Reading Memorial Drive is tender & raw, watching grief build and unfold. It’s incredibly intimate. So much so that when I realized Natasha Trethewey does speaking events about this book, I marveled at her fortitude, to be laid bare that many times before audiences. To be so vulnerable. I can’t… Read More »The Nitty Gritty: Memorial Drive
I’m going to come clean (again): middle grades fiction is my thing. Totally my thing. We read Orphan Island for the Bookish 4th & 5th grade book club–and it was a unanimous choice. At least one of the girls had been dying to read it. And, I mean, who was… Read More »The Nitty Gritty: Orphan Island
I hugged this book when I finished it. I just couldn’t imagine putting the characters down & walking away from them. I’m still not ready to let go… Even if YA novels aren’t typically your thing, this deserves a read. It’s a novel written in verse, which is pretty damn… Read More »The Nitty Gritty: Clap When You Land
I read the best books without having any idea why I really picked them up. In this case, the copy of Charm & Strange that I have at the store has library markings on it. For some reason, that makes it much harder to sell. So I grabbed it out of a… Read More »The Nitty Gritty: Charm & Strange
I picked up Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone on a whim. A mass market paperback version was just laying about in the store, in a pile of used books I was sorting to shelve. They don’t really sell for us, those little block-like books, so I figured nobody’d be itching to buy… Read More »The Nitty Gritty: She’s Come Undone
I’ll be upfront with you… I have aspirations of getting my PhD in Southern Literature. And, sure, there are lots of the Southern classics that I haven’t made my way through yet. But when I was looking at a syllabus for a graduate level Southern Lit class, I ran across Welcome… Read More »The Nitty Gritty: Welcome to Braggsville
The pull to a specific place has occupied my thoughts for the better part of 5 years now. This idea of place as a piece of who we are is what drew me to Atlanta. This city called me until I could no longer ignore it. I had to be… Read More »The Nitty Gritty: The Yellow House
I’ve been thinking a lot about place lately: how where we are from constructs who we are. And I’ve been drawn to books that explore place as internal landscape. My mother’s family is from South Georgia. Although I grew up in Florida, I always considered myself a dis-placed Southerner. According… Read More »The Nitty Gritty: Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
I’ve never kept my love for middle grades novels secret. Given the option between a book for a full-grown & a middle grades book, well… middle grades wins every time. As a bookseller, I have a place to channel my love of middle grades fiction: 4th & 5th grade book… Read More »The Nitty Gritty: When You Reach Me
This book is one I return to repeatedly. Partly for its clear message that, yes, enlightenment is possible for everyone. And partly because I find the discussion of how to meditate simple and refreshing. But my favorite aspect of 3 Pillars of Zen is absolutely the personal anecdotes, transcribed and… Read More »The Nitty Gritty: Three Pillars of Zen
