The 2020 Southern Book Prize Winners

(Asheville, NC) – Celebrate Independents!  Announcing the 2020 Southern Book Prize Winners -- the best in Southern literature, from the people who would know . . . Southern Independent Booksellers and their independently minded customers. Designed to honor great Southern voices, The Southern Book Prize is awarded to books published in the previous year that are Southern in nature – either by a Southern author, or set in the South, or both.

Nominated by booksellers and selected via popular vote by Southern booksellers and their customers, the 2020 Southern Book Prize Winners were selected from a list of finalists from ballots submitted by over 1000 Southern readers, representing over 150 Southern independent bookstores.  The chosen books represent the indie answer to the question “What was the best Southern book of the year?”

2020 Southern Book Prize Winners

FICTION

The Magnetic Girl by Jessica Handler
Hub City Press, 9781938235481
“A grand, dark, mysterious historical novel filled with dark power and ambivalence, The Magnetic Girl captures a time and place, not only in the life of a teenage girl but in our country as well. Filled with the shifting longings of adolescence against a vaudeville backdrop, Handler's novel explores the dangerous journey from childhood to adulthood when our budding powers both enthrall and terrify us.” – Brian Lampkin, Scuppernong Books, Greensboro, NC

NONFICTION

Tell Me A Story: My Life with Pat Conroy by Cassandra King Conroy
William Morrow, 9780062905628

“Cassandra King Conroy tells a compelling story of her courtship and marriage to Pat Conroy. As you can imagine, being with him was never boring, and Cassandra has the stories to prove it. Filled with laughter as well as tears, you will be carried through the ups and downs of Pat's life like the tidal current of Pat's beloved Battery Creek outside his Beaufort home. As hard as it is to read about Pat's sickness and death, Cassandra writes about it with compassion and love. Her words from the heart are truly beautiful.” – Linda Hodges, Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC

CHILDREN’S

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
Wednesday Books, 9781250144546

“Chokshi's dazzling world of alchemy and occult is unforgettable and I will dream of golden bees and gilded ballrooms until the sequel comes out. Astonishingly beautiful and fantastically imagined.”  – Sami Thomason, Square Books, Oxford, MS

For more information about the Southern Book Prize:
https://www.authorsroundthesouth.com/read-this/siba-book-awards