The most recommended books about Mississippi

Who picked these books? Meet our 93 experts.

93 authors created a book list connected to Mississippi, and here are their favorite Mississippi books.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

What type of Mississippi book?

Loading...
Loading...

An American Insurrection

By William Doyle,

Book cover of An American Insurrection: James Meredith and the Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962

Derek R. King Author Of The Life and Times of Clyde Kennard

From the list on lesser-known Civil Rights.

Who am I?

I’ve been fascinated by the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South in the 1950s and 60s for many years. Keen to understand not just events in that timeframe, I also needed to understand how those entrenched and diametrically opposed positions had occurred. What triggered the responses of water cannon, German shepherd dogs, and Billy clubs to seemingly peaceful students marching or seated in a particular section of a café? Over a period of seventeen years, I amassed a private collection of books, magazines, newspapers, over two hundred in all, along with material from various state-run Departments of Archives of History, further amplifying my fascination and providing fodder for my book.

Derek's book list on lesser-known Civil Rights

Why did Derek love this book?

While this is a non-fiction book, with the story that unfolds, you could be forgiven for believing it’s a work of fiction. That a US president, would send tens of thousands of US Army personnel into a state to quell an insurrection in the 20th Century is barely believable, but this is indeed what happened.

The remarkable book sets out the events which surrounded the heated and impassioned debate which evolved around the admission of James Meredith into the University of Mississippi, known as Ole Miss. 

The facts alone make this a compelling read, written in a journalist styling, making the read fast-paced and highly informative.

By William Doyle,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked An American Insurrection as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1961, a black veteran named James Meredith applied for admission to the University of Mississippi — and launched a legal revolt against white supremacy in the most segregated state in America. Meredith’s challenge ultimately triggered what Time magazine called “the gravest conflict between federal and state authority since the Civil War,” a crisis that on September 30, 1962, exploded into a chaotic battle between thousands of white civilians and a small corps of federal marshals. To crush the insurrection, President John F. Kennedy ordered a lightning invasion of Mississippi by over 20,000 U.S. combat infantry, paratroopers, military police, and…


The Ranger

By Ace Atkins,

Book cover of The Ranger

Mike Attebery Author Of Firepower

From the list on crime novels if you appreciate style and humor.

Who am I?

I have loved mysteries and crime thrillers since I worked at the legendary R.J. Julia Booksellers in high school. A lifelong love of books and movies led me to pursue a career in screenwriting and later in indie publishing. My most popular books, including Seattle On Ice, Chokecherry Canyon, and The Grimwood Trilogy all mix fast-paced action with film references and plenty of humor.

Mike's book list on crime novels if you appreciate style and humor

Why did Mike love this book?

Ace Atkins is a master of the crime genre. It’s no wonder Robert B. Parker’s estate tapped him to carry on the Spenser series. He’s great at capturing places and the internal monologues of weary men. He’s also able to tell stories just seedy enough to keep readers curious, without making them cringe. The first book in Atkins’ Quinn Colson series is on par with Elmore Leonard’s Raylan Givens books. Quinn seems entirely real, the small town he returns to after a years-long absence feels lived in and believable. And the pacing is masterful. Whereas Perry drags readers along for the action, Atkins makes you feel as though you’re sitting in the backseat, riding down the winding roads of Tibbehah County in northeast Mississippi as Quinn uneasily approaches another backcountry crime scene.    

By Ace Atkins,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Northeast Mississippi is hill country, rugged and notorious for outlaws since the Civil War, where killings are as commonplace as they were in the Old West. To Quinn Colson, just back from a tour of Afghanistan, it's home. But home has changed.

Quinn returns to a place overrun by corruption. His uncle, the county sheriff, is dead - officially it was suicide, but others whisper murder. In the days that follow, it will be up to Colson, now an Army Ranger, to discover the truth - not only about his uncle, but also about his family, friends, hometown and himself.…


Men We Reaped

By Jesmyn Ward,

Book cover of Men We Reaped: A Memoir

Sarah L. Sanderson Author Of The Place We Make: Breaking the Legacy of Legalized Hate

From the list on memoirs to see the world through someone else’s eyes.

Who am I?

I chose to study creative nonfiction during my MFA program so I could learn what makes great memoirs work, but I first fell in love with the genre as a teenager, when I picked up Angela’s Ashes off my mom’s bedside table. I’m grateful for the way memoir gives me a window into the lives of people of other races, religions, abilities, experiences, and even other centuries. While my book The Place We Make isn’t only a memoir—it’s a blend of memoir and historical biography—it was my desire to both understand the view through my research subject’s eyes, and analyze how I was seeing the world myself, that drove me to write it.

