Southern Reading Challenge (copy)

This summer join us at Northwest for the Southern Reading Challenge. For the month of June, I dare you to read three southern setting books by southern authors. They can be either fiction or nonfiction, but they have to be (and I cannot stress this enough) Southern!

Oh, but you are thinking to yourself, “I really don’t like southern books. I am a proud mystery reader.” To that I say, have you read Anne George? Unfortunately, Anne passed away in 2001, and left eight books in her “Southern Sisters” series. Every book is funny as the sisters match wits to find the killer. These books are like a box of chocolates, one cannot stop at just one.

Other mystery writers who are southern include: James Lee Burke who sets his stories in New Orleans or Louisiana, Carl Hiaasen who tickles every funny bone with his oddball characters in stories set in Florida, and Patricia Sprinkle who delights readers with her “Thoroughly Southern” series featuring MacLaren Yarbrough in small town Georgia.

Is Eugenia Price still read? My ignorance of romance novels knows no bounds. All of her books are set in the American South but they were written in the 1960s. I do remember thinking romance writers like to set their books in Texas. Some of these writers include: Rosanne Bittner, Dana Ransom, Annette Broadrick, Sandra Brown, Fern Michaels, and Diana Palmer.

The Northwest RC Pugh Library will be hosting two Mississippi writers ready for reading. Celebrate your Mississippi heritage with Patricia Dorsey who wrote a collection of poems titled, Reflections of a Mississippi Magnolia: A Life in Poems. She is currently compiling her second collection and might share new poems on June 16 at a “brown bag” noontime lunch.

If you have not read In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White, you are in for a treat. He will be at the library June 30 during the brown bag lunch series to discuss his incredible story. He will also encourage participants to write their own incredible stories.

On June 23, Northwest Instructor Deborah Wilbourn will present the writings of Mississippi author, Margaret Walker. This is your chance to get lost in her historical novel Jubilee. Walker started the book as a doctoral dissertation using her grandmother’s memories of growing up as a slave in rural Alabama. Mrs. Wilbourn will also discuss Walker’s Civil Rights poetry.

So, the challenge is on! Contact me at 662-562-3277 to register and let us spend June reading hot humidity filled southern books.

Southern Reading Challenge (copy)

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2011/05/southern-reading-challenge-copy.html