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Book Picks Recommendations from
Lyn Roberts
General Manager at Square Books
This issue’s book picks were hand-selected by Lyn Roberts, General Manager at Square Books for more than 20 years, and can usually be found behind the counter at Off Square Books – along with many of the titles below.
A Place Called Mississippi | by Ralph Eubanks
While many books have covered Mississippi literature, most are of the reference variety. Ralph Eubanks gives us so much more in this beautiful, splendid book that includes around 40 writers --about half of whom are alive today. Kiese Laymon said, “While Mississippi is 50th in many things, when it comes to riveting textured, literary art, we are one of one,” and correctly praises Eubanks’ new book as “literary and geographic lineage so beautifully and rigorously explored and valued...” As a visiting professor at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, Eubanks has spent a lot of time in Oxford and includes a chapter on the literary history and community of our town. -Richard Howorth
The House Uptown | by Melissa Ginsburg In New Orleans, a young girl and the artisitic and eccentric grandmother she does not know are forced together by tragedy, and soon discover they not only have to learn about each other but that the traumatic memories of the past can lead to dire consequences for both of them. As an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi, Melissa Ginsburg has a poet’s ability to be concise in her language yet still create a beautifully layered portrait of her characters and their travails. -Bill Cusumano Sooley | by John Grisham
For readers a positive result of the pandemic is that John Grisham has had more time to write, so besides his annual legal thriller, Sooley will be published April 27th. Sooley is a basketball novel that only America’s favorite storyteller could write, full of all the thrills of the game—the drive to succeed, the gripping play-by-play, the victories and the defeats—as well as the powerful story of a young man who faces daunting adversity to triumph on the court while plotting to deliver his family to safety.
16 March/April 2021