Sarah's book list on memoirs to see the world through someone else’s eyes

Why did Sarah love this book?

Men We Reaped blew me away.

Not only does Ward provide an incredibly personal and achingly beautiful glimpse of a culture I was unfamiliar with—a rural, impoverished Black community in the Deep South—but she does so with an innovative structure that simply dazzled me.

One strand of the book opens at the beginning of Ward’s life, while the other strand picks up at the end of her tale, with the most recent of five harrowing deaths due to gun violence that she and her community have endured. Each part of the story then alternately proceeds toward the same point, forwards along her childhood and backwards through each death, until both strands wind up in the middle of the story. It’s brilliantly executed. 

By Jesmyn Ward,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Men We Reaped as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

_______________ 'A brutal, moving memoir ... Anyone who emerges from America's black working-class youth with words as fine as Ward's deserves a hearing' - Guardian 'Raw, beautiful and dangerous' - New York Times Book Review 'Lavishly endowed with literary craft and hard-earned wisdom' - Time _______________ The beautiful, haunting memoir from Jesmyn Ward, the first woman to win the National Book Award twice 'And then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped' - Harriet Tubman Jesmyn Ward's acclaimed memoir shines…


Go Down, Moses

By William Faulkner,

Book cover of Go Down, Moses

John Keeble Author Of The Appointment: The Tale of Adaline Carson

From the list on where writers write about what they know and don't.

Who am I?

I'm fascinated by how a fiction writer empathizes with characters whose experience is beyond his or her own. I was raised mostly in California. My high school had a slim white majority, followed by Mexican-Americans, then by Samoans. My father was a Congregational minister. After Sunday services he gave over his church to Samoans, who had no church of their own. Treating people of differing cultures is indispensable, but as I have aged I've seen that in no way should I appropriate nonwhite experience. It's a contradiction: One cannot not appropriate the lives of others in fiction. Yet one must define oneself by empathy for them. The hard-fought solution to the contradiction is compassion.

John's book list on where writers write about what they know and don't

Why did John love this book?

A remarkable book by the classic American writer. It is a novel, yet presents itself as a collection of stories.  Faulkner explores the white history of his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, but also extends himself to explore the Black characters that figure into the history whose true experience he can only have imagined. There are Lucas and Molly Beauchamp of "The Fire and the Hearth," the "Nigger" in "Pantaloon in Black," the part-Indian in "The Old People," Boon Hogganbeck in "The Bear,'" Molly again, and the doomed Samuel Beautchamp in ""Go Down Moses." The book is dedicated to a real person, Mammy, Caroline Barr, of whom Faulkner writes, "Who was born in slavery and who gave to my family a fidelity without stint or calcuation of recompense and to my childhood an immeasurable devotion and love." 

By William Faulkner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Go Down, Moses as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.” —William Faulkner, on receiving the Nobel Prize
 
Go Down, Moses is composed of seven interrelated stories, all of them set in Faulkner’s mythic Yoknapatawpha County. From a variety of perspectives, Faulkner examines the complex, changing relationships between blacks and whites, between man and nature, weaving a cohesive novel rich in implication and insight.


The Guilty

By David Baldacci,

Book cover of The Guilty

Iris Bolling Author Of The Aftermath: A Nate Reigns Novel

From Iris' 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Who am I?

Author Entrepreneur Author Teacher Reader All around family type of girl

Iris' 3 favorite reads in 2023

Why did Iris love this book?

The Will Robie series by David Baldacci is outstanding. The details of the journey Robie takes as an assassin for the United States is intriguing. 

The way Baldacci describes the surroundings gives you the feeling that you are there in the midst of the action right along with Robie. The manner in which Robie carries out his missions will keep you on the edge of your seats wondering if he will make it out alive.

What is so amazing about The Guilty is the realization of you rooting for the assassin to come out on top in this personal battle of confronting his past. It is clear what Robie does for a living—he murders people. Yet we care so much about him, the man, we want him to find a happy place with this family. 

By David Baldacci,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

After failing a critical assignment overseas, Will Robie must investigate a murder accusation against his father--but to save him, he'll have to face a violent and deadly fallout in this New York Times bestselling thriller.

Will Robie escaped his small Gulf Coast hometown of Cantrell, Mississippi after high school, severing all personal ties, and never looked back. Not until the unimaginable occurs. His father, Dan Robie, has been arrested and charged with murder.

