Erin and Ben's Book Club: Top 10 Must-Reads for the Summer
Erin and Ben want to share their list of favorite books with you this summer! Much like their personal over perfection approach to everything they design on Home Town, their most cherished books share imperfect stories— perfectly. We're pretty sure that you'll find your next all-time favorite book here. Let's get to reading!
A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman
A curmudgeon hides a terrible personal loss beneath a cranky and short-tempered exterior while clashing with new neighbors, a boisterous family whose chattiness and habits lead to unexpected friendship.
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University.
Factory Man by Beth Macy
The instant New York Times bestseller about one man's battle to save hundreds of jobs by demonstrating the greatness of American business.
Dispatches From Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta by Richard Grant
Winner of the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize
Mississippi's #1 Bestseller of 2015 and 2016 (The Clarion-Ledger)
A New York Times Bestseller
In Dispatches from Pluto, adventure writer Richard Grant takes on “the most American place on Earth”—the enigmatic, beautiful, often derided Mississippi Delta.
Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last by Wright Thompson
The story of how Julian Van Winkle III, the caretaker of the most coveted cult Kentucky Bourbon whiskey in the world, fought to protect his family's heritage and preserve the taste of his forebears, in a world where authenticity, like his product, is in very short supply.
All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg
This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times.
But at the center of this soaring memoir is Bragg’s mother, who went eighteen years without a new dress so that her sons could have school clothes and picked other people’s cotton so that her children wouldn’t have to live on welfare alone.
My Southern Journey: True Stories from the Heart of the South by Rick Bragg
Everything is explored, from regional obsessions with college football and fishing to mayonnaise and spoonbread to the simple beauty of a fish on the hook. Collected from over a decade of his writing, with many never-before-published essays written specifically for this edition, My Southern Journey is an entertaining and engaging listen, especially for Southerners (or Southerners at heart) and anyone who appreciates great writing.
Make Something Good Today by Erin and Ben Napier
Make Something Good Today offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the struggles and triumphs of a couple that America has come to know and love for their easy humor, adoring relationship, and ability to utterly transform a place into something beautiful and personal. This is the poignant story of how Erin and Ben took a small, tight-knit town into their own hands (literally) and used ingenuity, community, and authenticity to rebuild a once-thriving American Main Street. And how, by combining Ben’s carpentry skills with Erin’s design eye, Home Town is making it clear that small-town living can feel as big as you make it.
Travelers in Search of Vacancy by Karen Rasberry
Travelers in Search of Vacancy is a nostalgic, often hilarious, picnic table set with life experiences and discovery while family, home and friends serve as the centerpiece. The book gains its title from the author’s account of vacationing with her extended family in 1960s Florida and is one of 50 favorite short stories from the local newspaper based in the quaintly sophisticated city of Laurel, Mississippi.
A Southernmost Journey by Karen Rasberry
A Southernmost Journey is a new treasury of columns featured in Jones County’s former award-winning newspaper, The ReView. Each column chronicles travels to places near and not so far, and invites kindred spirits to ride along on her journey from a barefoot country girl to a Southern woman with big shoes to fill.
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Passionately in love, Clare and Henry vow to hold onto each other and their marriage as they struggle with the effects of Chrono-Displacement Disorder, a condition that casts Henry involuntarily into the world of time travel.
