/Allison/Dorothy In languid prose that beautifully evokes the rural South of the '60s and '70s, Allison tells the story of the Boatwright family, who refuse to be shamed by the label "poor white trash". Allison's keen eye and lyrical style throw into sharp relief the rages and sorrows of this bunch of drunks and thieves, making for an asto

This novel of warm humor and honesty is told by Willy Tweedy, a 14-year-old boy living in a small, turn-of-the-century Georgia town. The lessons of life and death, of piousness and irreverence, form the basis of these memorable characters and their stories.

A ten-year-old boy takes his first tentative steps toward adulthood in a tiny southern town in the early 20th century, measuring himself against the high standards set by his mother and uncles and the long shadows cast by his dead father.

"This book is too good to keep to yourself. Read it aloud with someone you love, then send it to a friend. But be sure to keep a copy for yourself, because you'll want to read it again and again."
Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey
Raney is a small-town Baptist. Charles is a liberal from Atlanta. And RANEY is the story of their marriage. Charming, wise, funny, and truthful, it is a novel for everyone to love.
"A real jewel."
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH

"From the Paperback edition.

Kaye's wonderful and beloved first novel.

This complete retrospective collection of stories, plus two new ones, features every reader's favorite Ellen Gilchrist character--Rhoda Katherine Manning, a headstrong redhead who has broken hearts and made trouble in all five of Gilchrist's previous story collections.

Set in a small Mississippi town in 1956, this debut novel weaves the story of the friendship between a black man and a white teenage girl, each surrounded by a myriad of other characters, and how their friendship reaches across racial barriers and encompasses their entire community. An Oprah Book Club( Selection.

When the fabric of her family is suddenly torn apart, 17-year-old Lucille Odom, a wise and precocious high-school student, locates new inner resources and steps across the thresholds of womanhood and emotional maturity.

2003 Top Twelve Selling Title
Now in paperback comes the intoxicating debut novel of "one motherless daughter's discover of . . . the strange and wondrous places we find love" (The Washington Post). A bestseller in hardcover, Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing work is set in South Carolina in 1964. A movie version is forthcoming from Fox Searchlight.

4 of 5 stars

Carson McCullers meets Mary Karr in this sizzling debut novel about the ties of passion and loss of innocence in a small southern town, as four young people work fiercely to hold on to friendship and love in the face of temptation, racism, and loss.

This beloved, Pulitzer Prize-winning classic is now being published with the original jacket art, printed endpapers, a ribbon marker, and a full cloth slipcase. Lee's timeless masterpiece makes the perfect gift for every generation. (Literary Classics)

Reminiscent of "Carnal Knowledge" and "By Love Possessed", this is the story of a young woman in the 1950's whose courage, intellectual integrity, and creative gifts defy societal expectations.

Pep-rallies, dope parties, coming-of-age rituals of a small southern town in the early 1970s--the seemingly trite becomes startling as a "perfect teenager" explodes halfway through her first year in college.

"A marvelous study of the agony of adolescence" ("Detroit Free Press"), "The Member of the Wedding"--which became an award-winning play and a major motion picture--showcases McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and best.

Now in paperback, this is Moriarty's breakthrough novel of growing up and growing wise.

Mary Swan Middleton has always taken for granted the advantages of her family's wealth. But a tragedy that touches all of Atlanta sends her reeling in grief. When the family maid challenges her to reach out to the less fortunate as a way to ease her own pain, Mary Swan meets Carl???and everything changes. For although Carl is her opposite in nearly every way, he has something her privileged life could not give her. And when she seeks his help to uncover a mystery, she learns far more than she ever could have imagined.

Nordan focuses his magic and imagination on a single theme--a boy's utterly helpless love for his utterly hopeless father. "Lyrically conjures up a Southern-fried childhood that's as dark, hilarious, and affecting as any you're likely to encounter".--Cleveland Plain Dealer. 1992 ALA Notable Book.

When his charismatic uncle comes to town to fill the hole left by his father's tragic death, the past comes roaring into the present and Clayton's assumptions about himself and those he loves are forever altered. The result is a beguiling novel told in the rich, storytelling Southern tradition.

Set in present day West Virginia, Ann Pancake's debut novel, "Strange As This Weather Has Been," tells the story of a coal mining family--a couple and their four children--living through the latest mining boom and dealing with the mountaintop removal and strip mining that is ruining what is left of their mountain life. As the mine turns the mountains to slag and wastewater, workers struggle with layoffs and children find adventure in the blasted moonscape craters.
"Strange As This Weather Has Been" follows several members of the family, with a particular focus on fifteen-year-old Bant and her mother, Lace. Working at a "scab" motel, Bant becomes involved with a young miner while her mother contemplates joining the fight against the mining companies. As domestic conflicts escalate at home, the children are pushed more and more outside

4 of 5 stars

"Warmly engrossing...Sanders writes with wit and authority in this unusual gem of a love story."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Clover is a 10-year old black girl from a small town in South Carolina, whose life changes forever when her father dies and she is forced to forge a new relationship with the white stepmother she hardly knows. A beautiful, trenchant story of family lost and found, CLOVER is a unque and heartfelt reading experience for all ages.

Crystal Spangler lives in rural Appalachia. She's the apple of her mother's eye -- not yet beautiful, but she will be. She's the most popular girl at Black Rock High. She makes cheerleader, gets good grades, and is elected beauty queen. Crystal discovers God, goes to college, and falls in love. When she comes home, she's disheveled and confused. Crystal becomes a wealthy politician's wife. But there's something calling her, drawing her back to where it all began, in the shadow of Black Mountain . . .

"From the Paperback edition.

Bestselling author Donna Tartt returns with a grandly ambitious and utterly riveting novel of childhood, innocence and evil.
The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother's Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents' yard. Twelve years later Robin's murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin's sister Harriet--unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town's rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family's history of loss. Filled with hairpin turns of plot and "a bustling, ridiculous humanity worthy of Dickens" ("The New York Times Book Review), The Little F

In this delightful novel, Abigail Thomas takes readers back to the summer of 1960 and into the heart of a young woman embarking on a marriage not exactly made in heaven.