Father and son haven't spoken or seen each other since the day Robie left town. In that time, Dan Robie--a local attorney and pillar of the community--has…


Book cover of Coming of Age in Mississippi: The Classic Autobiography of Growing Up Poor and Black in the Rural South

Stephane Dunn Author Of Snitchers

From the list on Black girl coming of age everybody should read.

Who am I?

I was a book-loving Black Girl and am now a Black woman, professor-writer, and lifelong books and popular culture junkie. As a young reader, I marveled at the storytelling in books that took us into the diverse lives and deep interior of teen girls - from Are You There God It’s Me Margaret to especially ones like the five books I name which place Black girls and women at the center of the narrative. In most of the films and writings that I teach and my own book Snitchers, there’s some tragedy and pain, some blues, and perspectives that add to the truth and richness of our human and American story. 

Stephane's book list on Black girl coming of age everybody should read

Why did Stephane love this book?

I almost chose a fifth book by an author more readers will likely have heard of (Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower), but I’m going with a second autobiography, Anne Moody’s, Coming of Age in Mississippi.

Between ages 13 and 16, I read my blue paperback cover of this book more times than I can remember. It’s about Anne Moody’s growing up amid poverty and Jim Crow, beset by sexism and danger from within and outside her community due to her gender and race.

It chronicles her childhood in Mississippi to her evolution into a Civil Rights Activist as a teen and college student. It’s so unforgivingly honest, detailed, and visually rich on the page - it humanizes the history like an Eyes on the Prize documentary but way more personalized.

I think it taught me further about the value of writing very visually,  the power of our individual…

By Anne Moody,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Coming of Age in Mississippi as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The unforgettable memoir of a woman at the front lines of the civil rights movement—a harrowing account of black life in the rural South and a powerful affirmation of one person’s ability to affect change.
 
“Anne Moody’s autobiography is an eloquent, moving testimonial to her courage.”—Chicago Tribune
 
Born to a poor couple who were tenant farmers on a plantation in Mississippi, Anne Moody lived through some of the most dangerous days of the pre-civil rights era in the South. The week before she began high school came the news of Emmet Till’s lynching. Before then, she had “known the fear…


A Time for Mercy

By John Grisham,

Book cover of A Time for Mercy

Neil Turner Author Of A House on Liberty Street

From the list on underdogs overcoming impossible odds.

Who am I?

I’m a Canadian thriller and suspense novelist with an abiding affinity for stories of good ultimately overcoming evil. I’m partial to reluctant heroes battling powerful entities that are inflicting injustice. If our protagonist is flawed and forced to overcome internal demons and/or challenges, so much the better! My Tony Valenti thrillers feature a mom-and-pop law firm known as Lawyers to Little People and Lost Causes, so I know a thing or two about this type of book. Characters using brains, integrity, and bravery—moral and/or physical—fascinate me every time.

Neil's book list on underdogs overcoming impossible odds

Why did Neil love this book?

If there is an heir to Harper Lee in the realm of legal thrillers, my vote goes to John Grisham. There’s a basic sense of decency in Grisham’s books that appeals to me. In A Time for Mercy, Grisham’s enduring character Jake Brigance returns to Clanton, Mississippi in a story constructed around a polarizing small-town murder. However, precious little can be categorized along strictly black and white lines in this crime. Grisham understands that we live in a world where the grays of reality are predominant and inherently more interesting. He makes sure we understand the characters, even those we may dislike or disagree with. Grisham doesn’t take the easy way out in A Time for Mercy. The story unfolds to a surprisingly untidy yet satisfying conclusion that leaves the reader with plenty of food for thought.

By John Grisham,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Time for Mercy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Jake Brigance is back! The hero of A Time to Kill, one of the most popular novels of our time, returns in a courtroom drama that The New York Times says is "riveting" and "suspenseful."

Clanton, Mississippi. 1990. Jake Brigance finds himself embroiled in a deeply divisive trial when the court appoints him attorney for Drew Gamble, a timid sixteen-year-old boy accused of murdering a local deputy. Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance digs in and discovers that there is more to the story than meets the…


Joe

By Larry Brown,

Book cover of Joe

Rick Bass Author Of Fortunate Son: Selected Essays from the Lone Star State

From the list on resistance.

Who am I?

