100 books like Eating, Drinking, and Visiting in the South

By Joe Gray Taylor,

Here are 100 books that Eating, Drinking, and Visiting in the South fans have personally recommended if you like Eating, Drinking, and Visiting in the South. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Women's Life and Work in the Southern Colonies

Ida Flowers Author Of Jessie's Passion

From my list on everyday life in the Southern colonies.

Why am I passionate about this?

Ever since I started reading the Little House series at the age of ten, I’ve been in love with women’s history. In college I had the opportunity to write a paper on the topic of my choice and I chose women of the American colonial period. I found that while our daily life is now very different, our feelings as women are much the same. The more primary sources I discovered, the more I could feel the fears, sorrows, and joys of the determined women who came before us, unwittingly creating records of their experiences in their correspondence and journals as they built homes and businesses from the raw, wild land.

Ida's book list on everyday life in the Southern colonies

Ida Flowers Why did Ida love this book?

Julia Cherry Spruill is herself a fascinating character, one who worked in her husband’s shadow most of her life, an academic wife, as it were, creating research methods for the decade-long project of examining women’s experiences in the New World. The book, after being published, was largely ignored for thirty years, until it was published in paperback at a time when women’s history was attaining status as an academic field. Women’s Life and Work is overflowing with details concerning women’s activities, clothing, food and drink, childbearing, and death, with personal anecdotes of their feelings about it all. 

By Julia Cherry Spruill,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Women's Life and Work in the Southern Colonies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Out of a wealth of documentation, and often from the words of the people themselves, Spruill's account brings these women's lives out of the shadows-opening a usable past that was not there before.

In the words of Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., it is "an important contribution to social history to which students will constantly turn."

Book cover of Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation

Ida Flowers Author Of Jessie's Passion

From my list on everyday life in the Southern colonies.

Why am I passionate about this?

Ever since I started reading the Little House series at the age of ten, I’ve been in love with women’s history. In college I had the opportunity to write a paper on the topic of my choice and I chose women of the American colonial period. I found that while our daily life is now very different, our feelings as women are much the same. The more primary sources I discovered, the more I could feel the fears, sorrows, and joys of the determined women who came before us, unwittingly creating records of their experiences in their correspondence and journals as they built homes and businesses from the raw, wild land.

Ida's book list on everyday life in the Southern colonies

Ida Flowers Why did Ida love this book?

I love reading about women from the past who asserted themselves in a world where there was little was expected from them besides obedience to the men in their lives. Founding Mothers is a story of influential women prior to and after the American Revolution, with many quotes from personal correspondence, from Abigail Adams to Martha Washington. Not only do we read of the activities in which they participated, including births and deaths of their own children, but the emotions that kept them company as well. Touching on the lives of those less renowned as well, Founding Mothers is a springboard for deeper research into the lives of women living in young America. 

By Cokie Roberts,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Founding Mothers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Cokie Roberts comes New York Times bestseller Founding Mothers, an intimate and illuminating look at the fervently patriotic and passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families—and their country—proved just as crucial to the forging of a new nation as the rebellion that established it.

While much has been written about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, battled the British, and framed the Constitution, the wives, mothers, sisters and daughters they left behind have been little noticed by history. #1 New York Times bestselling author Cokie Roberts brings us…


Book cover of Culture Of Honor: The Psychology Of Violence In The South

John Shelton Reed Author Of Mixing It Up: A South-Watcher's Miscellany

From my list on on the South that you’ve probably never heard of.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve written a couple of books about other subjects, but most of my professional life has been devoted to writing, speaking, and teaching about the South. I’ve been doing it ever since I went north to college and graduate school in the 1960s. My early books and articles were written as a sociologist, mostly for other sociologists, but in the 1970s I started writing what I learned to call “familiar essays” for a more general readership, and lately I’ve been writing about Southern foodways—three books about barbecue (so far), one of them a cookbook. I’ve also written several country songs (only one of them recorded).

John's book list on on the South that you’ve probably never heard of

John Shelton Reed Why did John love this book?

