Summer might be over, but there are plenty of new books out now or coming soon that you’ll want to add to your stack or download on your e-reader. From poetry and short stories to fiction and history, there’s something here for every reader’s taste.
Thrall: Poems by Natasha Trethewey ($23, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) The new U.S. Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner and Decatur resident is back with her latest collection of poems that explores racial identity past and present.
Rich’s: A Southern Institution by Jeff Clemmons ($19.99, The History Press) A history of the beloved – and missed – Rich’s Department Store in Atlanta. Filled with photos and stories, the book traces the store’s creation, through its Downtown heyday, its mall spin-offs and finally its demise after being purchased by Federated Department Stores.
The Ninth Step by Grant Jerkins ($15, Berkley) A recovering alcoholic who killed a woman in a hit-and-run accident finds herself falling in love with the victim’s widower in this tense new mystery by the author of A Very Simple Crime and At the End of the Road.
The Summer of 1935 by Alice Bliss ($15, Bozart Press) In the summer of 1935, the City of Atlanta faced bankruptcy, but Rich’s Department Store came to the rescue to help pay city employees, including the author’s mother, who was a school teacher. Bliss recounts this forgotten piece of history as a novel.
Spooky Georgia by S.E. Schlosser ($12.95, Globe Pequot Press) Storyteller Schlosser has gathered 25 folklore tales from Georgia and spun them into spooky tales of ghosts, werewolves and other creepy things that go bump in the night. Illustrations by Paul G. Hoffman.