Oxford Magazine book picks September/ October 2025
The Most Powerful Word
by Joshua Clark and Judy Clark
Why has Mississippi produced more acclaimed literature than any other region in history? This new volume, featuring original, never-before published interviews with writers including Donna Tartt, Richard Ford, Ellen Gilchrist, Barry Hannah, Larry Brown and many more, illustrates just why that is. Rife with humor, horror, and hope, this symphony of narratives is woven through with supporting excerpts from literature, archives, histories, and statistics.
https://squarebooks.com/book/9781949455595
Dominion
by Addie E. Citchens
The sins of a favorite son rock a small Mississippi town in Dominion, the debut novel by Clarksdale-born author Addie E. Citchens. A brilliantly crafted Black Southern family drama told with captivating force, humor, and tenderness, the novel wrestles with the many brutal, sinister ways in which we are shaped by fear and patriarchy, and studies how we might yet choose to break free.
SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE
https://squarebooks.com/book/9780374609337
EVENT: Thacker Mountain Radio Hour, September 11, 6pm at The Powerhouse
House of Smoke
by John T. Edge
In this unflinching and moving memoir, author, educator, TV host and Oxford resident John T. Edge takes us on a quest for home in a South that has both held him close and pushed him away, as he tries and fails and tries again to rewrite the stories he inherited. Beginning in Georgia and concluding in Mississippi, his search spans the Deep South and charts a very American story of the truth telling and soul searching it takes to love your people and your place.
SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE
https://squarebooks.com/book/9780593241028
EVENT: September 16, 5.30pm at Off Square Books
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
by Kiran Desai
Almost 20 years in the making, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of Loss, is the sweeping tale of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years, and who must navigate the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists – and it has already been longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize.
SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE
https://squarebooks.com/book/9780307700155
EVENT: September 23, 5.30pm at Off Square Books
Stories from Ole Miss Baseball
by Chase Parham and Jeff Roberson, with a foreword by Archie Manning
Relive the many highlights of the Ole Miss baseball team over the years with this new coffee table book, featuring stories of many of the greatest players and coaches. Perfect for any fan of the game – Stories from Ole Miss Baseball hits it out of the park!
SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE
https://squarebooks.com/book/9781949455618
SIGNING: Friday, September 26, noon at Off Square Books
Will There Ever be Another You
by Patricia Lockwood
Amid a global pandemic, one young woman is trying to keep the pieces together – of her family, stunned by a devastating loss, and of her mind, left mangled and misfiring from a mystifying disease. Will There Ever Be Another You is the brain-shredding, phosphorescent story of one woman’s dissolution and her attempt to create a new way of thinking, as well as a profound investigation into what keeps us alive in times of unprecedented disorientation and loss, from one of our most original writers.
SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE
https://squarebooks.com/book/9780593718551
EVENT: Monday, September 29, 5.30pm at Off Square Books
The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush
by Susan Gregg Gilmore
When twelve-year-old Leonard Bush loses his leg in a freak accident, he decides to give his leg a proper burial in the hilltop cemetery of his East Tennessee town. This event somehow sets off a chain of miraculous and catastrophic events–upending the lives of those closest to Leonard. While the local Baptist minister passes judgment on events and promises dire consequences, the people of this small community on the banks of Big Sugar move together toward awakening.
SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE
https://squarebooks.com/book/9781958888551
EVENT: Thacker Mountain Radio Hour, October 2, 6pm at The Powerhouse
The Wayfinder
by Adam Johnson
The Wayfinder is an epic, sweeping novel set in the Polynesian islands of the South Pacific during the height of the Tu’i Tonga Empire, from the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Orphan Master’s Son. At its heart is Kōrero, a young girl chosen to save her people from the brink of starvation. Her quest takes her from her remote island home on a daring seafaring journey across a vast ocean empire built on power, consumption, and bloodshed. With the grandeur of Wolf Hall, Shogun, and War and Peace, The Wayfinder immerses readers in a world untouched by Western influence, evoking the lost art of oral storytelling.
SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE
https://squarebooks.com/book/9780374619572
EVENT: October 29, 5.30pm at Off Square Books