Much of this book by two psychologists covers familiar ground and some may find their explanation for what they found unpersuasive, but get this: When they brought white male undergraduates into the laboratory on a pretext and called them "asshole," Northern subjects laughed it off or ignored it, but Southern ones bristled. Subsequent tests showed that the Southerners had heightened blood levels of stress-related hormones and testosterone, but the Northerners did not. Moving the study of the South’s “culture of violence” to the physiological level was a remarkable achievement, but hardly anyone seems to have noticed.

By Richard E. Nisbett, Dov Cohen,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Culture Of Honor as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book focuses on a singular cause of male violence-the perpetrator's sense of threat to one of his most valued possessions, namely, his reputation for strength and toughness. The theme of this book is that the Southern United States had-and has-a type of culture of honor.


Book cover of Land of the South

John Shelton Reed Author Of Mixing It Up: A South-Watcher's Miscellany

From my list on on the South that you’ve probably never heard of.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve written a couple of books about other subjects, but most of my professional life has been devoted to writing, speaking, and teaching about the South. I’ve been doing it ever since I went north to college and graduate school in the 1960s. My early books and articles were written as a sociologist, mostly for other sociologists, but in the 1970s I started writing what I learned to call “familiar essays” for a more general readership, and lately I’ve been writing about Southern foodways—three books about barbecue (so far), one of them a cookbook. I’ve also written several country songs (only one of them recorded).

John's book list on on the South that you’ve probably never heard of

John Shelton Reed Why did John love this book?

This atlas, a beautiful but money-losing coffee table book from the book-publishing arm of Southern Living, appeared just as a new CEO ordered the company’s book people to think of themselves “more in the direct-marketing business, as opposed to being a book publisher.” (This strategy led eventually to How to Cook for Your Man and Still Want to Look at Him Naked.) It was probably treated as a write-off from the beginning and not marketed at all, which is a shame, because it is much more than a handsome ornament for your living room. Three geographers and a historian, all from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, produced a solidly-researched and profoundly informative work of cartographic excellence, one that repays both casual browsing and close study. (Some used book sites incorrectly show a different cover, but don’t worry about that.)

By James W. Clay, Paul D. Escott, Douglas M. Orr Jr. , Alfred W. Stuart

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Land of the South as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Book by Clay, James W.


Book cover of This Land, This South: An Environmental History

John Shelton Reed Author Of Mixing It Up: A South-Watcher's Miscellany

From my list on on the South that you’ve probably never heard of.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve written a couple of books about other subjects, but most of my professional life has been devoted to writing, speaking, and teaching about the South. I’ve been doing it ever since I went north to college and graduate school in the 1960s. My early books and articles were written as a sociologist, mostly for other sociologists, but in the 1970s I started writing what I learned to call “familiar essays” for a more general readership, and lately I’ve been writing about Southern foodways—three books about barbecue (so far), one of them a cookbook. I’ve also written several country songs (only one of them recorded).

John's book list on on the South that you’ve probably never heard of

John Shelton Reed Why did John love this book?

This magnificent history of the South’s landscape, an unexpected one-off from a historian of military medicine, looks at how humans have shaped the Southern land and vice versa. It debunks the romantic view of pre-Columbian Indians as “natural ecologists” living in harmony with nature, showing how they radically altered their environment by hunting and burning. Europeans were even more exploitative and brought with them diseases that loved their new home. Later developments like flood control, wildlife protection, and anti-pollution measures have had profound and sometimes unanticipated consequences. The book is richly detailed and unusually well-written—not surprising, since Cowdrey has also written award-winning science fiction and fantasy. 

By Albert E. Cowdrey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked This Land, This South as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Here is the story of the long interaction between humans, land, and climate in the American South. It is a tale of exploitation and erosion, of destruction, disease, and defeat, but also of the persistent search for knowledge and wisdom. It is a story whose villains were also its victims and sometimes its heroes. Ancient forces created the southern landscape, but, as Albert E. Cowdrey shows, humankind from the time of earliest habitation has been at work reshaping it. The southern Indians, far from being the "natural ecologists" of myth, radically transformed their environment by hunting and burning. Such patterns…


Book cover of Myth, Media, and the Southern Mind

John Shelton Reed Author Of Mixing It Up: A South-Watcher's Miscellany

From my list on on the South that you’ve probably never heard of.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve written a couple of books about other subjects, but most of my professional life has been devoted to writing, speaking, and teaching about the South. I’ve been doing it ever since I went north to college and graduate school in the 1960s. My early books and articles were written as a sociologist, mostly for other sociologists, but in the 1970s I started writing what I learned to call “familiar essays” for a more general readership, and lately I’ve been writing about Southern foodways—three books about barbecue (so far), one of them a cookbook. I’ve also written several country songs (only one of them recorded).

