Robert Gipe presents Weedeater: An Illustrated Novel Weedeater picks up six years after the end of Robert Gipe's first novel, Trampoline, and continues the story of the people of Canard County, Kentucky, living through the last hurrah of the coal industry and battling with opioid abuse.In Weedeater, the reader finds Canard County living through the last hurrah of the coal industry and the most turbulent and deadly phase of the community's battle with opioid abuse. The events it chronicles are frantic, but its voice is by turns taciturn and angry, filled with humor and stoic grace. Weedeater is a contemporary story of love and loss told by a pair of eastern Kentucky mountaineers. Gene is a lovelorn lawnman who bears witness to the misadventures of a family entangled in drugs, artmaking, and politics, a family beset by environmental and self-destruction. And a young mother, Dawn Jewell, is at the center of the family. She spends the pages of Weedeater searching--for lost family members, lost youth, lost community, and lost heart. Weedeater is a story about how we put our lives back together when we lose the things we thought we couldn't bear losing, how we find new purpose in what we thought were scraps and trash caught in the weeds. We ask that you purchase the books you want to be signed at our events from Malaprop’s. When you do this you are not only supporting the work it takes to run an events program, you are also telling the publishers that they should keep sending authors here. Can’t make it to the store for the event? Call us or order the book on our website in advance, and we’ll get it signed for you. Make sure you write your preferences in the comments if you purchase online. Event date: Wednesday, July 18, 2018 - 6:00pm Event address: 55 Haywood St Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe Asheville, NC 28801

Author Event: Gerard Graham - Checking Out of the Hotel Euthanasia MORE INFORMATION TO FOLLOW Can’t make the event? Want your own personalized copy? Contact the store 48 hours before the event to request one. 704-525-9239 or orders@parkroadbooks.com

Nora Gaskin is the author of two previous books Time of Death: The True Tale of a Quest for Justice in 1960s Chapel Hill, and a mystery, based on a true crime, Until Proven: A Mystery in 2 Parts. As the founder, editor, and publisher of Lystra Books (an eclectic and growing publisher, based in Chapel Hill, NC), Gaskin has stewarded 23 books into publication. Add to that resume her editing byline for Carolina Crimes: 21 Tales of Need, Greed,and Dirty Deeds, a terrific collection of stories set in North Carolina and South Carolina, with an introduction by Jeffery Deaver, published in 2017 by Down & Out Books. On the heels of Carolina Crimes, Gaskin brings her most creative endeavor to date: the captivating, realistic, and brilliantly provocative novel The Worst Thing.

Avid Bookshop presents author Jonathan Putnam, for his book FINAL RESTING PLACE: A LINCOLN AND SPEED MYSTERY. This event will take place at the Athens Community Council on Aging (ACCA) on Wednesday, July 18, and will run from 12pm to 1pm. This event is free and open to the public. Avid will be onsite selling books, and we encourage you to purchase a copy and get it signed by the author! You can buy a copy of the book online here: https://www.avidbookshop.com/book/9781683315988

Parnassus Book Club discusses Sing, Unburied, Sing Join moderator Kathy Schultenover for a discussion of Jesmyn Ward’s book Sing, Unburied, Sing. Parnassus Book Club meetings are free and open to anyone. Buy the book, read the book and join the discussion. Part ghost story, part road novel, this historic National Book Award winner is a dazzling journey through Mississippi’s past and present and an epic tale of hope and survival. Following a family making the trip from their Gulf Coast town to the Mississippi State Penitentiary, Sing, Unburied, Sing tests the strength of emotional bonds and the pull of our collective history. In a haunted landscape, for a family reeling from loss, the trip is fraught with danger. This gorgeous novel, animated by Ward’s lush and vibrant language, is rich with connection, meaning, and healing. Event date: Wednesday, July 18, 2018 - 6:30pm Event address: Parnassus Books 3900 Hillsboro Pike Suite 14 Nashville, TN 37215

Wednesday, July 18, noon: The Bookaholics Reading Group will discuss Less by Andrew Sean Greer. Who says you can’t run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn 50. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past 9 years is engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes — it would be too awkward — and you can’t say no — it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. Question: How do you arrange to skip town? Answer: You accept them all. What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn 50. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.

Wednesday, July 18, 6 p.m.: The Southern Writers Reading Group will discuss Trampoline by Robert Gipe. When Dawn Jewell — 15, restless, curious, and wry — joins her grandmother’s fight against mountaintop removal mining in spite of herself, she has to decide whether to save a mountain or save herself; be ruled by love or by anger; remain in the land of her birth or run for her life.

