Southern Essays

“Greg Iles is one of America’s great storytellers. –Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author ?""A first-rate political thriller.""–John Grisham, #1 New York Times bestselling author The hugely anticipated new Penn Cage novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of...

With great originality and wit, Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to the nature of Socialism, from a comic yet profound discussion of naughty seaside postcards to a spirited defense of English cooking. Displaying an almost unrivalled mastery of English plain prose, Orwell’s essays created a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and continue to challenge, move, and entertain.

I never wanted to be a cowboy - living in a small town was suffocating. The military was my out. I saw every place I ever wanted and everything that nightmares are made of...until I almost lost my life and ended up back home.

From celebrated New York Times best-selling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Rick Bragg comes a poignant and wryly funny collection of essays on life in the South. Keenly observed and written with his insightful and deadpan sense of humor, Bragg explores enduring Southern truths about home, place, spirit, table, and the regions' varied geographies, including his native Alabama, Cajun country, and the Gulf Coast.

Eleven years have passed since Alexa Hamilton left the South behind, fleeing the pain of her ex-husband's betrayal and the cruelty of his prominent Charleston family. Now an assistant D.A. in Manhattan, Alexa has made a name for herself as a top prosecutor while juggling her role as devoted single mom to a teenage daughter.

Following in the path of her blockbuster Kay Scarpetta thrillers, Patricia Cornwell's novel is a testimony to the singular versatility and narrative power of one of the country's best-read storytellers. In Southern Cross, she casts her shrewd and knowing eye at the men and women in blue, in a...

After leaving the city life behind to escape my loveless marriage, I moved to small-town Havenbarrow for a fresh start. What I didn’t expect was to find myself drawn to the town’s black sheep. They called him troubled, cold, a man with a dark past. What everyone seemed to miss about Jax was the splashes of light in his eyes, the random acts of kindness he performed when no one was watching, and the way he made me smile and laugh.

The best-selling author of American Housewife is back with a fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank-you notes and three-ways, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the Calgon-scented, onion-dipped, monogrammed art of living as a Southern lady.

""Tantalizing"" - NPR “A thrilling detective story… Stapinski pursues the study of her family’s criminal genealogy with unexpected emotional results.” — Library Journal A writer goes deep into the heart of Italy to unravel a century-old family mystery in this spellbinding memoir that...

Richard Jefferies remains one of the most thoughtful and most lyrical writers on the English countryside. Best known for his articles and stories published in the Live Stock Journal, he draws from a wealth of knowledge of the rural community into which he had been born. Here he examines the habitats of the Downs and the birds and animals that live there. Written in Jefferies' highly descriptive style, the essay conveys a sense of wonder evoked by the natural world.

In the middle of the night on March eleventh, 1980, the phone rang in Julia Reed’s Georgetown dorm. It was her boss at Newsweek, where she was an intern. He told her to get in her car and drive to her alma mater, the Madeira School. Her former headmistress, Jean Harris, had just shot Dr. Herman Tarnower, The Scarsdale Diet Doctor. Julia didn’t flinch. She dressed, drove to Madeira, got the story—and her first byline—and the new American Gilded Age was off and running.