John's book list on on the South that you’ve probably never heard of

John Shelton Reed Why did John love this book?

Smith, professor of communications at the University of Arkansas, examines the stories that Southerners have told about themselves—the “myths” of the South. The Old South/Lost Cause/New South myths “controlled Southern culture and Southern rhetoric for one hundred fifty years,” he argues, but by the mid-twentieth century, the strain between myth and reality finally became too great and “a period of mythic confusion,” ensued. By the 1970s, however, Southern artists, scholars, journalists, politicians, and preachers—both Black and white—had forged a new myth, based on the themes of distinctiveness, racial civility, and community. When Smith wrote, he was confident that there will always be some myth of the South, that it won’t become a mere quadrant of the U.S. with a "dysfunctional amythic culture." We shall see.

By Stephen A. Smith,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Myth, Media, and the Southern Mind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Book by Smith, Stephen A.


Book cover of The Letterbook of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, 1739-1762

Ida Flowers Author Of Jessie's Passion

From my list on everyday life in the Southern colonies.

Why am I passionate about this?

Ever since I started reading the Little House series at the age of ten, I’ve been in love with women’s history. In college I had the opportunity to write a paper on the topic of my choice and I chose women of the American colonial period. I found that while our daily life is now very different, our feelings as women are much the same. The more primary sources I discovered, the more I could feel the fears, sorrows, and joys of the determined women who came before us, unwittingly creating records of their experiences in their correspondence and journals as they built homes and businesses from the raw, wild land.

Ida's book list on everyday life in the Southern colonies

Ida Flowers Why did Ida love this book?

I kept a diary as a teen, but it won’t be preserved as any kind of example of what the world was like during my life. The Letterbook of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, however, provides a detailed record of daily life in South Carolina in the decades before the American Revolution. Eliza’s letters to her father, friends, and business acquaintances depict life on a plantation from the direct experience of a girl curious, innovative, and determined in her role as manager of several businesses and creator of more. 

By Elise Pinckney (editor), Marvin R. Zahniser (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Letterbook of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, 1739-1762 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Intriguing letters by one of colonial America's most accomplished women

One of the most distinguished women of colonial America, Eliza Lucas Pinckney pioneered large-scale cultivation of indigo in South Carolina, managed her father's extensive plantation holdings, and raised two sons―Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Thomas Pinckney―who would become celebrated patriots of the new nation. Pinckney's lively letters reveal insightful details about an eventful life, including her myriad interests, changing politics, innovative ideas about slave education, voracious reading habits, and unusually happy marriage. Substantial footnotes and a newly revised introduction complement Pinckney's delightful correspondence.


Book cover of The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution: The Journal and Other Writings of Charles Woodmason, Anglican Itinerant

Ida Flowers Author Of Jessie's Passion

From my list on everyday life in the Southern colonies.

Why am I passionate about this?

Ever since I started reading the Little House series at the age of ten, I’ve been in love with women’s history. In college I had the opportunity to write a paper on the topic of my choice and I chose women of the American colonial period. I found that while our daily life is now very different, our feelings as women are much the same. The more primary sources I discovered, the more I could feel the fears, sorrows, and joys of the determined women who came before us, unwittingly creating records of their experiences in their correspondence and journals as they built homes and businesses from the raw, wild land.

Ida's book list on everyday life in the Southern colonies

Ida Flowers Why did Ida love this book?

