanson does is he basically uses these new laws and the kind of mandates that come down from Washington to more aggressively enforce these laws, to more aggressively limit the number of people who can come across, and he uses that to essentially simultaneously declare again that he is sitting atop an astonishingly dangerous situation.

He is district director of immigration for South Texas. So basically everything from Del Rio to Brownsville is sort of his territory. He spends his entire time in this position screaming as loudly as he can that “We have to do everything we can to eliminate Mexican exiles who have come across.”

He sort of makes a huge deal about Italian immigrants flooding into northern Mexico and trying to get in, which on the one hand, is built on a tiny truth. There are large numbers of Italian immigrants, in particular, who were specifically meant to be limited by the Immigration Act of 1924, who do go to Mexico instead, hoping to make it into Mexico, which does not have quota laws, and then work their way into the United States.

What Hanson does with that is he sets up what is essentially an illegal smuggling operation through the Border Patrol, in which he and his Border Patrol, which has also just been set up in 1924, basically have an arrangement with smugglers operating out of Nuevo Laredo. And the arrangement is anytime you get Italian or any other European immigrants, those smugglers agree to basically get those immigrants across the Rio Grande and immediately hand them over to the Border Patrol. In return, those smugglers have an open hand to smuggle as many non-European immigrants and as much liquor as they wanted to.

 And we’re talking about the Prohibition era.

This is during the Prohibition era. So what Hanson is essentially doing here is he’s creating his own smuggling operation. He gets money off of it by illegally allowing these smuggling operations to operate. And he gets to pretend to Washington that he’s actually doing something right.

He has these arrest numbers that he can point at without actually having to enforce the law. Nobody’s actually patrolling. Nobody’s actually looking for immigrants. They’re just having those immigrants literally handed to them by the smugglers themselves – without, of course, doing anything to trouble the labor needs of South Texas economic elites who demand throughout this period that they have an open hand to Mexican immigration.

So Hanson manages to trace a really kind of interesting line here where he’s simultaneously pretending to enforce the law at the same time that he is actively looking to kind of undercut the actual enforcement of that law.

You know, I know that a lot of listeners are hearing parallels with modern times. And of course, a lot of what we talk about when we talk about the border is in sweeping caricatures, and that can be dangerous as well. But when you think about his influence on contemporary border policy to this day, do you see the marks of William Hanson?

Absolutely. So one of the major arguments I make in the book is that William Hanson is uncomfortably familiar to anyone looking at these issues today. I’m not arguing that he creates racist policing. I’m not arguing that he sort of creates these notions that the border is a place of danger and that people coming over the border are a sort of invading force, to use that sort of unfortunate language that so often gets used here.

But I am arguing that, in many ways, what he shows us is a clear continuity. You know, what Hanson was doing in the early 20th century looks entirely and utterly familiar. It is a kind of fear mongering based on cynicism, based on the understanding that most people don’t know what’s actually happening at the border, and based on, again, a just sort of rank desire for power.

So in that way, again, I think William Hanson looks a lot like a whole bunch of people who, again, are kind of dependent increasingly now on that kind of fear mongering politics that so often casts, as you said, the border in increasingly ridiculous and kind of cartoonish way.

If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it  here . Your gift helps pay for everything you find on  texasstandard.org  and  KUT.org . Thanks for donating today.

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16 New Books Coming in July

New novels from J. Courtney Sullivan and Liz Moore, a memoir by a “hacktivist” member of Anonymous — and more.

Credit... The New York Times

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The Cliffs , by J. Courtney Sullivan

A dilapidated lavender mansion, perched high on a craggy bluff in Maine, turns out to be more than a home: It’s the key to a century of hopes, misdeeds and family ghosts.

Knopf, July 2

The God of the Woods , by Liz Moore

Moore’s fifth novel takes place at an Adirondack summer camp where the daughter of the owner goes missing. Strangely — and alarmingly — she isn’t the first person in her family to disappear from this secluded idyll. Who is responsible?

Riverhead, July 2

Private Revolutions , by Yuan Yang

This story of four women’s coming-of-age spans six years in China in the 1980s and ‘90s, offering a portrait both sweeping and intimate — as much a study of a radically changing society as of four very different people.

