Southern Review of Books

28/10/2025

SRB Editor Victoria Ward talks about her favorite spooky (yet nightmare-free) shows to watch this Halloween.

SRB Editor Victoria Ward talks about her favorite spooky yet nightmare-free shows for Halloween.

25/10/2025

Looking for something new this month? Check out this list of fantastic October releases!

https://southernreviewofbooks.com/2025/10/24/best-southern-books-of-october-2025/

22/10/2025

"The novel’s 'soft apocalypse,' as the narrator might call it, is set in the near future and bears many of the markers of dystopian science fiction. ... the planet provides no stability or safety; neither do institutions or governments."

New review of HAPPY BAD by Delaney Nolan. Astra House Books

What would have felt, twenty years ago, like a fairly extreme climate apocalypse novel reads like tomorrow’s news, or even yesterday’s.

21/10/2025

"More than most books, an essay collection reveals the author’s character: we read him in different circumstances, confronted by new conflicts, and through this continual shift of setting and time we witness his true self which, in Harrigan’s case, is a self defined by humility and heart."

New review of AN ANCHOR IN THE SEA OF TIME by Stephen Harrigan. University of Texas Press

A review of author Stephen Harrigan’s first essay collection since 2013.

20/10/2025

"Despite the heat of grief, the stories offer vignettes of respite in the catharsis that comes after loss, reminiscent of embers glittering like stars in ashen remains."

New review of WHAT REMAINS AFER A FIRE by Kanza Javed. W. W. Norton & Company

Kanza Javed’s debut burns bright with grief, memory, and unflinching beauty.

14/10/2025

“I wrote poems as if they were teenage bedrooms, full of music posters and tchotchkes, especially because most poems in this collection explore adolescence, family, nostalgia, and Mexican-American culture…. So much of my adolescent depression was due to feeling like an outsider, and my method of escape was through movies and music. How could I not go into the particular references?”

Happy pub day to THE PAST IS A JEAN JACKET! Check out Cloud Delfina Cardona’s movie reference guide and read more about pop culture references in her essay on the SRB. Hub City Bookshop

https://southernreviewofbooks.com/2025/10/14/the-past-is-a-jean-jacket-cloud-delfina-cardona-feature/

10/10/2025

"I’ve listened obsessively to the way people in Kentucky speak, especially in rural areas. It’s glorious. There’s a music to it. I get in my car and carry on conversations with myself from the mouths of people I’ve heard speak just as a means of entertainment. I take that same energy to the page."

New interview with Chris McGinley and Wes Brown on THEY ALL FALL THE SAME. Crooked Lane Books

If you wanna take a hell-ride into central Kentucky, read Wes Browne’s newest novel, “They All Fall the Same.”

08/10/2025

"Marce Catlett is not interested in individual responses to how rural life and agriculture have changed during the last century but in the importance of communally remembering a history on the verge of being wiped out."

New review of Wendell Berry's latest, MARCE CATLETT: THE FORCE OF A STORY. Counterpoint Press

A review of Wendell Berry’s newest novel, “Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story.”

07/10/2025

"Girl Warrior dives into the inspiration and intentions that inspired Harjo’s career, including community activism, creative writing and music. Harjo does all this while oscillating between talking to the reader and to her younger self. 'You are my niece, grandchild, aunt, or friend, a young woman I have met along the way during my travels,' she writes."

New review of GIRL WARRIOR by Joy Harjo, out today! W. W. Norton & Company

Advice for living abounds in the latest essay collection from poet and jazz musician Joy Harjo.

03/10/2025

"There’s a beautiful coupling of the natural world, which gives life and nurtures but is also fierce and unpredictable. Nature demands one’s full attention in order to survive, and this potential peril is often present in the poems. Yet, Ardery appreciates the beauty it provides as well. This striking tension in the natural world often mirrors or conflicts with the internal world of the women in recovery."

New review of LEVEL WATCH by Mary Ardery. June Road Press

Mary Ardery’s debut poetry collection draws from her experience as a wilderness guide for women recovering from addiction.

30/09/2025

"These short stories and poems commune with the contradictions, violence, and unfulfilled promises found specifically in the hollers and creeks of North Carolina. From these writings, ghosts don’t seem to bother with the dealings of the living world until they interfere with the stories, the values, and the nature that created them."

New review of THE DEVIL'S DONE COME BACK, edited by Ed Southern. Blair

Ghosts seem to know better about who we are and what is right in “The Devil’s Done Come Back”

29/09/2025

"The crime story itself is compelling for sure, but it’s the backdrop that I found riveting. That backdrop is a peek into the hallowed halls of elite American fraternity life in the U.S. South, and, let me tell you, it’s not pretty."

New review of AMONG THE BROS by Max Marshall. Harper Perennial

A Review of Max Marshall’s “Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story.”