Hello, friends!

It has been a couple of years since I have written you a book column, as my family and I were on a two-year long vacation in the Rocky Mountains. We are back in North Carolina, where I have accepted a position as General Manager at Page 158 Books in Wake Forest (one of several great bookstores in the Triangle, as you know).

To celebrate, I’d like to highlight a dozen recent books by North Carolina authors (in alphabetical order by author). You can purchase the books (and support a local community bookstore, Page 158 Books, in the process) by clicking on the titles.

Western Alliances by Wilton Barnhardt ($29.00, St. Martin’s Press)

This fantastic novel by one of North Carolina’s longtime literary legends lives at the crossroads of HBO’s Succession and W.G. Sebald. Western Alliances follows a troubled rich family through Europe during the 2008 financial crisis. Wilton Barnhardt is one of our best satirical writers, and Western Alliances shows him at the top of his game.

Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud ($17.99, TOR Nightfire)

Asheville’s Nathan Ballingrud gives us one of the best horror novella’s of 2024 with Crypt of the Moon Spider. The story, which is the first of a trilogy, takes place in 1923 in an institution for the melancholy on the dark side of the moon, providing a tremendous glimpse into mental health practices of the 1920s. For fans of Frankenstein, Edgar Allen Poe and the pulpy shock-novels of last century. Arachnophobes should tread lightly.

a little bump in the earth by Tyree Daye ($22.00, Copper Canyon Press)

Tyree Daye, a former student of Dorianne Laux (who will make an appearance further down this list) is one of our greatest young living poets, and North Carolina should not take him for granted. He has won a Whiting Writers Award and an APR/Honickman First Book Prize, and was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Award. This collection is one of his finest.

Indigo Field by Marjorie Hudson ($22.95, Regal House Publishing)

Indigo Field by award-winning author Marjorie Hudson is a novel about grief, history, and how seemingly disparate lives can intersect in cataclysmic ways. Bestselling author Sue Monk Kidd says “”Indigo Field brims with multigenerational drama, earthy spirituality, and deeply imagined characters you are unlikely to forget. In tightly compressed, poetic language, Hudson weaves a mesmerizing story of loss, injustice, and revenge conspiring to darken the human heart—and the redemptive and unexpected ways the light comes in.”

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher ($19.99, TOR Nightfire)

New York Times bestselling author T. Kingfisher just won a 2024 Hugo Award for best novella (for Thornhedge), and her newest novel What Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier #2) is equally worthy of recognition. This novel is for fans of “The Fall of the House of Usher” and fans of scary stories that take place in the woods. T. Kingfisher ‘s bio says she lives in North Carolina with her husband, dogs and chickens who may or may not be possessed.

Finger Exercises for Poets by Dorianne Laux ($17.99, W.W. Norton and Company)

Dorianne Laux is a long-time staple of North Carolina State University’s Creative Writing faculty and though she has retired from the University and moved to California, we still claim her. Laux has been the recipient of the Paterson Poetry Prize, three Best American Poetry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. This latest book gifts us with craft essays and exercises for poets.

Shae by Mesha Maren ($28.00, Algonquin Books)

Just like Tyree Daye is one of our greatest young living poets, Mesha Maren is one of our greates young living novelists. Her previous novels, Sugar Run and Perpetual West, were two of the best novels of their respective years, and Shae is Maren’s greatest effort to date. Maren’s novels live at the intersection of Flannery O’Connor, Herper Lee and Roberto Bolaño. Mesha Maren is an Associate Professor of the Practice of English at Duke University.

A Really Strange and Wonderful Time: The Chapel Hill Music Scene: 1989-1999 by Tom Maxwell ($30.00, Hachette Books)

A Really Strange and Wonderful Time documents what, before the present day, was likely the best time for local indie and alternative rock & roll acts in North Carolina. The scene from 1989-1999 in Chapel Hill produced many iconic acts, including Ben Folds Five, Bicycle Face, Polvo, Zen Frisbee, Superchunk, Metal Flake Mother and Squirrel Nut Zippers (author Tom MAxwell was a member of the latter two acts). This book is a great documentation of a hyper-local music scene, the likes of which we may never see again in the age of digital streaming.

Old Crimes by Jill McCorkle ($27.00, Algonquin Books)

Former North Carolina State University Creative Writing faculty member and North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame author Jill McCorkle is a master of her craft, and Old Crimes is her best collection yet. You will marvel at McCorkle’s tightrope act as she introduces you to her characters, lulling you into impressions of who they are and the lives they are leaving before slapping you in the phase with Joycean revelations and epiphanies. If you haven’t read Jill McCorkle yet, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Oh, Didn’t They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music by David Menconi ($28.00, University of North Carolina Press)

David Menconi is one of the best documentarians of North Carolina musical history, having previously given us Step It Up and Go, the best history of popular North Carolina music to date, and a biography of the dramatic and problematic troubadour Ryan Adams. In Oh, Didn’t They Ramble (which features a foreward by Robert Plant), Menconi gives us a fascinating history of an important record label, and a story of a couple of superfans of folk music who learned the music business and thrived like few can.

Evil Eye by Etaf Rum ($30.00, Harper)

Fresh off the success of her debut novel A Woman Is No Man, New York Times bestselling author Etaf Rum gives us “a moving meditation on motherhood, inter-generational trauma and how surface appearances often obscure a deeper truth” (Tara Conklin).  Evil Eye was named an NPR Best Book of the Year, and it is also a favorite of the staff at Page 158 Books.

This Isn’t Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew by Daniel Wallace ($18.99, Algonquin Books)

UNC professor Daniel Wallace is a fantastic author and an even greater person. This Isn’t Going to End Well is his first memoir, and it is the memoir I didn’t know I wanted, but the exact book that I needed. It is about the oftentimes uncatalogued demons that lie under the skin of those who we think we know best, and ultimately, about how we should not remember our loved ones for the way they died, but for the way they lived. This Isn’t Going to End Well is one of the best memoirs of the 2020s.