I’m a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction living in northwest Montana’s Yaak Valley. I moved here from Mississippi 35 years ago to live in the mountains and write short stories, novellas, novels, but have gotten sucked into decades of battling a recalcitrant U.S. Forest Service intent on building roads and clearcutting in this incredibly unique ecosystem—the Yaak Valley, is the lowest elevation in Montana, the wettest valley, and an ancient inland rainforest that contains 25% of the entire state of Montana’s “species of concern.” Chief among these are the valley’s last 25 grizzlies: one of the rarest subpopulations in North America. Loving a thing deeply is almost always revolutionary. Revolution: to turn. To change. To revolve, evolve, return. To turn around.

Rick's book list on resistance

Why did Rick love this book?

Fiction as literature of the resistance? Larry Brown’s Joe is a top candidate for what I’d call The Great American Novel. There are many entries, of course: as many stories as there are communities, past, present, and even future. 

What I love about Joe is the simplicity of metaphor. A backwoods ne’er-do-well, Joe Ransom makes his living killing—literally—the great wild biodiversity hardwood powerhouse forests of the Mississippi bottomlands by injecting them with poison so that they die, and the rich forest can be converted to the homogenous, fast-growing, essentially sterile monoculture of southern yellow pine. His way of life—wild, reckless, dangerous—is disappearing as well, and as he kills the thing he loves most, he drinks himself ever-deeper into harm’s way and seeks a violence commensurate with the one he is inflicting upon the forest. Worse yet, he begins to train a young acolyte, an orphan disciple, Gary Jones. The sentences…

By Larry Brown,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

“Brilliant . . . Larry Brown has slapped his own fresh tattoo on the big right arm of Southern Lit.” ―The Washington Post Book World

Now a major motion picture starring Nicolas Cage, directed by David Gordon Green.

Joe Ransom is a hard-drinking ex-con pushing fifty who just won’t slow down--not in his pickup, not with a gun, and certainly not with women. Gary Jones estimates his own age to be about fifteen. Born luckless, he is the son of a hopeless, homeless wandering family, and he’s desperate for a way out. When their paths cross, Joe offers him a…


The Quiet Game

By Greg Iles,

Book cover of The Quiet Game

Neil Turner Author Of A House on Liberty Street

From the list on underdogs overcoming impossible odds.

Who am I?

I’m a Canadian thriller and suspense novelist with an abiding affinity for stories of good ultimately overcoming evil. I’m partial to reluctant heroes battling powerful entities that are inflicting injustice. If our protagonist is flawed and forced to overcome internal demons and/or challenges, so much the better! My Tony Valenti thrillers feature a mom-and-pop law firm known as Lawyers to Little People and Lost Causes, so I know a thing or two about this type of book. Characters using brains, integrity, and bravery—moral and/or physical—fascinate me every time.

Neil's book list on underdogs overcoming impossible odds

Why did Neil love this book?

The Quiet Game introduces a troubled Penn Cage, who returns with his daughter to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi when his father lands in trouble. For Penn, family is sacrosanct. Iles uses Natchez brilliantly to support characterization, atmosphere, and plot. Events unfold quickly in a series of twists and turns that thrill the reader and severely test Penn as he struggles to unearth his father’s connection to a horrific Natchez mystery that the town is determined to keep buried. I admire how Penn battles relentlessly on behalf of his father, doggedly pursues a truth that frightens him, and protects his daughter in the face of growing condemnation and danger. He hews to his moral compass even when it would be expedient to abandon it.

By Greg Iles,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Quiet Game as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The first thriller in the New York Times No.1 bestselling series featuring Penn Cage: a prosecutor in a corrupt system, a husband whose wife has died, and a father who must protect his daughter. 'An engrossing, page-turning ride' (Jeffery Deaver).

Don't say a word...

Natchez, Mississippi. A city of old money and older sins. A place where a thirty-year-old crime lies buried, and everyone plays the quiet game. But on man cannot stay silent.

Returning to his home town, former prosecuting attorney Penn Cage is stunned to discover that his father is being blackmailed over a decades-old murder.

Negotiating the…


The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist

By Radley Balko, Tucker Carrington,

Book cover of The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South

Theresa Levitt Author Of Elixir: A Parisian Perfume House and the Quest for the Secret of Life

From Theresa's 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Who am I?

Author Science historian

Theresa's 3 favorite reads in 2023

Why did Theresa love this book?

As a historian of science, I was fascinated to see how science could be used, abused, and hijacked by regimes of power.

As a Mississippian, I was appalled at how persistent and insidious the problem of racial injustice remains in my state’s legal system. This is an eye-opening book that also reads like a true-crime page-turner.

By Radley Balko, Tucker Carrington,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is a tale of two tragedies.

