Your best bets for summer reading

We pick 9 Southernspun books — a mix of nonfiction and fiction.

We’ve combed through the new harvest of Southern-spun books. These titles are standouts for summer 2018.

NONFICTION ‘The Best Cook in the World: Tales From My Momma’s Table’ by Rick Bragg

Buttermilk and cornbread patties. Squareribs stewed in butter beans. Wild plum pie. In his ninth book, Bragg celebrates his mother Margaret’s cooking, dishing out countless related stories that are as juicy as her chicken roasted in cider with carrots, turnips and onion.

With Bragg, who won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing when reporting for The New York Times, one story flows into another, so you’ll get the skinny on other relatives and their connections to food. More than 70 recipes are laced throughout this nostalgic treasury. (Knopf, $28.95)

‘Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”’ by Zora Neale Hurston

He was Kossula in Africa, where in 1859 he was captured and illegally shipped to Alabama with more than 100 others to be forced into slavery. He became Cudjo Lewis on American soil. In 1927 and 1928, when Lewis was about 86, Hurston conducted a series of in-person interviews with him. He proved to have an astonishing memory. Hurston, a trained

ethnographer, captured the rhythm and idioms of his dialect.

“We cry for home. We took away from our people. We seventy days cross de water from de Affica soil, and now dey part us from one ‘nother. Derefore we cry.”

Hurston refused to clean up that dialect (a publisher’s request), so “Barracoon” never saw publication until now. It’s a monumental achievement, mindblowing and heartbreaking. A wise and beautiful foreword by Alice Walker makes the case for this book’s historical and anthropological importance. “This is, make no mistake, a harrowing read,” Walker writes. (Amistad, $24.99)

‘Take You Wherever You Go’ by Kenny Leon

Leon, former artistic director of the Alliance Theatre and a Tony Award-winning Broadway director, is among Atlanta’s favorite sons. You’ll admire him even more after reading his memoir, which gets its title from advice his Grandma Mamie gave him. She had 13 children and pulled the plow herself on the family farm in Tallahassee.

Mamie and daughter, Annie Ruth, Leon’s mother, “showed me the way to live,” Leon writes. His father figures were only disappointments.

Leon hits the highlights of his journey so far, from trying Los Angeles but realizing he belonged to the South, to forging an important relationship with playwright August Wilson and moving into the ranks of top theater talents. His story is bursting with love, wisdom and first-rate advice for those in the performing arts arena. (Grand Central, $26, June)

‘Don’t You Ever: My Mother and Her Secret Son’ by Mary Carter Bishop

When applying for a passport in her 30s, Bishop stumbled across the fact that she had a half brother. She tracked down Ronnie, a bitter, small-town barber, who had an illness that made him feel like a freak. He died a few years after she found him.

Bishop is a seasoned award-winning newspaper reporter who reveals a fascinating segment of her life in clear, unflinching style.

How could one rural Virginia mother dote on her daughter, but throw away her son (born out of wedlock in the 1930s) like an old shoe? Ronnie’s life in orphanages and foster care was full of distress, neglect and abuse. Brave and terrific. (Harper, $27.99, July)

FICTION ‘Tomb of the Unknown Racist’ by Blanche McCrary Boyd

News that two young children have been kidnapped propels Ellen to leave home in Charleston, S.C., and dash to New Mexico and her longlost niece, Ruby, mother of the kidnapped kids. Ruby is the daughter of Ellen’s brother, Royce, who years ago embraced white supremacy and cut off his family.

Set in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, this is a fast-paced and gutsy novel that examines tough issues and dares readers to know more about underground terrorism. (Counterpoint, $26)

‘Southernmost’ by Silas House

After a brutal Tennessee flood, Asher Sharp, a 35-year-old Pentecostal preacher, finds himself embracing tolerance and acceptance, but neither his congregation nor wife can take it. Also, 10 years prior, Asher became estranged from his brother Luke by shunning him when Luke came out. Now Asher has lost everything and is sure to lose custody of his 8-yearold son.

Desperate but mostly determined, he steals the boy away one night and drives to Key West, where Luke could be. In sly and subtle ways, House skillfully beckons readers to dig deep into their own hearts and minds. (Algonquin, $26.95, June)

‘Florida’ by Lauren Groff

The author of the powerful “Fates and Furies,” one of the most acclaimed novels of 2015, delivers 11 stories that bring the Sunshine State to scorching life — from the steam and swamps to the snakes and sinkholes. Mostly, these are stories of people struggling to cope.

Groff lives in Gainesville, Fla., and has two boys; several stories center on a mother of two sons. In “Flower Hunters,” the boys are out trick-or-treating and the mom, “suffocating with sadness,” stays behind. The writing is something to swoon over in this sterling collection that’s both unsettling and mesmerizing. (Riverhead, $27, June)

‘Visible Empire’ by Hannah Pittard

June 3, 1962: a devastating day for Atlanta. Air France Flight 007 crashed during takeoff in Paris, killing 106 members of this community, chiefly prominent civic and arts leaders and wealthy arts patrons. This was during the heat of civil rights anxiety — and there were some who announced that justice had finally come to rich, prejudiced white people.

As a child in Atlanta, Pittard, a writing professor at the University of Kentucky, often heard stories linked to the impact the crash had on so many lives. She has composed a gripping, thought-provoking novel rooted in truth and impressive research. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $25, June)

‘Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine’ by Kevin Wilson

Consider this the sparkling gem of late summer. The vivid writing and storytelling zing in this 10-story collection.

In the title story, a penniless 36-year-old indie rocker, once rolling in dough, comes back home to live with Mom. In “Housewarming,” a father struggles to get a floating dead deer out of his adult son’s pond and recounts a number of other episodes he’s endured in an effort to stop the angry and abusive son from hurting others and wrecking his life further.

“The stabbing pain” of being unable to fix or control the life of an adult child is among well-examined themes. Wilson creates characters and situations so real, you’ll cringe — and clutch at your heart. (Ecco, $25.99, August)