The NewSouth Bookstore actively hosts bookstore and off-site literary programs — book talks and readings — along with a variety of other programs both entertaining and educational. These include presentations by historians, readings of plays, music events, and community service programs. We enjoy such gatherings quite a lot. Our bookstore events calendar is always evolving, so please regularly check back here for updates to our calendar (and/or follow us on social media, where all such activities are also posted). We welcome your event suggestions and thank you for your support.
A new book by Lesa Carnes Shaul is a historical page-turner and terrifying work of true crime that gives insight into the lives of rural Alabamians in a rapidly modernizing world. The work is titled Midnight Cry. Shaul joins us at The NewSouth Bookstore on Thursday, November 21 at 5:30pm for a talk about the work and the historical incident that inspired it, the brutal killing in 1951 of a bootlegger in north Alabama, which also took the lives of several police officers. Afterward, a sixteen-year-old boy would face a series of trials that would divide a county and thrust the state of Alabama into the national spotlight. This book is beautifully written and brings into powerful high relief the place and time in which Midnight Cry is set.