At the heart of the first is Dr. Steven Hayne, a doctor the State of Mississippi employed as its de facto medical examiner for two decades. Beginning in the late 1980s, he performed anywhere from 1,200 to 1,800 autopsies per year, five times more than is recommended, all at night, in the basement of a local morgue and flower shop. Autopsy reports claimed organs had been observed and weighed when, in reality, they had been surgically removed from the body years before. But Hayne was the only game in town. He also often…


Africans in Colonial Louisiana

By Gwendolyn Midlo Hall,

Book cover of Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth-Century

Christian Pinnen Author Of Complexion of Empire in Natchez: Race and Slavery in the Mississippi Borderlands

From the list on race and slavery in colonial Mississippi Valley.

Who am I?

I am a historian of race and slavery in the lower Mississippi Valley because the region is a fulcrum of United States history. I was always fascinated by the significance of the Mississippi River for American expansion, society, and culture. Ultimately, this region of the country is so deeply influenced by people of African descent that must be included in all histories, and I wanted to share their stories in a particular place during the colonial period. Telling these stories in places where they have commonly been less well represented is very rewarding and it opens more ways to understand the histories of places like Natchez along the Mississippi River.

Christian's book list on race and slavery in colonial Mississippi Valley

Why did Christian love this book?

Gwendolyn Hall’s Africans in Colonial Louisiana is still a foundational text when it comes to studying African people in the colonial lower Mississippi Valley. Her deep knowledge of the archives and skill in bringing the stories of enslaved Africans to live make this a wonderfully informative book. She draws deep connections between the places that Africans left and their forced new homes in Louisiana, while placing a special emphasis on how that culture turned into an African creole culture in the lower Mississippi Valley.

By Gwendolyn Midlo Hall,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Africans in Colonial Louisiana as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Although a number of important studies of American slavery have explored the formation of slave cultures in the English colonies, few books have undertaken a comprehensive assessment of the development of the distinctive African-Creole culture of colonial Louisiana. This culture, based upon a separate language community with its own folklore, musical, religious and historical traditions, was created by slaves brought directly from Africa to Louisiana before 1731. It still survives as the acknowledged cultural heritage of tens of thousands of people of all races in the southern part of the state. In this work, Gwendolyn Hall studies Louisiana's Creole slave…


24 Hours

By Greg Iles,

Book cover of 24 Hours

Bronwyn Rust Author Of Angellove: We Were the Lucky Ones.

From the list on realistic horrifying thrillers.

Who am I?

I was always addicted to the true crime shows on late at night; the real stories of good and evil in everyday life, around every corner. I was fascinated by why people do the things they do. It wasn’t always about the nature of crime itself, but how we get through it and overcome it, and survive it, and ultimately how it changes us… And what the power of love and hate can lead you to do, or to become. I now write about the harrowing and horrifying possibilities that could await any of us. And give you knowledge and food for thought that may help you, if hell finds you.

Bronwyn's book list on realistic horrifying thrillers

Why did Bronwyn love this book?

This was a fun and thrilling read about an intricate kidnapping plot. A seemingly perfect crime with the picture-perfect family; ‘Picture Perfect’, is only ever for the picture.

It taught me that even if the odds are stacked against you, you are not captive to your circumstance. This was a psychological and active fight for survival, not only for one’s own survival but for those whom you love.

Courage is contagious.

By Greg Iles,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked 24 Hours as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Will Jennings, his wife and little girl are a happy American family, living in Mississippi. Hickey is a conman and kidnapper. He targets his victims very carefully and takes great pains to make sure no one is ever hurt. He has yet to kill. All his victims have come up with the money and the authorities have never been involved. His perfect record is down to two things: One, he always stays with the parents or person with the money. Two, he never asks for more than they can afford. But when he tries to rip Will's family apart, he…


Bob the Gambler

By Frederick Barthelme,

Book cover of Bob the Gambler

Cara Bertoia Author Of Casino Queen

From the list on true stories set in the casino industry.

Who am I?

Growing up in a strait-laced Southern family, I was always fascinated with casinos. In my twenties on a summer hiatus from teaching in North Carolina, I drove to California and became a dealer at Caesars in Lake Tahoe. My mother highly disapproved of my working in a casino, "a place so bad it has 'sin' in the middle." Eventually, I returned east to take a hi-tech job in Boston. I also began working on my MFA in writing at Emerson. My characters were breathed into life from my years in the gambling industry. You learn a lot about the human personality when you watch thousands of people from behind the felt of a blackjack table.

Cara's book list on true stories set in the casino industry

Why did Cara love this book?