The readings are open to the both novice and experienced writers. Sign up by contacting emrys.info@gmail.com, or take your chances that night. Each reader has five minutes at the microphone. Please remember to keep your material respectful to all audience members. The event is free and open to the public. You do not have to read to attend – come to listen and enjoy!

Story Time with Leslie Join us! Wednesday, July 18, 2018 10:00 AM 10:30 AM

Ages 0-7

Let us entertain the kiddos with a story (or two) while you browse the books or enjoy a cup of coffee. Our story times are geared toward ages infant to six, but all are welcome.

Story Time Event date: Wednesday, July 18, 2018 - 10:00am to 10:30am Event address: 13 Keys Ferry Street McDonough, GA 30253 18

Join us as author Kim Beall discusses her new book "Seven Turns -- A Ghost Story". Callaghan McCarthy has 99 problems, and believing in ghosts isn't one of them. The ghosts around her beg to differ, and they need her help with a problem of their own. Years ago, she wrote a bestselling ghost story which allowed her to escape her train-wreck of a marriage. Now her inspiration has run dry, and her bank-account is fast following in its wake. In a desperate last-ditch effort to come up with a sequel, she has loaded everything she owns into her car and set off across the country to seek inspiration at a bed and breakfast she's been told is haunted. As Cally comes to know and love the eccentric denizens of the run-down southern town the locals call Woodley USA, she realizes she has wandered into the middle of a host of secrets nobody will talk about in front of people who are Not From Around Here. Soon, she begins to understand that saving Woodley and saving herself are one and the same. Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83ezAQkTNXs

“The Summer Wives is an exquisitely rendered novel that tackles two of my favorite topics: love and money. The glorious setting and drama are enriched by Williams’s signature vintage touch. It’s at the top of my picks for the beach this summer.”—Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Perfect Couple New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams brings us the blockbuster novel of the season—an electrifying postwar fable of love, class, power, and redemption set among the inhabitants of an island off the New England coast . . . In the summer of 1951, Miranda Schuyler arrives on elite, secretive Winthrop Island as a schoolgirl from the margins of high society, still reeling from the loss of her father in the Second World War. When her beautiful mother marries Hugh Fisher, whose summer house on Winthrop overlooks the famous lighthouse, Miranda’s catapulted into a heady new world of pedigrees and cocktails, status and swimming pools. Isobel Fisher, Miranda’s new stepsister—all long legs and world-weary bravado, engaged to a wealthy Island scion—is eager to draw Miranda into the arcane customs of Winthrop society. But beneath the island’s patrician surface, there are really two clans: the summer families with their steadfast ways and quiet obsessions, and the working class of Portuguese fishermen and domestic workers who earn their living on the water and in the laundries of the summer houses. Uneasy among Isobel’s privileged friends, Miranda finds herself drawn to Joseph Vargas, whose father keeps the lighthouse with his mysterious wife. In summer, Joseph helps his father in the lobster boats, but in the autumn he returns to Brown University, where he’s determined to make something of himself. Since childhood, Joseph’s enjoyed an intense, complex friendship with Isobel Fisher, and as the summer winds to its end, Miranda’s caught in a catastrophe that will shatter Winthrop’s hard-won tranquility and banish Miranda from the island for nearly two decades. Now, in the landmark summer of 1969, Miranda returns at last, as a renowned Shakespearean actress hiding a terrible heartbreak. On its surface, the Island remains the same—determined to keep the outside world from its shores, fiercely loyal to those who belong. But the formerly powerful Fisher family is a shadow of itself, and Joseph Vargas has recently escaped the prison where he was incarcerated for the murder of Miranda’s stepfather eighteen years earlier. What’s more, Miranda herself is no longer a naïve teenager, and she begins a fierce, inexorable quest for justice for the man she once loved . . . even if it means uncovering every last one of the secrets that bind together the families of Winthrop Island.

Kristen Hadeed July 19 @ 6:30 pm Books & Books in Coral Gables, 265 Aragon Ave Coral Gables, FL 33134 United States The inspiring, unlikely, laugh-out-loud story of how one woman learned to lead–and how she ultimately succeeded, not despite her many mistakes, but because of them. This is the story of how Kristen Hadeed built Student Maid, a cleaning company where people are happy, loyal, productive, and empowered, even while they’re mopping floors and scrubbing toilets. It’s the story of how she went from being an almost comically inept leader to a sought-after CEO who teaches others how to lead

Billie Bivins July 19 @ 8:00 pm Books & Books in Coral Gables, 265 Aragon Ave Coral Gables, FL 33134 United States If you're a smart and outspoken female, it’s tough to discover yourself in the South - or so thinks Morrie Bullen, the heroine of True South. So trusting her inner compass to guide her, the 44-year-old mother of three packs up her old red truck, with a dying clutch, and sets off from Atlanta, alone, toward the land of Yankees - with no job, little money, and absolutely no idea what awaits her there.

