Books like Sugar Among the Freaks — picked by fans

I loved this novel in part because of three reasons: 1. A quote from the book: "Memory believes before knowledge remembers," 2. Faulkner's ability (in spite of a style many readers give up on) to put the reader in a particular complicated moral place as well in an emotional or psychological small piece of time. 3. Faukner's range from slap-stick to horror.

Once, a friend called me on the phone and said, "Clyde, I want to read you a quote from Light in August." Before he said another word, I said, "Memory believes before knowledge remembers." 

This book, about racism, among other matters, helped open my eyes to the humanity of all people and showed me, in particular, the ways that cruelty and racism exist in our cultures and subcultures. When I read this book, I was fresh out of five years in the Air Force (1971) and had just experienced the caste system of military life.

Prior to that, I'd lived, as a child and teenager, in a community in which racism and fundamentalist religion were taken for granted as givens of the universe. When I read this book, I realized the power of literature to open a person to meanings previously absent in their life.

I love this book because I am fascinated with Eudora Welty's early stories, especially Why I Live at the P.O. In the late 1970s, I had never seen or heard Eudora Welty, but I loved the stories in this book.

When I happened to see and hear Miss Welty read Why I Live at the P.O. on TV on May 14, 1978, I wrote in my journal, "Tomorrow I will start writing fiction," and I did. Welty showed me that adventure, in a funny and deep way, could include the types of relationships I had grown up with in my rural North Carolina home and neighborhood.

I had not, until then, clearly realized that those relationships could influence a dramatic aspect of fiction I might write.

I love this book because it shows Southerners fighting against racial segregation for decades prior to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. John Egerton wanted to show the civil rights movement in the south from 1932 to 1954.

He wanted to name all the people he could who participated. He thought the book would take two years to finish, but it took him six. His research pulls back a veil that covers fights against racism in the American South prior to the 1954 Supreme Court Brown Decision. 

Ain't She Sweet is my favorite second-chance romance. It will make you laugh, cry, and fall in love all over again.

It's about Sugar Beth Carey, the ultimate mean girl, who returns to her hometown and tries to make amends for all the drama she caused in the past. And of course, there's a handsome man from her past, Colin Byrne, who she just can't resist.

With hilarious banter, relatable characters, and steamy scenes, Ain't She Sweet is a must-read for romance junkies.

As someone who considers her brother her creative muse, I would describe this novel as one interested in siblings.

Between Leonie and Given, and Jojo and Kayla is an indescribable, utterly unique bond, held within and beyond both family and friendship. 

I was utterly consumed by this heartbreaking novel. From the opening scene where Pop and Jojo kill and skin a goat, to the heat in Leonie’s car and the scene of Jojo’s police cuffing, Ward delivers a pace, language, and viscerality that means you can’t look away. 

Somewhat surprisingly, I was even compelled by the book’s ghostly elements. I found they enhanced the magnitude of the characters’ burdens, especially for thirteen-year-old Jojo, who already shoulders so much.

I highly recommend this book, as a pleasure and as a duty to your fellow human beings. 

In the introduction to the first edition of Black Boy, Richard Wright acknowledges that while inspired by his life the book is both a record of his life and an imagined autobiography of all the “black boys” he knew who like him came of age in the segregated south.

Wright’s book is an early example of the use of creative nonfiction techniques that make this memoir gripping, suspenseful, deeply psychological, and a testimony to the power of dreams and the will to prevail against adversity.

John Perkins has been a mentor and friend. Born in 1930, the life of this native Mississippi man remains compelling and an inspiration! As a civil rights activist who watched his brother die before his eyes, Perkins' storytelling motivates us to respond to injustice with love and vigorous opposition, but never with hate. I often hear Dr. Perkins’ voice saying, “that man loved the hatred right out of me,” about the white doctor who brought him back to life after he was brutally beaten for his civil rights activities. A book not to be missed! 

Though Dr. Timothy B. Smith has since made quite the splash in Civil War historiography, this was his first book, covering the Battle of Champion Hill. On May 16, 1863, two armies collided between the Confederate fortress of Vicksburg and the Mississippi state capital at Jackson. The Federals were led by Ulysses S. Grant; the Rebels, John C. Pemberton. Each army numbered bout 30,000 men. While neither the largest or most famous battle of the war, Champion Hill was, nevertheless, a crucial engagement, for it decided the fate of Vicksburg. Frustrated for months by his inability to capture the fortress, Grant at last settled on a daring strategy to take it from the rear. Pemberton marched out to meet him. They met at Champion Hill.

Smith’s narrative embraces the top-down commander’s view of the battle, the soldiers’ view from the ranks, and the impact the fighting had on the local… show more.

It took me two tries to finish this tremendously difficult novel about a father who desperately wants a son, and gets two. Considered by many to be Faulkner’s most challenging work, it defeated me on my first attempt. But I was captivated by this example of fatherhood gone obsessively wrong, so returned to it and soldiered through.

It was worth the effort. I hope I never find any commonality with the main character of this novel, and I’m not sure if I should take solace from Faulkner’s conclusion that we can never really understand another person, and may not want to. I read it as a cautionary tale of what a family can become.