Let's Have a Book Party

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Books

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TRANSCRIPT:

CHUCK REECE: Autumn is huge in the world of book publishing. The National Book Awards are presented in November. If you’re an American author who writes fiction or nonfiction, poetry or young people’s literature, it’s about the biggest award you can win.

These days, the NBAs are my favorite awards show to watch, even though you can only watch it on the web — and specifically on the website of the National Book Foundation, which created the awards back in nineteen-fifty.

The only problem is they lack a catchy nickname, like Oscars or Emmys or Grammys.

How about the Enbys? Let’s see if that sticks, how 'bout it?

The reason I love the National Book Awards is that there is almost always a great Southern author, whose work I’m already a fan of, among the finalists. And Southerners win. A lot.

William Faulkner won the fiction Enby in 1955, Walker Percy in '62, and Flannery O’Connor in '72. Over the past decade, Southern writers have been raking them in. The late Congressman John Lewis won the young people’s literature Enby in '16 for his graphic novel, March. Jesmyn Ward won for fiction in '17, and Jason Mott in '21. Imani Perry got the nonfiction Enby in '22. And the list of winning Southerners just goes on.

The National Book Foundation also created National Book Month, which is celebrated in the month leading up to the awards. A great way to celebrate Book Month is to read more books. But I already read about as many as a man of my age and habits can handle. So what can I do to celebrate? I do it by practicing a particular value — forgiveness.

Let me explain.

When I fall in love with a book, a compulsion grows inside me. I believe my friends and fellow writers should also fall in love with that book. "You absolutely have to read this," I say, and too frequently, I add, "Here. Take my copy. Just give it back to me when you’re finished with it."

And almost invariably, I never get that copy back. So, when I think of the person to whom I handed my copy of that Jesmyn Ward book, I do not call them to ask for the book back. I do not call them asking if they liked the book, with the underlying implication that they should give the book back. Instead, I think of them, take a deep breath or two, and forgive them.

And I hope they will forgive me, too, because I have a pretty hefty stack of books that others thrust into my hands and told me I absolutely had to read.

Speaking of which, there is a certain novelist right here in Atlanta whose work I greatly admire. She might actually be listening to this. If she is, have you been missing your copy of Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan? I’ve got it. I’ll be happy to give it back. Or, you can just forgive me.

Come read Southern stories at SalvationSouth.com

 

Salvation South editor Chuck Reece comments on Southern culture and values in a weekly segment that airs Fridays at 7:45 a.m. during Morning Edition and 4:44 p.m. during All Things Considered on GPB Radio. You can also find them here at GPB.org/Salvation-South.