Austin Channing Brown & LeCrae - I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness Thursday July 19, 2018 7:00 PM Austin Channing Brown will be in conversation with LeCrae at The Carter Presidential Library & Museum on July 19th

Author event with Lily C. Hansen, author of Word of Mouth: More Conversations Parnassus Books is delighted to present Lily Clayton Hansen for a celebration of her latest book, Word of Mouth: More Conversations. Event date: Thursday, July 19, 2018 - 6:30pm Event address: Parnassus Books 3900 Hillsboro Pike Suite 14 Nashville, TN 37215

Body Image panel and Landwhale by Jes Baker Body Image panel/"Landwhale" by Jes Baker Thursday, July 19, 7pm Jes Baker burst onto the body positivity scene when she created her own ads mocking Abercrombie & Fitch for discriminating against all body types -- a move that landed her on the Today Show and garnered a loyal following for her raw, honest, and attitude-filled blog missives. Building on the manifesta power of Things, this memoir goes deeply into Jes's inner life, from growing up a fat girl to dating while fat. With material that will have readers laughing and crying along with Jes's experience, this new book is a natural fit with her irreverent, open-book style. A deeply personal take, Landwhale is a glimpse at life as a fat woman today, but it's also a reflection of the unforgiving ways our culture still treats fatness, all with Jes's biting voice as the guide. Jes Baker is a positive, progressive, and magnificently irreverent force to be reckoned with in the realm of self-love advocacy and mental health. Baker is internationally recognized for her writing on her blog, The Militant Baker, and for the ''Attractive and Fat'' campaign, a response to Abercrombie and Fitch's controversial branding efforts. Her extensive body advocacy work has continued to garner attention from hundreds of national and international media networks.

Louis Maistros - THE SOUND OF BUILDING COFFINS Louis Maistros has written a lyrical, complex, and brave novel that takes enormous risks and pulls them all off. He is a writer to watch and keep reading, a writer to cherish.” —Peter Straub Join us for a special evening with New Orleans author Louis Maistros featuring the newly restored edition of THE SOUND OF BUILDING COFFINS. The author will conduct a live interview with jazz legend Buddy Bolden (played by New Orleans actor Donald Lewis), will perform songs from his new stage musical in progress "August Valentine," and will read previously unpublished selections from the new edition of THE SOUND OF BUILDING COFFINS, followed by a Q&A and a book signing. It is 1891 in New Orleans, and young Typhus Morningstar cycles under the light of the half-moon to fulfill his calling, re-birthing aborted foetuses in the fecund waters of the Mississippi River. He cannot know that nearby, events are unfolding that will change his life forever - events that were set in motion by a Vodou curse gone wrong, forty years before he was born. In the humble home of Sicilian immigrants, a one-year-old boy has been possessed by a demon. His father dead, lynched by a mob, his distraught mother at her wits' end, this baby who yesterday could only crawl and gurgle is now walking, dancing, and talking - in a voice impossibly deep. The doctor has fled, and several men of the cloth have come and gone, including Typhus' father, warned off directly by the clear voice of his Savoir. A newspaper man, shamed by the part he played in inciting the lynch mob that cost this boy his father, appalled by what he sees, goes in search of help. Seven will be persuaded, will try to help...and all seven will be profoundly affected by what takes place in that one-room house that dark night. Not all will leave alive, and all will be irrevocably changed by this demonic struggle, and by the sound of the first notes blown of a new musical form: jazz. This New Orleans cult classic of magic realism has been out of print for years, but as its following continued to grow while Octavia Books maintained a stock of the original hardcover edition, THE SOUND OF BUILDING COFFINS sees print once again in this first-ever paperback edition—expanded with over a hundred pages of previously unpublished material from the original manuscript. Originally published in 2009 by a small press, and launched at Octavia Books, the novel sold over 4500 copies in hardback, before the publisher sold and changed focus and printed no more copies. The book has been enlarged in this new edition to encompass the author's original vision. Louis Maistros is a longtime resident of the New Orleans 8th Ward neighborhood. His work has appeared in publications such as The New Orleans Times-Picayune, Relix Magazine, The Baltimore City Paper, Entrepot, and many others. He is also an accomplished art photographer, and has been called "a wizard with light, shadows, and colors" by Louisiana Poet Laureate Julie Kane. He is mildly self-conscious about the fact that he shares a birthday with Lee Harvey Oswald, and is currently working out a conspiracy theory about that -- in the form of a novel-in-progress tentatively entitled "Holy Meaux." Event date: Thursday, July 19, 2018 - 6:00pm Event address: Octavia Books - 513 Octavia Street - New Orleans, LA 70115