The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance has announced their 2020 Winter OkraPicks, their seasonal list of great forthcoming Southern books.
The list of thirteen books includes three by authors with strong ties to North Carolina.
In Diane Chamberlain’s Big Lies in a Small Town (St. Martin’s Press), a convict serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women’s Correctional Center restores a mural in a sleepy, Southern town and in the process confronts her own demons while rervealing an old story of madness, violence, and a conspiracy of small town secrets.
Therese Anne Fowler’s A Good Neighborhood (St. Martin’s Press) is a provocative contemporary novel that examines the American dream through the lens of two families living side by side in an idyllic neighborhood, and the one summer that changes their lives irrevocably.
Also on the list is David Zucchino’s Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy (Atlantic Monthly Press), a searing account of the Wilmington riot and coup of 1898, an extraordinary event unknown to most Americans. Zucchino graduated from UNCW.
For the complete list of 2020 Winter Okra picks, click here.
Okra Picks are a dozen fresh titles chosen each season that SIBA Indie Bookstores want to handsell. These books should be southern in nature but can cover any genre, not just fiction. Southern readers love their writers, and we want to be at the forefront of bringing them a strong selection of Southern titles not to be missed each season.
The Okra Picks program demonstrates the important role of independent booksellers in creating early buzz for a book, and creating the momentum that can make a book a success. They are an early spotlight on books that are likely to “go national.” On any given week an Okra Pick title can be found on the Southern Independent Bestseller List, and they show up at the end of the year when “Best of the Year” lists start to be published. They go on to be popular gifts during the holidays, and book club picks when they are released in paperback.
For more information about the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, click here.