This is a novel based on Frederick’s own gambling addiction on the Mississippi riverboats. Ray and Jewel Kaiser love to gamble, until a fun night out becomes a compulsion. They find themselves showing up at the Paradise casino all hours of the day and night, becoming intimate with the employees and escalating their bets. After visiting the area, I knew the scenes in the casino ring true and the dialogue is so on point, that you root for Ray and Jewel even though in the back of your mind you know the house always wins. 

By Frederick Barthelme,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A New York Times Notable Book In this darkly funny story, Ray and Jewel Kaiser try (and push) their luck at the Paradise casino. Peopled with dazed denizens, body-pierced children, a lusty grocery-store manager, and hourly employees in full revolt, this is a novel about wising up sooner rather than later--"a wise and funny tale" (New York Times Book Review) that is "masterfully observed" (John Barth).


I've Got the Light of Freedom

By Charles M. Payne,

Book cover of I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle

David J. Garrow Author Of Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama

From the list on U. S. Black freedom struggle of the 1950s & 1960s.

Who am I?

I’m a legal historian, best-known for Bearing the Cross, my Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., but I’ve also written the standard history of Roe v. Wade (Liberty and Sexuality) as well as books on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Protest at Selma) and the FBI’s pursuit of Dr. King (The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.). I’ve been a top advisor for both the landmark PBS documentary series Eyes on the Prize and for the Library of America’s two-volume Reporting Civil Rights. More recently I’ve been featured in both the Academy Award-shortlisted documentary film MLK/FBI (Hulu) and in the Emmy Award-nominated documentary series Who Killed Malcolm X? (Netflix)

David's book list on U. S. Black freedom struggle of the 1950s & 1960s

Why did David love this book?

Outside cities like that famous Alabama trio, most of the civil rights movement’s actual work took place in rural counties and small towns where combatting segregation could be even more dangerous than in Birmingham. Leading that charge was SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and Mississippi was the centerpiece of SNCC’s courageous local organizing. Charles Payne powerfully and poignantly captures the beauty and the perils of that work while also painfully reporting how in subsequent decades memories of that bravery too quickly faded. Clayborne Carson’s In Struggle remains the best organizational history of SNCC, and Francoise N. Hamlin’s Crossroads at Clarksdale is like Payne’s great book a valuable chronicle of Black courage and commitment in the Mississippi Delta.

By Charles M. Payne,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I've Got the Light of Freedom as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This momentous work offers a groundbreaking history of the early civil rights movement in the South with new material that situates the book in the context of subsequent movement literature.


The Innocents

By Ace Atkins,

Book cover of The Innocents

Eli Cranor Author Of Don't Know Tough

From the list on football from a quarterback turned novelist.

Who am I?

I scored my first touchdown at nine and went on to play quarterback at both the collegiate and professional levels. By twenty-six, I was the head coach of a backwoods high school in Arkansas. My debut novel, Don’t Know Tough, is a football-centric thriller and was named one of the “Best Crime Novels” of 2022 by the New York Times. After that book's publication, I’ve had readers reach out and ask about my favorite football novels, so I was thrilled to get the chance to compile them all into one list. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have. 

Eli's book list on football from a quarterback turned novelist

Why did Eli love this book?

Ace Atkins played defensive end for Auburn. His picture once graced the cover of Sports Illustrated. His dad coached for the 49ers. In other words, Ace knows football, and that fact is on full display in The Innocents. Although the plot doesn’t center around football, this novel features one of the best depictions of a Southern, sleazeball coach you’ll ever find in fiction. Oh, and it’s a part of Ace’s Quinn Colson series. So if you like it, there’s more where that came from!

By Ace Atkins,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Quinn Colson returns to Jericho, Mississippi, and gets pulled back into a world of greed and violence in this gritty, darkly comic tale from New York Times bestselling Southern crime master Ace Atkins.
 
After being voted out of office and returning to the war zone he’d left behind, Quinn Colson is back in Jericho, trying to fix things with his still-married high school girlfriend and retired Hollywood stuntman father. Quinn knows he doesn't owe his hometown a damn thing, but he can't resist the pull of becoming a lawman again and accepts a badge from his former colleague, foul-mouthed acting…


Book cover of The Girls in the Stilt House

Katie Munday Williams Author Of Poet, Pilgrim, Rebel: The Story of Anne Bradstreet, America's First Published Poet

From Katie's 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Who am I?

Author Playful Bookworm Mom Dreamer Adventurous

Katie's 3 favorite reads in 2023

Plus, Katie's 8-year-old's favorite books.