Viking, July 2

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Hillary Clinton announces new book, tour in September

Hillary Clinton has penned a new memoir that will be published in the lead up to November’s election.

Simon & Schuster will release “Something Lost, Something Gained” in September, supporting it with a book tour that will last into October.

What You Need To Know

Hillary clinton has announced a new memoir and book tour for september simon & schuster will publish "something lost, something gained: reflections on life, love and liberty" the book will be released sept. 17 clinton will promote the book on a five-city tour that begins in washington, d.c. and ends in seattle in october.

“I can’t wait to hit the road and talk about ‘Something Lost, Something Gained’ with you in person. I hope you can join me for wide-ranging conversations that go behind the scenes and include never-before told stories,” Clinton said in a statement. “We’ll discuss the state of our politics and creating the future we want for our children and grandchildren and, most of all, have some fun while we’re at it!”

Subtitled “reflections on life, love and liberty,” the latest memoir from the former first lady, and U.S. Senator for New York, U.S. Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee will offer “her candid views on life and love, politics, liberty, democracy, the threats we face, and the future within our reach,” according to the publisher.

Her tour will begin in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16 and continue with stops in Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle.

Clinton has written ten other books, including “What Happened,” published in 2017, about her failed bid for the presidency in 2016.

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Pattern book design competition that will speed up the delivery of new homes is officially launched

Published: 2 July 2024

Released by: The Premier, Minister for Planning and Public Spaces

The Minns Labor Government is today officially launching an international pattern book design competition allowing architects and architecture students from around the world to design the future face of Sydney and NSW while speeding up the delivery of new homes.

Housing remains the single biggest cost of living pressure people across NSW are facing with a recent NSW Productivity Commission report finding that Sydney is losing twice as many young people as it is gaining, putting us at risk of becoming a city with no grandchildren.

This once in a generation opportunity to confront the housing crisis will mean the winning designs used by developers will have access to an accelerated approval pathway.

The accelerated pathway will allow builders to have homes approved and built faster, providing homes to those who need them sooner.

The competition jury will be chaired by the NSW Government Architect Abbie Galvin and is endorsed by the Australian Institute of Architects.

The jury is looking for designs which are liveable, buildable, replicable, cost effective, sustainable and that meet the needs of the industry and local communities.

Highlighting the NSW Government’s commitment to this Pattern Book, final designs will initially be built by the government on five sites provided by Homes NSW, Landcom and Sydney Olympic Park.

This will allow people across New South Wales to see the physical homes contained in the patten book while providing winning architects with the opportunity to see their designs in built form.

To apply, registered architects and students must express their interest to take part and design a terrace house or mid-rise apartment building.

Short-listed candidates will then submit detailed designs with the winners to be announced later this year.

The competition opens on 2 July 2024 and the final Pattern Book will be launched in 2025.

This initiative builds on the Government’s plans to build better homes for NSW having already undertaken the single largest rezoning of land in NSW history, while also making the largest investment in the building of homes by a NSW Government since federation.

To learn more about the Pattern Book Design Competition or to submit an EOI visit www.planning.nsw.gov.au/pattern-book-design-competition .

Premier Chris Minns said:

“This competition provides a once in a lifetime opportunity for Australia and the world’s best architects to play a central role in addressing the housing crisis our state is facing.

“Pattern books have been used in NSW by architects and builders since the 19th century, and we’re committed to using these new designs to deliver more homes faster for those who need them.

“These designs will offer ease of approvals for builders while delivering quality homes that shape our city’s future.”

Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully said:

“Our planning reforms to low and mid rise housing are fundamental to the Pattern Book competition and will provide diversity of housing for our diverse community.

“Anyone who uses one of the pre-approved designs will have access to a faster development assessment pathway which will save builders, developers and homeowners time and money.

“The NSW Government Architect is working closely with our valued partners the Australian Institute of Architects, Regional Architects Association, Housing NOW! and other industry stakeholders so that the patterns cater to accessibility and gaps in the market – such as intergenerational housing and family friendly housing.”

Government Architect NSW Abbie Galvin said:

“Design competitions provide us the privilege of hearing from the deep and diverse talent in the design industry. We look forward to seeing the creativity and skills of architects from around the world contribute innovative designs for the Pattern Book and have the opportunity for these designs to be built as demonstration projects.

“Good housing design goes beyond just the look of a building and its architectural style.

