Southern Memoirs

A lyrical and evocative memoir from Frances Mayes, the Bard of Tuscany, about coming of age in the Deep South and the region’s powerful influence on her life. The author of three beloved books about her life in Italy, including Under the Tuscan Sun and Every Day in Tuscany, Frances Mayes...

Boy, Interrupted: A Southern Memoir of Faith, Identity, and Becoming is a powerful true story of a Black, queer boy growing up in rural Georgiasurviving poverty, shame, trauma, and heartbreak, and rising into the man he was always meant to be. Part coming-of-age narrative, part spiritual...

Years ago, when O. Henry Prize-winning writer Crystal Wilkinson was baking a jam cake, she felt her late grandmother's presence. She soon realized that she was not the only cook in her kitchen; there were her ancestors, too, stirring, measuring, and braising alongside her. These are her kitchen...

*****Audiobook format of All My Knotted-Up Life - ECPA's 2024 Christian Book of the Year Award WINNER***** An incredibly thoughtful, disarmingly funny, and intensely vulnerable glimpse into the life and ministry of a woman familiar to many but known by few. “It’s a peculiar thing, this...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A fast-paced, tender-hearted rock 'n' roll memoir for the ages, Mike Campbell's Heartbreaker is part rags-to-riches story and part raucous, seat-of-the-pants adventure, recounting Campbell's life and times as lead guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Mike...

When a squad of federal agents burst through her parents' front door, Victoria Fedden felt ill-prepared to meet them: She was weeks away from her due date, and her T-shirt wasn't long enough to hide her maternity undies. As for the question of how to raise a child when you've just discovered that your mother and stepfather have allegedly masterminded a pump-and-dump scheme? She was pretty sure that wasn't covered in What to Expect When You're Expecting.

From the award-winning biographer of Elvis Presley, a groundbreaking dual portrait of the relationship between the iconic artist and his legendary manager—drawing on a wealth of the Colonel's never-before-seen correspondence to reveal that this oft-reviled figure was in fact a confidant...

Tom Petty reflects on the making of his landmark solo album Southern Accents, discussing his recovery from a serious hand injury, his collaboration with Dave Stewart, and the creative process behind songs including "Don't Come Around Here No More" and "Rebels." He also shares insights into working with producer Jimmy Iovine, balancing his solo work with The Heartbreakers, experimenting with new sounds, and why he considers the album one of the most innovative and personal records of his career.

When Peter Mayle and his wife traded England's long, gray winters and damp summers for life in southern France, they entered an enchanting, wonderful, sometimes bewildering world. Now, share their adventures, pleasures, and frustrations: the joys and occasional hazards of wining and dining in...

"A sheriff-elect was murdered. I was next on the hit list." —J.Tom Morgan In December 2000, Derwin Brown, the newly elected sheriff of DeKalb County, Georgia, was ambushed and murdered in his own driveway just days before taking office. He had run on reform—promising to clean up corruption...

Experience spiritual encouragement from the Queen of Country Music with this collection of devotionals and uplifting lyrics. It’s been over sixty years since the late Loretta Lynn first rose to stardom, transforming from a coal miner’s daughter to the Queen of Country Music. Loretta knew she...

Brought to you by Penguin. Many of us think we know the American South. We can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more...

A Southern Woman's Story (1879) is a chronicle of Phoebe Pember's experiences as matron of the Confederate Chimborazo Hospital from November 1862 until the fall of Richmond in April 1865. It is considered an important source on Confederate history, and is also a valuable work for scholars of women's history and the medical and social history of the Civil War.

ECPA Christian Book Award Finalist, Christy Award Finalist, Christianity Today Book Award Finalist! When Iola Anne Poole, an old-timer on Hatteras Island, passes away in her bed at ninety-one, the struggling young mother in her rental cottage, Tandi Jo Reese, finds herself charged with the task...

The inspiring memoir of a brilliant young man who, sentenced to life in prison, refused to surrender his future—a story so powerful that it transformed even the judge who handed down the sentence. If our world were more just, Chris Young would have been crossing a stage at college graduation...

One of the most studied and written about episodes in US history, the American Civil War remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. The conflict was one of the earliest industrial wars in which mass-produced weapons were employed. The mobilization of civilian factories, shipyards, transportation, and food supplies all foreshadowed the impact of industrialization in World War I, World War II, and subsequent conflicts.

The first biography of the thriving and influential rock scene in Chapel Hill, which gave the world artists like Ben Folds Five, Superchunk, and Squirrel Nut Zippers North Carolina has always produced extraordinary music of every description. But the indie-rock boom of the late 1980s and early...

As a young, ambitious soldier, Winston Churchill managed to get himself posted to the 21st Lancers in 1899 as a war correspondent for the Morning Post - and joined them in fighting the rebel Boer settlers in South Africa. In this conflict, rebel forces in the Transvaal and Orange Free State had proclaimed their own statehood, calling it the Boer Republic.

Biloxi, Mississippi: After the fatal shooting of one of the city’s most prominent couples - Vincent Sherry was a circuit court judge; his wife, Margaret, was running for mayor - their grief-stricken daughter came home to uncover the truth behind the crime that shocked a community and to follow leads that police seemed unable or unwilling to pursue. What Lynne Sposito soon discovered were bizarre connections to the Dixie Mafia, a predatory band of criminals who ran The Strip, Biloxi’s beachfront hub of sex, drugs, and sleaze.

More than 40,000 listeners have enjoyed this story on cassette. Now anyone who's ever dreamed of getting away from it all can enjoy the charms and challenges of A Year in Provence on CD! Peter Mayle and his wife had been to Provence as tourists. They had dreamed of one day trading the long, gray...