Why did Katie love this book?

This novel was so packed with raw emotion it was overwhelming at times. There were many layers and themes, including gender, racism, and poverty.

I felt a personal connection to the two main characters, drawn in by their loneliness and the undefined and often unrecognized strength they both possessed. The plot was gripping in its intensity, and I found myself cheering for the two girls as they navigated the incredible obstacles in their way.

I usually read for a few minutes before bed, but this book had me staying up late, unwilling (and unable) to put it down. The ending achieved what so many don’t. A clear resolution and a satisfying conclusion to the storm of events we had weathered together. 

By Kelly Mustian,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Girls in the Stilt House as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE USA TODAY BESTSELLER!
"Remarkable debut.... [a] nearly flawless tale of loss, perseverance and redemption."-Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
Set in 1920s Mississippi, this debut Southern novel weaves a beautiful and harrowing story of two teenage girls cast in an unlikely partnership through murder-perfect for readers of Where the Crawdads Sing and If the Creek Don't Rise.
Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her hard life on the swamp and her harsh father. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to…


The Golden Apples

By Eudora Welty,

Book cover of The Golden Apples

Melanie McGee Bianchi Author Of The Ballad of Cherrystoke

From the list on where a hot mess is presented as an empowering lifestyle.

Who am I?

I spent my early childhood in a rural, isolated, multi-generational household. During summers we rarely saw anyone unrelated to us. My twin sister and I spent our days reading, hiding, and naming our menagerie of barn cats (final count: 36). In my career as a lifestyle journalist, I’ve gotten to interview famous eccentrics ranging from Loretta Lynn to David Sedaris. I live in the North Carolina mountains with my husband, our teenage son, and my aforementioned twin sister. This past summer, a black bear walked the 22 steps up to our front porch and stared in the window, raising his huge paws high in exasperation. 

Melanie's book list on where a hot mess is presented as an empowering lifestyle

Why did Melanie love this book?

Unlike Welty’s works featuring honorable or broadly comic characters, this dense story cycle was never excerpted in anthologies. It’s a trickier cast: consider Jinny Love Stark and Virgie Rainey, who cut through the languor of Depression-era Mississippi with stone-cold intention. Jinny Love plays croquet with her lover to enrage her volatile husband; she encourages her daughter to wear lizards as earrings to offend the propriety of her own controlling mother. Impoverished piano prodigy Virgie flouts her gift merely to watch her teacher go mad. Later, she trims her dead mother’s yard with sewing scissors while neighbors do the real work of laying out the body and receiving mourners. The heat presses forward. What day is it? What hour? This is weird, experimental Welty, and the payoff is sweet.

By Eudora Welty,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Golden Apples as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First published in 1949, THE GOLDEN APPLES is an acutely observed, richly atmospheric portrayal of small town life in Morgana, Mississippi. There's Snowdie, who has to bring up her twin boys alone after her husband, King Maclain, disappears one day, discarding his hat on the banks of the Big Black. There's Loch Morrison, convalescing with malaria, who watches from his bedroom window as wayward Virgie Rainey meets a sailor in the vacant house opposite. Meanwhile, Miss Eckhart the piano teacher, grieving the loss of her most promising pupil, tries her hand at arson.

Eudora Welty has a fine ear for…


Mudbound

By Hillary Jordan,

Book cover of Mudbound

Toni Morgan Author Of Queenie's Place

From the list on cultural opposites, southern politics and families.

Who am I?

I was a military spouse for 26 years. My husband was stationed at MCAS Cherry Point NC and MCB Camp Lejeune NC, both for two years. We (he and I and our four children) lived on the base. He also served two tours in Vietnam, just like Doreen’s husband, and also at Headquarters, Marine Corps later. The fictional Marine base and town where this takes place is modeled after Camp Lejeune and the adjacent town. I did see the same sign welcoming us to Klan country, on Easter Sunday morning 1972 and have never forgotten it. I also knew Queenie’s counterpart. This novel is in no way autobiographical—I was never as brave as Doreen. 

Toni's book list on cultural opposites, southern politics and families

Why did Toni love this book?

Mudbound is about post-WWII in the Jim Crow south. It tells the stories of two returning soldiers in a muddy farm setting. I was raised on a dairy farm with plenty of mud, so I easily identified with the setting. The situation of the two men, one White, one Black, and their families' struggles, physically with the constant mud, and emotionally with the politics of both the era and the place, were graphic. It was a book that was difficult to put down and also difficult to read. In ways I was reminded of 12 Years A Slave.