“Thoughtful design can add to a better quality of life and improve our streets and neighbourhoods.

“The development of low-and-mid-rise housing patterns will support our reforms to build up and not out, with more diverse housing close to transport, green space, amenities and jobs.

“The Pattern Book will be a useful resource for industry, architects, planners, councils and the community.”

Related ministerial media releases

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The flag of Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia which I bought there during my last visit

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Elektrostal

Elektrostal Localisation : Country Russia , Oblast Moscow Oblast . Available Information : Geographical coordinates , Population, Area, Altitude, Weather and Hotel . Nearby cities and villages : Noginsk , Pavlovsky Posad and Staraya Kupavna .

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Browse Walks in Elektrostal’, Moscow Oblast, RU

The world is a beautiful place filled with wonderful people and amazing experiences. Let's share that with each other.

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Exploring the History and Culture of Elektrostal: A 2-Hour Walking Tour

This two-hour walking tour of Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia, will take you through the city’s vibrant streets and squares, giving you a chance to explore the city’s unique culture and history. The tour will begin at the Elektrostal City Hall (Address: ul. Lenina, 1, Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia; Latitude/Longitude: 55.814092, 38.445045). Here, you can admire the building’s impressive architecture and learn about the city’s history. Next, you will head to the Elektrostal Museum of Local Lore (Address: ul. Lenina, 2, Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia; Latitude/Longitude: 55.814092, 38.445045). This museum is home to a variety of artifacts and exhibits that tell the story of the city’s past. From there, you will make your way to the Elektrostal Central Market (Address: ul. Lenina, 3, Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia; Latitude/Longitude: 55.814092, 38.445045). Here, you can browse the stalls and pick up some souvenirs or local delicacies. Afterwards, you will head to the Elektrostal Cathedral (Address: ul. Lenina, 4, Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia; Latitude/Longitude: 55.814092, 38.445045). This beautiful church is a great place to admire the city’s architecture and take in the atmosphere. Next, you will make your way to the Elektrostal Art Gallery (Address: ul. Lenina, 5, Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia; Latitude/Longitude: 55.814092, 38.445045). Here, you can admire the works of local artists and learn about the city’s art scene. Afterwards, you will head to the Elektrostal Park (Address: ul. Lenina, 6, Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia; Latitude/Longitude: 55.814092, 38.445045). This park is a great place to take a break and relax in the shade of the trees. Finally, you will make your way to the Elektrostal Shopping Center (Address: ul. Lenina, 7, Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia; Latitude/Longitude: 55.814092, 38.445045). Here, you can find a variety of shops and restaurants, as well as a cinema. Along the way, you can also stop at some of the city’s interesting shops and eateries. For example, you can visit the Kofein Coffee Shop (Address: ul. Lenina, 8, Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia; Latitude/Longitude: 55.814092, 38.445045) for a cup of coffee and a snack, or the Kvartal Pub (Address: ul. Lenina, 9, Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia; Latitude/Longitude: 55.814092, 38.445045) for a beer and some traditional Russian food.

Elektrostal’ Moscow Oblast Russia Tour Companies

New Orleans

Enjoy the many tour options available for the city of New Orleans in our modern fleet of minibusses. Three-hour city tours, plantation tours, swamp/airboat tours. We also offer chartered group transportation.

• 504-689-3599
• https://www.neworleans.com/

Spell Caster Ghost Tours

Spell Caster Ghost Tours is honored to show folks the history and hauntings of Georgetown, Texas. We brew historically accurate information with the legends and lore of charming Georgetown to create the perfect potion for an enchanted evening stroll. Spell Caster Ghost Tours offers Family-Friendly, adult Only Ghost Tours and Private Tours personally curated for your Group.

• (737) 738-3669
• https://spellcasterghosttours.com/
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Gondwana Ecotours

Gondwana Ecotours offers small group and privately guided tours to curated locations worldwide. Our adventures are a perfect blend of nature and culture, and we pride ourselves on crafting activities and experiences that are unique and often unavailable elsewhere. Whether you travel with us to see the Northern Lights in Alaska or to Rwanda to get up close with gorillas in ... More their native habitat, we make it a point to make local connections and support community organizations.

• (877) 587-8479
• https://www.gondwanaecotours.com/
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