A Riot reader from the Midwest was so intrigued by my love letter to Flannery O’Connor, she tweeted me and asked if I had a copy of my Southern literature class reading list. She always wanted to dig into Southern lit, but didn’t know where to start. I suddenly realized that if you aren’t exposed to Southern lit, you really don’t know where to start. Sure, you’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird, and yeah… that Faulkner guy was from Mississippi (let’s face it, Faulkner’s words ain’t easy on the brain). But what else is there?

I started to make a list of Southern books I had in my personal library, and I had around 70 that I would be willing to tell a stranger to read. Bookseller extraordinaire Joe Hickman of Lemuria Books in Jackson, Mississippi helped me fill in some gaps, and we exchanged a few notes on upcoming releases. Lemuria is by far the best bookstore in the South because they have a huge staff full of people who know their stuff. Plus, they have ALL THE BOOKS. Seriously. The books overflow off the shelves all over the floor. Great place.



A few notes: some authors have so many good books, I just listed the ones I liked the most. In the case of Faulkner, I picked his more accessible novels. There is some really great nonfiction included and a lot of really great nonfiction NOT included. I had to cut it off at some point.

I suggest you pour yourself a glass of single barrel bourbon, make a batch of cheese straws, and start reading.

A Childhood: The Biography of a Place – Harry Crews A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole A Death in the Family – James Agee The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain Airships – Barry Hannah A Land More Kind Than Home – Wiley Cash A Lesson Before Dying – Ernest Gaines All Over But the Shoutin’ – Rick Bragg All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren Apostles of Light – Ellen Douglas As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams A Time to Kill – John Grisham The Awakening – Kate Chopin Bastard Out of Carolina – Dorothy Allison Bats Out of Hell – Barry Hannah Big Bad Love – Larry Brown Black Boy – Richard Wright Blues All Around Me – B.B. King Brother to a Dragonfly – Will Campbell Burning Bright: Stories – Ron Rash Before Women Had Wings – Connie May Fowler Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters – Robert Gordon Child of God – Cormac McCarthy The Civil War: A Narrative (I-III) – Shelby Foote Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier Cold Sassy Tree – Olive Ann Burns *The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty – Eudora Welty The Color Purple – Alice Walker The Complete Stories – Flannery O’Connor The Courting of Marcus Dupree – Willie Morris Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter – Tom Franklin Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man – Fannie Flagg Deep Blues – Robert Palmer Deliverance – James Dickey Delta Wedding – Eudora Welty Ellen Foster – Kaye Gibbons The End of California – Steve Yarbrough Every Day By the Sun – Dean Faulkner Wells The Fall of the House of Zeus – Curtis Wilkie Father of the Blues – W. C. Handy Fire in the Morning – Elizabeth Spencer Geronimo Rex – Barry Hannah Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues – William Ferris Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell The Great Santini – Pat Conroy The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers Hell at the Breech – Tom Franklin House of Prayer No. 2 – Mark Richard I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down – William Gay It Wasn’t All Dancing and Other Stories – Mary Ward Brown Joe – Larry Brown The Keepers of the House – Shirley Ann Grau The Kitchen House – Kathleen Grissom Known World – Edward P Jones Lanterns on the Levee – William Alexander Percy The Last Gentleman – Walker Percy The Last Girls – Lee Smith The Last of the Southern Girls – Willie Morris Light in August – William Faulkner The Little Friend – Donna Tartt Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South – Roy Blount Jr. Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe The Mind of the South – W.J. Cash The Moviegoer – Walker Percy Mudbound – Hillary Jordan The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure – Jack Pendarvis Native Guard – Natasha Trethewey North Toward Home – Willie Morris Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All – Allan Gurganus Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored – Clifton Taulbert One Foot in Eden – Ron Rash One Mississippi – Mark Childress The Optimist’s Daughter – Eudora Welty Other Voices, Other Rooms – Truman Capote Poachers – Tom Franklin The Prince of Tides – Pat Conroy Provinces of Night – William Gay The Quiet Game – Greg Iles Raney – Clyde Edgerton Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 – John Barry Run with the Horseman – Ferrol Sams Salvage the Bones – Jesmyn Ward Salvation on Sand Mountain – Dennis Covington The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd Serena – Ron Rash The Sharpshooter Blues – Lewis Nordan Shiloh and Other Stories – Bobbie Ann Mason The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner Southern Belly: A Food Lover’s Companion – John T. Edge Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom – Peter Guralnick Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee Victory Over Japan – Ellen Gilchrist Walking Across Egypt – Clyde Edgerton Welding with Children – Tim Gautreaux Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor Work Shirts for Madmen – George Singleton Zeitoun – Dave Eggers

Coming soon:

Check Your Shelf Newsletter Sign up to receive Check Your Shelf, the Librarian's One-Stop Shop For News, Book Lists, And More. Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox. By signing up you agree to our terms of use

The Death of Santini – Pat Conroy (Nan A. Talese) Lookaway, Lookaway by Wilton Barnhardt (St. Martin’s Press) Men We Reaped – Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury USA)

The Realm of Last Chances – Steve Yarbrough (Knopf) The Resurrectionist – Matthew Guinn (W.W. Norton) Rivers – Michael Farris Smith (Simon & Schuster) Someone Else’s Love Story – Joshilyn Jackson (William Morrow) Sycamore Row – John Grisham (Doubleday) This Dark Road to Mercy – WIley Cash (William Morrow) The Tilted World – Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly (William Morrow)

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