Anyone who has read the best-selling Mama Makes Up Her Mind or listened to Bailey White's commentaries on NPR knows that she is a storyteller of inimitable wit and charm. Now, in her stunningly accomplished first novel, she introduces us to the peculiar yet lovable people who inhabit a small town in south Georgia. Meet serious, studious Roger, the peanut pathologist and unlikely love object of half the town's women. Meet Roger's ex-mother-in-law, Louise, who teams up with an ardent typographer in an attempt to attract outer-space invaders with specific combinations of letters and numbers. And meet Della, the bird artist who captivates Roger with the sensible but enigmatic notes she leaves on things she throws away at the Dumpster ("This fan works, but makes a clicking sound and will not oscillate"). Heartbreakingly tender, often hilarious, Quite a Year for Plums is a delectable treat from a writer who has been called a national treasure.

Anyone who has read the best-selling Mama Makes Up Her Mind or listened to Bailey White's commentaries on NPR knows that she is a storyteller of inimitable wit and charm. Now, in her stunningly accomplished first novel, she introduces us to the peculiar yet lovable people who inhabit a small town in south Georgia. Meet serious, studious Roger, the peanut pathologist and unlikely love object of half the town's women. Meet Roger's ex-mother-in-law, Louise, who teams up with an ardent typographer in an attempt to attract outer-space invaders with specific combinations of letters and numbers. And meet Della, the bird artist who captivates Roger with the sensible but enigmatic notes she leaves on things she throws away at the Dumpster ("This fan works, but makes a clicking sound and will not oscillate"). Heartbreakingly tender, often hilarious, Quite a Year for Plums is a delectable treat from a writer who has been called a national treasure.

For more than a decade, Bailey White has delivered a story each Thanksgiving to National Public Radio's All Things Considered listeners. Long awaited by her many fans, Nothing with Strings is the entire collection of these Thanksgiving stories, published together for the first time. With wit and charm, Bailey White writes about an almost-gone little town where a spoon player is a guardian angel, an old woman fears that John James Audubon is living in her attic, and a homely governess wins a baby bull in a raffle and loses her heart. It's the kind of place where Heavenly Blue morning glories grow in through the windows of old houses and funeral food is shared on a Greyhound bus on a fall afternoon. You may not have ever been there, but you will feel right at home in these pages. Bailey White's beautifully written stories, teetering on the edge of the unreal, are sure to bring back memories you don't really have.

Anyone who has read her bestseller Mama Makes Up Her Mind--or who has heard her on National Public Radio--knows that Bailey White is one of the keenest observers of Southern eccentricity since Mark Twain. Sleeping at the Starlite Motel revives White's reputation as a master storyteller, Southern division, as it catalogs the oddities of the Georgia town she knows so well.

Welcome to the unique world of Bailey White. Her aunt Belle may take you to see her bellowing pet alligator. Her uncle Jimbuddy may appall you with his knack for losing pieces of himself. Most of all, you may succumb utterly to the charms of Bailey's mama, who will take you to a juke joint so raunchy it scared Ernest Hemingway or tuck you into her antique guest bed that has the disconcerting habit of folding up on people while they sleep. White's indelible vignettes of Southern eccentricity have entranced millions who have heard her read them on NPR. Mama Makes Up Her Mind is as sweetly intoxicating as a mint julep and as invigorating as a walk in White's own overgrown garden.

“Enthralling . . . [an] exquisitely moral mystery of how we struggle to accept and love the people we call family.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice) NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Esquire • BookPage A gripping novel with the pace of a thriller but the nuanced characterization and deep empathy of some of the literary canon’s most beloved novels, Remember Me Like This introduces Bret Anthony Johnston as one of the most gifted storytellers writing today. With his sophisticated and emotionally taut plot and his shimmering prose, Johnston reveals that only in caring for one another can we save ourselves. Four years have passed since Justin Campbell’s disappearance, a tragedy that rocked the small town of Southport, Texas. Did he run away? Was he kidnapped? Did he drown in the bay? As the Campbells search for answers, they struggle to hold what’s left of their family together. Then, one afternoon, the impossible happens. The police call to report that Justin has been found only miles away, in the neighboring town, and, most important, he appears to be fine. Though the reunion is a miracle, Justin’s homecoming exposes the deep rifts that have diminished his family, the wounds they all carry that may never fully heal. Trying to return to normal, his parents do their best to ease Justin back into his old life. But as thick summer heat takes hold, violent storms churn in the Gulf and in the Campbells’ hearts. When a reversal of fortune lays bare the family’s greatest fears—and offers perhaps the only hope for recovery—each of them must fight to keep the ties that bind them from permanently tearing apart. Praise for Remember Me Like This “An achingly beautiful and psychologically insightful portrait of a family . . . [a] fully immersive novel in which the language is luminous and the delivery almost flawless.”—The Boston Globe “Riveting . . . flows like it was plotted by Dennis Lehane but feels like it was written by Jonathan Franzen.”—Esquire “Tremendously moving . . . There’s real humanity in Johnston’s writing, and it’s heartening to spend time with these folks as they relearn how to be a family.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post “Deeply empathetic and masterfully constructed . . . a novel that has both the feel of a great epic and the focused intensity of standing on a highwire.”—Salon

Includes a reader's guide and an author's note.