Blame it on Maggie - Giving in to the Southern Reading Challenge

I really did not plan to give in and join another challenge (note that I have ditched the Year of Reading Dangerously challenge, because I simply fell too far behind -- maybe next year) but Maggie is persuasive!! Plus, the Southern Reading Challenge is simple and straightforward:

The rules are easy: 3 Southern Setting Books by Southern Authors in 3 Months beginning May 15 through August 15!

And, Maggie mentioned chocolate-covered pecans in there, somewhere. Well, shucks, how can you pass up a thing like the potential for winning chocolate-covered pecans?

As usual, I'm not willing to simply choose and list three books because I know my own fickle nature (plus, I have plenty of Southern Lit/Southern author works lying about). Instead, I've been piling up books to choose from. Here's what I've got to choose from, so far:

1. The Rabbit Factory - Larry Brown
2. Homesick - Sela Ward
3. Soldier's Pay - William Faulkner (?? - not sure if the setting will work)
4. Return of the Stardust Cowgirl - Marsha Moyer
5. Run with the Horsemen - Ferrol Sams
6. The Known World - Edward P. Jones
7. Confederates in the Attic - Tony Horwitz
8. Giant - Edna Ferber
9. Hell at the Breech - Tom Franklin
10. When Crickets Cry - Charles Martin
11. Vicksburg - James Reasoner
12. Them - Nathan McCall
13. High Cotton - Gerard Helferich - returned to library unfinished, darn it
14. Vicksburg & Warren County: A History of People and Place - Pamela Lea Grillis Finished on 5/15/08 (it was short)
15. The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen Finished on 5/29/09
16. In the Land of Dreamy Dreams by Ellen Gilchrist

Numbers 13 and 14 are library books, so I'll have to read them hastily or they'll fall off the list. I have a Eudora Welty or two, somewhere, but I can't find them at the moment. Seems like I have plenty to choose from, anyway. And, I'd really like to get my mitts on a copy of Mudbound, which I drooled over in Borders on Sunday.

My personal recommendations:

I love Larry Brown's nonfiction: On Fire and Billy Ray's Farm. Nobody gives you a sense of who Mississippians really are like Larry, in my humble opinion, for better or worse. May he rest in peace. I must have read both of those Brown books prior to becoming a blogger because I can't find reviews to link to on my blog, unfortunately. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen seems to be a book that receives rather polarized reviews, but I loved it. A friend told me the author has a new book coming out in June, as well. Wahoo for that! Maggie's review of Garden Spells can be found here. When I read Faulkner's The Unvanquished, I had to keep a dictionary on my lap; I wrote and defined vocabulary words in a spiral-bound notebook. I'm pretty sure the eldest (who was supposed to read the book for AP English -- I read along in order to quiz him and he failed my off-the-cuff test) never even cracked the book.

Two of the books on my list are Texas books. Is Texas considered a part of the South? I'm not sure. But, if heat were the only qualification, I know it would fit in just fine. If not, I'll have to knock Giant and Return of the Stardust Cowgirl off my list, although I want to read them both, anyway. I'll close this post with a photo of cotton taken in the Mississippi Delta in September of last year.

Now, I just have to try to hold out for three days because I'm really anxious to get started.

*Note on sheep video, below* - Husband says the bleating sound is definitely the sheep, not his cohort trying to catch their attention. Thank goodness for that.

Happy Southern Reading!