By Hillary Jordan,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CAREY MULLIGAN, GARRETT HEDLUND & MARY J. BLIGE

When Henry McAllan moves his city-bred wife, Laura, to a cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta in 1946, she finds herself in a place both foreign and frightening. Henry's love of rural life is not shared by Laura, who struggles to raise their two young children in an isolated shotgun shack under the eye of her hateful, racist father-in-law. When it rains, the waters rise up and swallow the bridge to town, stranding the family in a sea of mud.

As the Second World War shudders…


Champion Hill

By Timothy B. Smith,

Book cover of Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg

David Powell Author Of Maps of Chickamauga: An Atlas of the Chickamauga Campaign

From the list on the American Civil War in the western theater.

Who am I?

I have been fascinated by the American Civil War since I was 8 years old. I have been a serious student of the subject since my college years, where I majored in American History. I have played and designed boardgames concerning battles of the war, including a number of games on battles in the Western Theater, I have been a living historian and reenactor, and now, an author-published by both academic and popular presses. The battle of Chickamauga became a serious interest as early as 1979.

David's book list on the American Civil War in the western theater

Why did David love this book?

Though Dr. Timothy B. Smith has since made quite the splash in Civil War historiography, this was his first book, covering the Battle of Champion Hill. On May 16, 1863, two armies collided between the Confederate fortress of Vicksburg and the Mississippi state capital at Jackson. The Federals were led by Ulysses S. Grant; the Rebels, John C. Pemberton. Each army numbered bout 30,000 men. While neither the largest or most famous battle of the war, Champion Hill was, nevertheless, a crucial engagement, for it decided the fate of Vicksburg. Frustrated for months by his inability to capture the fortress, Grant at last settled on a daring strategy to take it from the rear. Pemberton marched out to meet him. They met at Champion Hill.

Smith’s narrative embraces the top-down commander’s view of the battle, the soldiers’ view from the ranks, and the impact the fighting had on the local…

By Timothy B. Smith,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The Battle of Champion Hill on 16 May 1863 was the decisive land engagement of the Vicksburg Campaign. The fighting took place just twenty miles east of the river city, where the advance of General Ulysses S. Grant's Federal army attacked General John C. Pemberton's hastily gathered Confederates.

The bloody fighting see-sawed back and forth until superior Union leadership broke apart the Southern line, sending Pemberton's army into headlong retreat. The victory on Mississippi's wooded hills sealed the fate of both Vicksburg and her large field army, propelled Grant into the national spotlight, and earned him the command of the…


Double Whammy

By Gretchen Archer,

Book cover of Double Whammy

Larissa Reinhart Author Of Portrait of a Dead Guy

From the list on southern humorous mysteries to make you snort.

Who am I?

My first editor informed me I was a mystery writer and my first mystery conference categorized me as a Southern humorous mystery writer. I didn’t intend to write Southern humorous mysteries but find the world-view of my characters and the world they live in quite comical and southern (my characters and I live in Georgia). I also abhor crime, so the dead bodies that keep appearing in my stories need to be dealt with lightly. I’m happy to be a Wall Street Journal bestselling and international award-winning author with eighteen books and counting in three series, Cherry Tucker Mysteries, Maizie Albright Star Detectives, and Finley Goodhart Crime Capers. 

Larissa's book list on southern humorous mysteries to make you snort

Why did Larissa love this book?

Casinos often bring to mind noirish characters set in stories riddled with vice and violence. The Davis Way Crime Capers are riddled with serpentine plots exploding with quirky characters in hilarious situations. Set in a Biloxi, Mississippi, casino with a smart, edgy heroine hired as a security expert, Davis Way is constantly embroiled in saving the casino, its employees, and her small-town friends and family from more disasters than a tornado in a trailer park. Archer’s distinct voice brings humor to the pages of a byzantine mystery that puts her heroine through the wringer. Likable, smart, and sassy, I thoroughly loved Davis Way from Pine Apple, Alabama. The other characters are engaging and the plot is superbly crafted. Double Whammy is the first book in the series and my favorite.

By Gretchen Archer,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

"Funny & wonderful & human. It gets the Stephanie Plum seal of approval." (Janet Evanovich)

Davis Way thinks she's hit the jackpot when she lands a job as the fifth wheel on an elite security team at the fabulous Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. But once there, she runs straight into her ex-ex-husband, a rigged slot machine, her evil twin, and a trail of dead bodies. Davis learns the truth, and it does not set her free - in fact, it lands her in the pokey. 

Buried under a mistaken identity, her hot streak runs cold until her…