With the Decatur Book Festival coming up Labor Day weekend, we rounded up a trove of new fiction, poetry and nonfiction by local authors for you to sample.
House Proud: A Social History of Atlanta’s Interiors, 1880-1919 by Lori Eriksen Rush (Mercer University Press) Filled with photographs and illustrations, Eriksen explores Atlanta’s past through its rich collection of homes – from middle-class cottages to Gilded Age mansions.
The Chattahoochee River User’s Guide by Joe Cook (University of Georgia Press) With more than 200 photos, 32 maps and a fishing primer, this guide brings the Chattahoochee to life in an immersive and engaging manner that will inspire users to help protect their local waterways.
Wicked Atlanta: The Sordid Side of Peach City History by Laurel-Ann Dooley (The History Press) Dooley navigates the underworld of Atlanta’s colorful past with kidnappings, bribery, hit men and all sorts of criminal debauchery in this collection of historical snapshots you probably won’t find on the tourist brochures.
Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs by Pearl Cleage (Atria Books) The bestselling Atlanta author mines her diaries from the 1970s and 80s to find a writer and woman discovering her talents as the world changes around her.
The Red Chameleon by Erica Wright (Pegasus Books) Kathleen Stone’s ability to blend in makes her an ace private investigator, but when a cheating spouse she is tailing ends up dead she fears that someone from her past has seen through her disguises.
The Meaning of Maggie by Megan Jean Sovern (Chronicle Books) After a young girl’s father is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she vows to find a cure with her science fair project in this funny and poignant tale of growing up.
A Bird on Water Street by Elizabeth O. Dulemba (Little Pickle Press) A coming of age story about Jack, a boy growing up in a Southern Appalachian town environmentally devastated by a century of poor copper-mining practices and pollution.
Woodhall Stories by R. Cary Bynum (Saint Johann Press) These stories are based on life in an Atlanta neighborhood in the 1940s and ‘50s. Strange and unusual events happen to some not-so-ordinary neighbors!
Legendary Locals of Intown Atlanta by Janice McDonald (Arcadia Publishing) Profiles of some of the city’s most well-known citizens and unsung heroes including Gladys Knight, Asa Candler, Pat Conroy, Carrie Steele Logan, Billy Payne, Samuel Inman, Hardy Ivy and many more.
Man Done Gone: Poems by Lynn Alexander (Finishing Line Press) Atlanta Review editor Dan Veach describe’s Alexander’s debut like this: “Here the everyday objects of our lives are invested with the power to say what is ‘left unsaid.’ There is such a gentle kindness in the way these poems touch the world that we long to be touched ourselves – and find our wish is granted.”
A Pathway to Profit: Culture Impacts Performance by Anita Pugh, Caroline Hipple, Chris Matthies and Dixon Bartlett (Friesen Press) The authors’ step-by-step pathway provides a strategic overview, describes a recommended architecture on which to build an organization’s culture, and presents a plan for developing leaders to ensure associate participation in achieving results.
No Longer Confined: One Man’s Triumphant Pursuit of Truth, Wholeness and Freedom by Christopher D. Coleman (iUniverse) Diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth and confined to a wheelchair, Coleman chronicles his struggles and triumphs to become a life coach and motivational speaker.
What a great list! Readers may also enjoy “Shorter’s Way” a political love story about Georgia politics in the 1920’s by Grace Hawthorne.