A searing Southern story about confronting the difference between the family you're born into and the family you choose, from the acclaimed author of How to Bury Your Brother Lex fled Memphis years ago, making ends meet with odd jobs teaching English around the world. She only returns when she has no choice, when her godmother presents her with a bargain she can't refuse. Lex has never understood her mother, who died tragically right before Lex's college graduation, but now she's got a chance to read her journals, to try and figure out what sent her mother spiraling all those years ago. The Memphis that Lex inhabits is more bourbon and bbq joint than sweet tea on front porches, and as she pieces together the Memphis her mother knew, seeing the lure of the world through her mother's lush writing, she must confront more of her own past and the people she left behind. Once all is laid bare, Lex must decide for herself: What is the true meaning of family?

This tongue-in-cheek dictionary of Southern words and phrases offers a hilarious spoof of the Southern accent. This book is dedicated to all Yankees* in the hope that it will teach them how to talk right. *Yankee: Anyone who is not from Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and possibly Oklahoma and West-by-God-Virginia. A Yankee may become an honorary Southerner, but a Southerner cannot become a Yankee, assuming any Southerner wanted to.

The laugh sensation that swept the nation, How to Speak Southern and More How to Speak Southern, is now collected in one complete–and completely hilarious–volume. Embraced by Southerners everywhere and dedicated to all Yankees in the hope that it will teach them to talk right, this uproarious book decodes “Suthun” wit and wisdom for “Nawthun” upstarts everywhere. From “aig” (a breakfast food that may be fried, scrambled, boiled, or poached) to “zackly” (as in “precisely”), here’s just a sampling of what you’ll find inside: ATTAIR: Contraction used to indicate the specific item desired. “Pass me attair gravy, please.” EVERWHICHAWAYS: To be scattered in all directions. “You should have been there when the train hit that chicken truck. Them chickens flew everwhichaways.” YONTNY: Do you want any. “Yontny more corn bread?” Funny as well as informative, this laugh-out-loud dictionary will keep you laughing and learning–no matter where you fall on the Mason-Dixon Line!

"Part mystery, part Southern gothic, and wholly original, Cook's debut novel establishes her as an author to watch....[and] for fans of Celeste Ng and Joshilyn Jackson. " — Booklist Her brother's letters reveal everything—if only he'd written one to her. Alice always thought she'd see her brother again. Rob ran away when he was fifteen, with so many years left to find his way home. But his funeral happened first. Eight years later she has to clear out her childhood home in Georgia, and the memories come flooding in, bringing with them an autopsy report showing her family's lies—and sealed, addressed letters from Rob. In a search for answers to questions she's always been afraid to ask, Alice delivers the letters. Each dares her to open her eyes to her family's secrets and the ghosts of her own past. But it's the last letter, addressed to her brother's final home in New Orleans, that will force her to choose if she'll let the trauma break her or finally bring her home. Everything I Never Told You meets The Night Olivia Fell set against a vivid Southern backdrop, How to Bury Your Brother is the highly-discussable story of a sister coming to terms with her brother's life and death.

This lively, handsomely illustrated, first-of-its-kind book celebrates the food of the American South in all its glorious variety—yesterday, today, at home, on the road, in history. It brings us the story of Southern cooking; a guide for more than 200 restaurants in eleven Southern states; a compilation of more than 150 time-honored Southern foods; a wonderfully useful annotated bibliography of more than 250 Southern cookbooks; and a collection of more than 200 opinionated, funny, nostalgic, or mouth-watering short selections (from George Washington Carver on sweet potatoes to Flannery O’Connor on collard greens). Here, in sum, is the flavor and feel of what it has meant for Southerners, over the generations, to gather at the table—in a book that’s for reading, for cooking, for eating (in or out), for referring to, for browsing in, and, above all, for enjoying.

“Arguably the greatest living travel writer” (Outside magazine), Pico Iyer has called Japan home for more than three decades. But, as he is the first to admit, the country remains an enigma even to its long-term residents. In A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, Iyer draws on his years of experience—his travels, conversations, readings, and reflections—to craft a playful and profound book of surprising, brief, incisive glimpses into Japanese culture. He recounts his adventures and observations as he travels from a meditation hall to a love hotel, from West Point to Kyoto Station, and from dinner with Meryl Streep to an ill-fated call to the Apple service center in a series of provocations guaranteed to pique the interest and curiosity of those who don’t know Japan—and to remind those who do of its myriad fascinations.

Often considered merely a repository of archaic or even Elizabethan English, the language of southern Appalachia represents a distinctive American dialect that is both conservative and innovative. This dictionary marks the first comprehensive, historical record of the traditional speech of this region. Focusing on the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee and western North Carolina, it features more than six thousand names, usages, meanings, and folk expressions that are found in the region, exemplified by more than fifteen thousand documented quotations.