Don Noble

“Fancy Strut: A Novel” 

Author: Lee Smith 

Publisher: Ballantine Books  

Pages: 343 

Price: $11.00 (Paper) 

“Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation” 

Author: Don Siegelman 

Publisher: NewSouth Books  

Pages: 320 

Price: $28.95 (Cloth) 

As his second trial was coming to an end, Governor Siegelman wanted to testify on his own behalf. His lawyers, certain the state had not made its case and the governor would be acquitted, persuaded him not to. 

Siegelman’s brother Les disagreed. 

“André’s Reboot: Striving to Save Humanity” 

Author: Steve Coleman 

Publisher: S.B. Coleman 

Birmingham AL 

Pages: 254 

Price: $ 14.95 (Paper) 

I have seldom discussed a science-fiction novel in this space, but after I learned that “André’s Reboot” has won the Silver Award from Independent Publisher Book Awards and Honorable Mention from “Writer’s Digest,” I decided to give it a look. I’m glad I did. 

“Boys of Alabama” 

Author: Genevieve Hudson 

Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corp. 

Pages: 282 

Price: $26.95 (Hardcover) 

“Boys of Alabama” is Genevieve Hudson’s first novel but third published book. In each the reader can see the development of a bright, sensitive and gay young woman in Alabama coming to terms with her place and her place in it. 

“Sisters of the Undertow” 

Author: Johnnie Bernhard 

Publisher: Texas Review Press 

Pages: 200 

Price: $21.95 (Paper) 

Bernhard’s third novel is the story of two sisters and may be enjoyed by women who have a sister, but these sisters are far from average. The problems of sibling rivalry and family dynamics presented here are far from common. 

“Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth” 

Author: Benjamin Taylor 

Publisher: Penguin Books 

Pages: 171 

$26.00 (Hardcover) 

Readers should be aware that “Here We Are” is not the full biography of novelist Philip Roth. That volume is being written by Blake Bailey, the biographer of John Cheever and Richard Yates. 

“Here We Are,” a memoir, is the story of a friendship. 

“The Cat Man of Aleppo” 

Authors:  Irene Latham and Karim Shamsi-Basha 

Illustrated by Yuko Shimizu 

Publisher: G. P. Putnam’s Sons 

Pages: 

Price: $17.99 (Hardcover) 

“After Sundown: A Novel” 

Authors: Linda Howard and Linda Jones 

Publisher: William Morrow 

Pages: 369 

Price: $27.95 (Hardcover) 

“Blue Marlin” 

Author: Lee Smith 

Publisher: Blair, an imprint of Carolina Wren Press 

Pages: 123 

Price: $15.95 (paper) 

“Who Got Game?: Baseball: Amazing but True Stories” 

Author: Derrick Barnes  

Illustrated by John John Bajet 

Publisher: Workman Publishing  

Pages: 171 

Price: $12.95 (paper) 

It has been over a month now since the 2020 baseball season should have opened and there is an empty place in the hearts of millions of Americans. The national pastime is on indefinite hold. 

“Old Lovegood Girls: A Novel” 

Author: Gail Godwin 

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing 

Pages: 352 

Price: $27.00 (hardcover) 

The publication of “Old Lovegood Girls” is a genuine literary event, worthy of celebration. This book marks 50 years of publishing since Godwin’s debut with “The Perfectionists” in 1970. 

“Will the Circle be Unbroken?” 

Author: Sean “Sean of the South” Dietrich  

Publisher: Zondervan Books 

Pages: 256 

Price: $24.99 (Hardcover)  

Sean Dietrich has become truly famous for his blog posts which are eagerly, ritualistically, almost addictively, read by tens of thousands of people every morning. 

“Firebird: A Novel” 

Author: Mark Powell 

Publisher: Haywire Books  

Pages: 312 

Price: $17.95 (Paperback)

Readers of “Firebird” might not immediately recognize Mark Powell as a Southern writer, but he surely is. At present, Powell is teaching creative writing at Appalachian State in Asheville, North Carolina. 

“Glory Road: A Novel” 

Author: Lauren K. Denton 

Publisher: Thomas Nelson 

“The Testaments “ 

Author: Margaret Atwood 

Publisher: Nan Talese/Doubleday 

“Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” 
Author: Bryan Stevenson 
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau 
Pages: 336 
Price: $28.00 (Hardcover) 

I am embarrassed to say I am just now reading Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy,” but I am really glad I’ve read it. Every American should read this book.  

“Library Girls of New York: A Secret Place”

Author: Carolyn Rhodes

Publisher: Borgo Publishing

Pages: 101

Price: $15.99 (Paper)

The millionaire industrialist Andrew Carnegie believed deeply in philanthropy. He was famous for giving a dime to anyone who asked, which sounds cheap, but isn’t really. Most millionaires did not want to be bothered.

“Gifts: A Novel”

Author: May Lamar

Publisher: The Donnell Group

Pages: 246

Price: $28.00 (Hardcover)

May Lamar’s new novel is a fictionalized account of the life of pioneering artist Anne Goldthwaite, who lived from 1869 till 1944. Goldthwaite, raised partly in Montgomery, was a suffragette, and an artist in several media. She began but did not complete a memoir.

