Dear READER, Summer/Fall 2021 Four stores on five floors in three buildings one hundred feet apart on the Square in Oxford, Mississippi Thank you for your interest in Dear Reader, the quarterly bulletin of new books and related news from Square Books – four bookstores in three buildings 100 feet apart on the historic Oxford, Mississippi, town square. Directly opposite the stately Lafayette County courthouse, one can’t help noticing the cantaloupe-colored Square Books, which opened in 1979 and is our largest store, and open 7 days a week. Off Square Books, open Monday- Adam Harris Saturday, began in 1993, and is the host site for all author events and Thacker Mountain Radio – a weekly live The State Must Provide radio show featuring authors and musicians -- in addition to housing a broad selection of lifestyle books (cooking, 8/31 Virtual gardening, travel, and more) as well as used books, bargain books and an amusing assortment of gifts and cards. Crossroads Book Group In 2003 we opened Square Books Jr, crammed with books for children, yet also spacious, where the ambiance is unbridled joy. Up the stairwell adjacent to Jr one may discover the entirely different environment ofRare Square Books, august and quiet, where there are hundreds of first editions, signed books and posters. Rare Square Books opened on the main store’s fortieth anniversary, Sept. 14, 2019, and is open Tuesday-Saturday. You may want to inquire specifically about the hours of each store, as that has been somewhat subject to change in the time of Covid. Presently masks are recommended but not required, but that is subject to change as well. We can’t sufficiently express the gratitude for the support so many of you have shown Square Books during the pandemic, be it visiting the stores or shopping online or phoning for books to ship, pick up or deliver. All staff at Square Books stores are vaccinated, but we continue to wear masks, as recommended by reliable health experts. If you have not been vaccinated, we ask, please, that you do so at your earliest opportunity – as it’s the best, or only, way to protect yourself and those you love, as well as those you don’t even know. Lately, our business has rebounded and compares favorably to the same period of 2019; that, too, is subject to change, of course – so, by all means, keep it up! Anderson Cooper Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty 9/24 The Main Store Lifestyle & Bargain Children’s books & toys Up the stairwell adjacent to Virtual 160 Courthouse Square 129 Courthouse Square 111 Courthouse Square Square Books Jr. 662-236-2262 662-236-2828 662-236-2207 DELIVERY & PICKUP www.thackermountain.com Square Books offers curbside pickup for Thacker Mountain Radio book orders. Delivery is also offered for is broadcast statewide orders within a 5 mile radius of the square. Orders under $50 will be subject to a $5 on Saturdays at 7 p.m. on delivery fee. Mississippi Public Radio. Scan the QR code for links to events! 2 EVENTS Adam Harris Maurice Carlos Ruffin Double Author Event Robert Khayat Dan Yaccarino The State Must Provide The Ones Who Don’t Megan Abbott & Laura Lippman 60: A Year of Sports, The Longest Storm 8/31 Say They Love You The Turnout & Dreamgirl Race & Politics 9/8 Virtual 9/1 9/1 9/2 Virtual Crossroads Book Group @ Off Square Books with Friends and Fiction @ Ford Center Virtual Bobby Rush Atticus Lish Heather Cass White Susan Verde Margaret Renkyl Kendare Blake I Ain’t Studdin Ya The War for Gloria Books Promiscuously I AM COURAGE Graceland, At Last All These Bodies 9/23 9/9 Read 9/10 9/16 9/21 @ Off Square Books Virtual 9/9 Virtual with SIBA Virtual @ Off Square Books Virtual Anderson Cooper Daniel de Vise Vanderbilt: The Rise Tarriona “Tank” Ball Sasha Graham Joshua Nguyen Jonathan Franzen King of the Blues and Fall of an American Vulnerable AF Magic of Tarot Come Clean Crossroads 10/14 Dynasty 9/28 9/29 10/8 10/14 @ Lyric Theatre 9/24 @Off Square Books Virtual @ Off Square Books Virtual Virtual Susan Orlean Robin Preiss Glasser Aurielle Marie Gene Kwak William Boyle On Animals Grand Jete and Me Gumbo Ya-Ya Go Home, Ricky! Shoot the Moonlight Out 10/19 10/20 10/20 10/26 11/1 @ Virtual Virtual @ Off Square @ Off Square Books Off Square Books Books -Ticketed- Double Author Event Event calendar is subject to change. David Magee & Ivan Maisel Dear William & I Keep Trying to Catch Visit www.squarebooks.com/event His Eye for the most up-to-date list. 11/3 3 DAMNATION SPRING FICTION by Ash Davidson Scribner, $28.00; pub. 8/3 MATRIX A sweeping family saga of love and grief and the deeply personal by Lauren Groff tragedies