Whether you’re looking for an epic novel, a fast-paced legal thriller, or a cookbook that combines equal parts food and humor, make room on your fall reading list for these titles. Here’s our roundup of newly released best bets from authors we’ve featured in the pages of Garden & Gun.
The Artist and Writer’s Cookbook
Edited by Natalie Eve Garrett
This illustrated, entertaining cookbook is filled with stories and recipes from creative folks, including a couple of G&G contributors: Padgett Powell muses on the “lunacy” of gumbo and Daniel Wallace writes a nightshade ode that begins with the line, “Never woo a woman with an eggplant.” Indeed.
Commonwealth
By Ann Patchett
The founder of Nashville’s beloved Parnassus Books is not only the city’s go-to-book-recommender, but also one of its favorite award-winning authors. Ann Patchett’s new novel, Commonwealth, spans five decades of two families—and the romantic encounter that changed everything between them.
Winston Groom returns to fiction thirty years after the publication of his Forrest Gump (See what he’s been up to in the meantime). El Paso focuses on twentieth-century border wars in Mexico and the American Southwest.
The Jealous Kind
By James Lee Burke
Burke returns to his native Texas for the setting of his latest literary crime novel. Earlier this year, G&G visited Burke at his Montana ranch to learn the secrets behind his prolific writing career.
A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life
By Pat Conroy
A gift to fans of the late bard of the Lowcountry, this collection of letters and personal writings shares Conroy at his most personal—writing to his grandson about basketball and giving a rousing speech at his alma mater the Citadel.
The Orphan Mother
By Robert Hicks
The writer who eulogized B. B. King and provided an insider’s look at Franklin, Tennessee, for G&G is also a novelist whose work focuses on the Civil War era. His latest, The Orphan Mother is an account of one woman’s quest to obtain justice for her son.
Razor Girl
By Carl Hiaasen
No one captures Sunshine State weirdness quite like Carl Hiaasen—and we loved the chance to catch a few fish with him in Florida. Fans of Bad Monkey and Star Island will be delighted with his newest release.
The Carolinas provide fertile inspiration for the novelist and poet Ron Rash. The Risen is set in Appalachia and follows two brothers whose lives are changed by the secrets of one summer.
Roots to the Earth
By Wendell Berry
The Kentucky farmer and poet is known for his graceful odes to nature. Here, a collection of his poems is presented with wood engravings by Wesley Bates in a beautiful book reproduced by Counterpoint Press and designed by Larkspur Press, a craft book publisher in Monterey, Kentucky.
The Whistler
By John Grisham
Before John Grisham was a best-seller-list titan, he was a young lawyer in Mississippi who “sat down with a yellow legal pad and began writing,” he says in a recent interview with Garden & Gun. He went on to become the master of legal thrillers. Next up is The Whistler, chronicling a corrupt casino in Florida.
