45 New Books From the American South

"The American South has produced some Hall of Fame literary superstars: William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, Harper Lee, Wendell Berry. And it's a tradition that continues in contemporary writing.

Collected below are 45 individually selected books, published since 2018, set in the South or concerning Southern themes. Bonus filter! Each of the authors listed here are also from the South themselves or have spent significant time there. Quality control! Each book has an average star rating of 3.5 stars or higher.

When sifting for location, we've included all states federally defined as being in the South, even the tonal outliers like Florida and Texas. Some highlights here include Yaa Gyasi's acclaimed novel Transcendent Kingdom, Ladee Hubbard's short story collection The Last Suspicious Holdout, and Atlanta native Eric Kim's popular cookbook-with-stories collection Korean American."