Charles Woodmason was an Anglican preacher sent in 1766 by the church to minister to the inhabitants of the South Carolina Backcountry. Through his journal entries I feel “Roads hot and Sandy—and Weather excessive Sultry,” and “Night frozen with the Cold,” and hunger, with nothing to eat but “Indian Corn Bread” and water. I see people who “Live in Logg Cabbins like Hogs” with “Behavior as rude or more so than Savages” and children running half-naked in the cold. Woodmason’s journals, sermons, and letters provide rich and raw details of life in South Carolina before the American Revolution in the way only first-hand accounts can impart. 

By Charles Woodmason,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In what is probably the fullest and most vivid extant account of the American Colonial frontier, The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution gives shape to the daily life, thoughts, hopes, and fears of the frontier people. It is set forth by one of the most extraordinary men who ever sought out the wilderness--Charles Woodmason, an Anglican minister whose moral earnestness and savage indignation, combined with a vehement style, make him worthy of comparison with Swift. The book consists of his journal, selections from the sermons he preached to his Backcountry congregations, and the letters he wrote to…


Book cover of Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants

Erica Hannickel Author Of Empire of Vines: Wine Culture in America

From my list on the history of booze.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a professor at Northland College (WI) and an American environmental historian with specialties in wine, food, and horticulture. I mostly write on alcohol, garden history, botany, and orchids. The history of alcohol is wild, fraught, and charged with power—I’ll never tire of learning about it.

Erica's book list on the history of booze

Erica Hannickel Why did Erica love this book?

A sensual cultural history mixed with economic history, specifically the rise of capitalism, Schivelbusch launches an interesting argument—that one particular substance, or taste, has often defined the zeitgeist of whole nations for definitive periods. This book is wide-ranging and general in its treatment of alcohol, as well as several other drinks and spices. There are excellent imaginative connections made, and the book invites thinkers to think deeply and broadly about the meaning of intoxicants in history and in their own lives.

By Wolfgang Schivelbusch,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Tastes of Paradise as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the extravagant use of pepper in the Middle Ages to the Protestant bourgeoisie's love of coffee to the reason why fashionable Europeans stopped sniffing tobacco and starting smoking it, Schivelbusch looks at how the appetite for pleasure transformed the social structure of the Old World. Illustrations.


Book cover of Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis

Michael P. Foley Author Of Drinking with the Saints: The Sinner's Guide to a Holy Happy Hour

From my list on culture and booze.

Why am I passionate about this?

One of my fondest childhood memories is the holiday parties that my parents threw. Lying in bed I could hear roars of laughter crash the silence and gently ebb as the grownups shared stories and made merry. Later in life, I came to realize how different that kind of drinking is from the frat-boy binging of college and the anxious bracers at singles’ bars. As an adult, I became a Catholic theologian, got married, and had a family of my own. My wife Alexandra and I have relished an evening cocktail together in order to unwind and catch up on each other’s day (Alexandra has homeschooled all six of our children, which is itself a compelling reason to drink daily).

Michael's book list on culture and booze

Michael P. Foley Why did Michael love this book?

The first book I read by British novelist Kingsley Amis was Lucky Jim, one of the greatest satires on academic life ever written (I do not, however, recommend reading it when you are applying for a teaching position as I foolishly did, since it will mess, mess, mess with your head). Amis enjoyed the drink far more than he should have, earning him the reputation, as he put it, “of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time.” His extensive familiarity with the bottom of a glass bore at least one good fruit. Everyday Drinking is a painfully witty, laugh-out-loud collection of essays and even quizzes on different kinds of alcohol from around the world. 

By Kingsley Amis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Everyday Drinking as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Kingsley Amis was one of the great masters of comic prose, and no subject was dearer to him than the art and practice of imbibing. This new volume brings together the best of his three out-of-print works on the subject: Kingsley Amis in Drink, Everyday Drinking and How's Your Glass? In one handsome package, the book covers a full shelf of the master's riotous and erudite thoughts on the drinking arts: Along with a series of well-tested recipes (including a cocktail called the Lucky Jim) are Amis's musings on The Hangover, The Boozing Man's Diet, The Mean Sod's Guide, and…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in drinking culture, the South, and eating?

Drinking Culture 12 books
The South 188 books
Eating 16 books