that occur when our planet is abused. This is the kind Riverhead Books, $28.00; pub. 9/7 of novel I’ve been craving for ages. Ambitious in its scope, Signed Copies Available masterful in its execution. This stunning story, written in pitch- The chronicle of an abbey in 12th century England perfect prose, announces Ash Davidson as a major new voice in provides the basis of an exceptional novel about faith American Literature. Every page stirred my soul. and power. Lauren Groff uses the experiences of abbess Marie and her attendant nuns to delve deeply into the subjects of THE GUIDE religion, love, sexuality, gender, identity, violence, passion and so many by Peter Heller other emotions that comprise the human experience. -Bill Knopf, $27.00 pub. 8/24 CLOUD CUCKOO LAND Peter Heller’s riveting thriller is set in the American by Anthony Doerr wilderness, but the threats gathering around Jack, the young Scribner, $30.00; pub. 9/28 fishing guide of the title, come from man, not nature… Unnerving…A chilling reminder of the dangers that might lie Signed Copies Available in wait for us all. Cloud Cuckoo Land is ambitious, audacious, and a work of absolute artistry. Doerr somehow blends a multitude of eras BEWILDERMENT and genres in a manner that is breathtaking and in the end by Richard Powers creates a work of mythology of his own. It is books like this that make our W.W. Norton & Company, $27.95; pub. 9/21 business such a joy. We all read many books, but then something like Cloud comes along and we experience the same epiphany as Zeno realizing we have Signed Copies Available reached the culmination and completion of a quest. – Bill This novel is about animals, consciousness, ecology, extraterrestrials, entropy, family, humanity, memory, THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY politics, relationships, and veganism; but most of all, by Amor Towles Bewilderment is a modern-day science fiction novel that Viking, $30.00; pub. 10/5 explores and implores empathy. -Conor Signed Copies Available Amor Towles takes his own ride on that endless highway CROSSROADS with this novel of two brothers in 1954 searching for a by Jonathan Franzen new life in a country on the edge of massive changes. His Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30.00; pub. 10/5 mastery of driving a plot informs the quest of the pair as they discover danger can come from friend or foe but also Signed Copies Available/Event on 10/14 redemptive help until they reach a powerful conclusion. -Bill Crossroads is the name for the church youth group that, with its junior pastor, collides with the family -- a senior pastor and his wife and their four mostly teenage children -- to form the ONCE THERE WERE WOLVES centrifugal force of this sixties-era novel, another 600-page masterpiece from the by Charlotte McConaghy writer who continues to depict our age and blaze its literary path. -Richard Flatiron Books, $27.99; pub. 8/3 Signed Copies Available HARLEM SHUFFLE Once There Were Wolves is the unforgettable story of a by Colson Whitehead woman desperate to save the creatures she loves—if she isn’t Doubleday, $28.95; pub. 9/14 consumed by the wild that was once her refuge. Colson Whitehead takes the baton that has been passed from Chester Himes to Walter Mosley and adds his own distinctive touch in a novel set in early ‘60s Harlem. With his usual attention to detail and a subtle humor he tells the THE WAR FOR GLORIA story of Ray Carney, a furniture dealer who sometimes steps by Atticus Lish over the line when it comes to business transactions. At the same time as the Knopf, $28.00; pub. 9/7 author delineates this hidden world he uses it as a mirror that perfectly reflects Event on 9/9 our own era and demonstrates that very little has changed in many respects Lish tells the coming -of-age story of Corey Goltz, a boy who over the course of six decades. Like his legendary predecessors Whitehead uses lives with his mother, Gloria, to whom he is devoted. His the crime fiction genre to not only tell a mesmerizing story but also a sharp dreams of an adventurous life come crashing down when Gloria commentary on the society in which it is placed. -Bill is afflicted by ALS, and becomes increasingly dependent on POISON FOR BREAKFAST Corey. Complicating this situation is the re-appearance of his by Lemony Snicket creepy, pretentious father, whose evil Corey struggles to expose. The writing is Liveright, $17.95; pub. 8/31 fertile, rich with interior details of Corey’s mind, bringing him into sharper focus and strengthening our connection to him. -Lisa Full of Snicket’s trademark clever whimsy.