With Always Happy Hour, Mary Miller has written a collection of short stories that pulled me in immediately. Each story had me wanting more and some were hard to shake. She really nails it with these stories, so much so that I found myself highlighting sentences over and over again.
Her stories are about women; women who could be me, you, or the girl that lives next to you in your apartment complex. They are all from different walks of life: some are teachers, some are in college, divorced, etc.–all wanting to find love. Some think they’ve found it, but can’t decide if they want to keep it. Some only want to give it. Others don’t think they’ll ever find it, because they’ve been hurt or because they’ve made poor decisions. In one of the stories Miller writes, “She thinks about the things that have hurt her and she thinks about beauty and how little of it she sees in even beautiful things. She wonders if people who’ve been hurt more see more beauty. She wonders how a few strung-together words can seem so meaningful when she doesn’t believe them at all.” Miller has a way with words, she writes these women’s thoughts out right and honest–it’s refreshing.
Miller’s stories are sometimes heavy, gritty, and disturbing. One that was particularly difficult to read was “Big Bad Love” about a young woman working at a shelter for abused children. This women is taking care of children that have seen things, felt things, and know things far beyond what they should. She’s close to one child in particular and states at the end that she just hopes the child will remember that someone, at sometime in her life, loved her.
One of my other favorites is called “At One Time This Was The Longest Covered Walkway In The World.” It’s about a young woman in a relationship with a divorced father of a four-year old boy. There are points in the story where she seems to adore the child, and then there are times where she wishes he wasn’t in the middle of her relationship with this man. While looking at the young boy’s brown eyes, she thinks to herself, “My boyfriend’s eyes are blue. I want to ask my boyfriend what color his ex-wife’s eyes are because if they’re blue, then the boy isn’t his and we could be spending our nights alone.” She seems selfish, but I think she’s just trying to figure out how to love someone who already has to share his love, and who has already created a family without her.
Miller’s stories are deep, funny, bitter, ugly, beautiful.
Tom Franklin had this to say about Always Happy Hour: “I adore Mary Miller’s stories, and you will too. Read this book and then read her others. Like, now.”
I agree. I’m off to read more of Mary Miller’s work.
Mary Miller will serve as a panelist on the “Stories from the South” discussion at the Mississippi Book Festival on Saturday, August 19 at 10:45 a.m. at the State Capitol in Room 201A.
I was excited when signed copies of John Fogerty’s biography 
ee is an impressive debut that I’m excited to see be made into a series.
If you are a long-time subscriber to Domino magazine or even if you’ve never heard of it but you love decorating, this book is for you people. Domino magazine comes out quarterly and when I see it on the news stand, I basically squeal. Then I will go home to start looking through it, loving every second but also hating it. Sometimes I have to close the magazine because every house featured is so perfect I can barely cope with it. But, make no mistake, I finish the magazine and then refuse to throw it away.
mention this is their SECOND book! Their first book, 
As for the new book: first of all, just the physical book itself is so pretty that I want to scream. But it also has incredible content inside, broken down into navigable chapters such as “seating,” “walls,” “art,” “flooring,” etc. Every chapter is broken down further into sections like “Walls We Love,” “Handbook,” “Style Statement,” and “Style School.” There are so many helpful things in this book that I have a hard time knowing where to start, but I will say that the Style Statements at the end of every chapter almost send me into orbit because the designs are so incredible but all so different. There really is something for everyone. Then there are also the Style Standoffs at the end of each chapter, focusing on things such as Large Patterns vs. Small Patterns.
Sweetness and the uproarious, unbelievable 90s Dallas Cowboys tell-all Boys Will Be Boys. Biographies are at their best when the writers get themselves out of the way, which Pearlman does, although he still leaves an impression with his skill and versatility. So, when I heard this fall he was releasing 
Like all of Rash’s fiction, The Risen is set in North Carolina, and this place informs both the characters and plot. Our narrator, Eugene, tells us two parallel stories: first, he recalls his youth, specifically the 
The first book in the Grisha trilogy is 
Bardugo’s other series, the Six of Crows duology, is also set in the Grisha world, but it centers around a new cast of characters in the trade city of Ketterdam. 
But what I love about Bardugo’s books the most are her diverse cast of characters. She creates complex, flawed characters that draw you in. From the mysterious and swoon-worthy Darkling to the criminals in Six of Crows, you can’t help but fall in love with each of them.
Michael Chabon has written a marvelous, lyrical, and haunting new novel, 
By that time, Chabon had published his first book, so his grandfather knows exactly the dangerous type of individual he was talking to. In the middle of the story, the grandfather comes to a memory that makes him question the value of this confessional enterprise. Chabon counters that at least it’s a good story, to which the grandfather replies: “Yeah?…You can have it. I’m giving it to you. After I’m gone, write it down. Explain everything. Make it mean something. Use of lot of those fancy metaphors of yours. Put the whole thing in proper chronological order, not like this mishmash I’m making you.”