Nashville, photographs by Heidi Ross
“If you’re old enough to play a fiddle, you’re old enough to busk,” reads the caption beside a black and white photo of a young violinist standing next to his small bike on a street corner. It’s those indelible moments big and small that the photographer Heidi Ross captures in Nashville. Not only does the coffee-table read include 175 color and black-and-white photos by Ross, the local author Ann Patchett shares an essay about her connection to Music City, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham writes in the introduction: “Art—visual, sung, written—is the city’s soul.”
Images from Nashville: If you’re old enough to play a fiddle, you’re old enough to busk; East Nashville’s Tomato Art Festival is a celebration of all things tomato.
Photo: HEIDI ROSS
Monument, by Natasha Trethewey
The country’s most heralded living poet—two-time poet laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner—hails from Gulfport, Mississippi, and now releases a collection of new and selected poems, which was longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award for Poetry.
The Reckoning, by John Grisham
As always, Grisham’s legal suspense is right on the money, but this story has something new for his longtime readers—it’s more of a sprawling novel that shows his Southern Gothic chops are top tier. The Reckoning spans from Mississippi to the Philippine jungles during World War II, and still maintains Grisham’s masterful, taut storytelling.
Ramen Otaku: Mastering Ramen at Home, by Sarah Gavigan, with Ann Volkwein
When Southerners move to New York City or Los Angeles, they generally miss their Duke’s mayonnaise, perfect biscuits, and whatever barbecue style they were raised on. But there is one dish—shared in whispers—that many transplants do long for when they return home: steaming hot, flavorful bowls of ramen that are popular in northern and western cities. Chef Sarah Gavigan, who was raised in the South, spent twenty years in Los Angeles, and then returned home to Tennessee, where she sorely missed the Japanese food she learned to love. In 2015, she opened Otaku Ramen in Nashville, and in this cookbook, she shares her secrets to making rich stews to satisfy all folks, no matter where they call home.
Bitty Bunnies, by Hunt Slonem
The artist Hunt Slonem splits his time between New York and Louisiana, where he restores entire historic estates. He’s known for his own paintings, particularly of animals, and especially his depictions of bunnies. This coffee table book collects dozens of his artworks, with a foreword by his friend, the author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt.
Cocktail Codex, by Alex Day, Nick Fauchald, David Kaplan
Too bad all college textbooks weren’t this much fun. The Cocktail Codex is a thorough primer on every type of cocktail (spoiler alert: the authors claim there are only six cocktails. Everything else is a variation on those). They share the details behind why some drinks work and why others fall flat—in a whiskey highball, use citrus sparingly and to accent the flavor of the liquor, not as a central component of the drink—with explanations on how to elevate your at-home bartending game with riffs on ingredients and styles.
Congratulations, Who Are You Again?, by Harrison Scott Key
Finally, here comes the follow-up to Harrison Scott Key’s wry 2015 book, The World’s Largest Man, which was based on the Mississippi writer’s relationship with his bigger-than-life (and at times brutish) dad. In this new work, Key humorously and tenderly mines his own life to understand why on earth anyone would want to become a writer.
The MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook, by Steven Rinella
A thorough guide to cooking wild game, this cookbook includes recipes for both surf and turf: the perfect fried catfish sandwich, grilled venison ribs, and a roasted wild turkey recipe for the hunter’s Thanksgiving table.
Ground Rules by Kate Frey
It’s never too early to start planning next year’s garden, and this luscious, photo-filled guide will inspire you with one hundred easy-to-implement tips, such as grouping plants with similar water needs, and pruning shrubs to avoid a lollipop shape.
Grits, by Erin Byers Murray
The humble grit finally gets its due in Nashville-based food editor and writer Erin Byers Murray’s dive into the history, social importance, and evolution of the Southern food staple.