May Lamar had published a similar book, “Brother Sid,” based on the life of the poet Sidney Lanier.

This novel is even more ambitious and a delight to read.

“Operation Dimwit: A Penelope Lemon Novel”

Author: Inman Majors

Publisher: LSU Press

Pages: 219

Price: $29.95 (Hardcover)

Inman Majors, a Tennessean with an MFA from UA, is in mid-career and in fine form. He has an amazing and underrated serious novel in “The Millionaires,” set at the World’s Fair in Knoxville, but also that rarest of gifts these days, a comic sensibility.

“Dear Betty, Love Byron: The Letters of Lieutenant Byron Yarbrough and Betty Jones, 1944-1945”

Introduction by Mark Wilson

Preface by Dennis Blocker II

Publisher: Solomon & George Publishers

Pages: 107

Price: $10.00 (Paper)

There could be literally thousands and thousands of books like this one, letters between a sailor away at war and a young woman at home. My own father and mother did exactly this during WWII.

“The Nickel Boys”

Author: Colson Whitehead

Publisher: Doubleday

Pages: 210

Price: $24.95 (Hardcover)

Years ago I met a man who had made a success in Hollywood writing ethnic wedding scenes, a narrow specialty indeed.  This man wrote the extraordinary wedding scenes for the first “Godfather” movie, Italian Roman Catholic, and “The Deer Hunter,” Russian Orthodox.

If Hollywood should develop a need for a specialist to write scenes of savage beatings, Colson Whitehead is their man.

“Year-Round Trouble: 14 Cozy Holiday Mysteries”

Editor: Susan Y. Tanner

Publisher: Kalioka Press

Pages: 463

Price: $16.99

A reminder: a cozy is a mystery with little or no onstage violence, little blood, profanity or sex. The problem may be murder, but may be theft or even a misunderstanding. Most cozies have small-town settings, and the detective, the problem-solver, usually an amateur, almost always female, is assisted by a quirky friend or friends.

“Of Moose and Me: Animal Tales from an Alaskan Childhood”

Author: K. Brenna Wardell

Publisher: Corpus Callosum Press

Hastings, Nebraska

2019

Pages: 107

Price: $15.00 (Paper)

Brenna Wardell teaches film and literature at the University of North Alabama and is, therefore, officially an Alabama writer.

Like many of us, however, Wardell has migrated here from elsewhere, in this case the far-away and mostly unknown Alaska.

“Of Moose and Me” is a memoir, stories from her childhood, and rather nostalgic.

“The Andean Cross: A Novel”

Author: Lawrence Clayton

Publisher: Westwood Books Publishing LLC

Pages: 216

Price: $14.99 (Hardback)

Lawrence Clayton, retired professor of Latin American history, has written his debut novel. Appropriately enough, it is set in Central and South America and reflects his expertise in these areas.

The novel opens on the Pacific coast of Panama, in 1544. There has been a catastrophe.

Mobile Under Siege: Surviving the Union Blockade

Author: Paula Lenor Webb

Publisher: History Press

Pages: 142

Price: $ 21.99 (Paper)

When I commenced reading “Mobile Under Siege,” I believed it would be the story of the Port City during most of the Civil War, under Union naval blockade, with plucky blockade runners dashing out in the fog with contraband cotton bound for the mills of England by way of Havana, Cuba, and dashing in with a fresh load of fine wine and cigars.

It is not.

“Debris Cloud”

Author: James Ezell

Publisher: Author House

Pages: 290

Price: $20.99 (Paper)

It is no surprise that a cataclysm like the 2011 tornado in Tuscaloosa would spawn a lot of written responses, in several genres.

“Bay Boy: Stories of a Childhood in Point Clear, Alabama”

Author: Watt Key

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Pages: 136

Price: $24.95 (Cloth)

“The Paris Husband: How It Really Was Between Ernest & Hadley Hemingway”

Author: Scott Donaldson

Publisher: Simply Charlie

Pages: 139

Price: $11.99

Ernest Hemingway lived in Italy, in France, in Key West and in Cuba, was a prodigious drinker, loved hunting birds and big game, went to WWI as an ambulance driver and The Spanish Civil War and WWII as a correspondent. As a young man, he loved fishing for trout and later, in the Gulf, for marlin. It was undeniably an exciting life.

“Agent Running in the Field”

Author: John Le Carré

Publisher: Viking

Pages: 281

Price: $29.00 (Hardcover)

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, presumably ending the Cold War, readers and critics feared for the careers of spy novelists like John Le Carré. What would these fellows write about now?

No problem, really.

There is always plenty of crime, rottenness and misery in the world.

“Brooding: Arias, Choruses, Lullabies, Dirges, and a Duet”

Author: Michael Martone

Publisher: The University of Georgia Press

Pages: 191

Price: $24.95 (Paper)

Michael Martone, just finishing a career teaching at the U of A, is the author of a shelf of books, nonfiction, generally speaking, essays on every imaginable subject.

Maya Angelou turned every experience, every day, into memoir.