The Bookies discuss The Deepest South of All

by RIchard Grant

The Bookies is O'Neal Library's Tuesday morning book group. We meet on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at 10:00 a.m. in the Library's Conference Room. Visitors and/or new members are always welcome!

The Bookies will meet on Tuesday, August 8 at 10:00 a.m. to discuss The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi by Richard Grant. If you need a copy of the book, please contact Katie: kmoellering@oneallibrary.org or 205-445-1118.

Reviewers of the book note:

"[An] entertaining and informative travelogue...Readers will be enthralled by Grant’s lively prose and the colorful contradictions of this unique and haunted place."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This richly layered book offers a multifaceted view of the culture and history of an American city that, in its history, reveals the roots of the racial conflicts that continue to haunt the American psyche. An entertaining and thought-provoking memoir and sociological portrait."—Kirkus Reviews

"Grant deftly and pointedly juxtaposes anecdotes of garden club turf wars among the city’s wealthy, white elite with appalling accounts of slave auctions, life under Jim Crow rule, and the continuing inequality still facing the city’s Black residents. At a time when our country once again attempts to confront its systemic racism, Grant’s potent examination of the confluence of white and African American cultures presents a timely overview of the source of many deep-seated misperceptions and struggles." —Booklist (starred review)

“Grant plops himself in the town of Natchez, Mississippi, during its annual Tableaux. He chronicles the antebellum-themed pageant’s organizers’ struggles to keep it relevant—and their deeper conflicts about what it represents—with empathy, skepticism, and exquisitely dry wit. One local’s quip to Grant sums it up perfectly: ‘This whole town is like a Southern Twin Peaks.’”—Jonathan Miles, Garden & Gun

“Use a random number generator and you’ll always land on a page that will leave you chuckling, lifting your jaw off the floor or shaking your head in dismay…Though filled with wild and woolly tales, Grant’s travelogue also posits Natchez as a stand-in for the nation and a guidepost pointing the way forward.” —Stuart Miller, The Los Angeles Times

Richard Grant is an award-winning author, journalist, and television host. He currently writes for Smithsonian magazine, The New York Times, Al Jazeera America, the Telegraph (UK), and several other publications. He grew up in London, England, and now lives in Jackson, Mississippi. His latest book is Dispatches from Pluto, a New York Times bestseller and Winner of the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize. His previous books are Crazy River, God’s Middle Finger, and American Nomads.

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