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"The April winds are magical, and thrill our tuneful frames; The garden-walks are passional to bachelors & dames."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Aimee Nezhukumatathi l  
signed copies 

OPEN DAILY

Main Store  
M-Sat 9 am-9pm; 
Sun 9am-6pm
 
Off Square Books 
M-Sat 9am-8pm;   
Sun Noon-5pm
  Square Books, Jr.:  
M-Sat 9am-7pm; 
Sun Noon-5pm

Chris Offutt
signed copies  

Quick Links
Madeline Miller
signed copies
Dustin Parsons
 signed copies

Audiobooks  here 


BOOK SIGNINGS THIS WEEK

Unless otherwise indicated, author events begin with an informal reception at 5pm, followed by the author's presentation at 5:30, with a book signing both before and after the reading/talk.
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Monday, April 23rd at 5 p.m.

Jesse Ball
(Ecco, $25.99)


When a widower receives notice from a doctor that he doesn't have long left to live, he is struck by the question of who will care for his adult son -- a son whom he fiercely loves, a boy with Down syndrome. With no recourse in mind, and with a desire to see the country on one last trip, the man signs up as a census taker for a mysterious governmental bureau and leaves town with his son.

Critically acclaimed author Jesse Ball was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists and longlisted for the National Book Award in Fiction. Census is his latest novel.

"I finished it on a plane yesterday in economy class, in the middle seat of a row of three, so there was nowhere to hide. I had to pull my woolly hat over my face and looked like a bank robber who'd forgotten to cut out the eye-holes." - David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas, about Census, which was the last book to make him cry.


Catherine Lacey
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.00)



In Catherine Lacey's ambitious second novel we are introduced to Mary, a young woman living in New York City and struggling to cope with a body that has betrayed her. All but paralyzed with pain, Mary seeks relief from a New Agey treatment called Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia, PAKing for short. And, remarkably, it works. But PAKing is prohibitively expensive and Mary is dead broke. So she scours Craigslist for fast-cash jobs and finds herself applying for the "Girlfriend Experiment," the brainchild of an eccentric and narcissistic actor, Kurt Sky, who is determined to find the perfect relationship -- even if that means paying different women to fulfill distinctive roles. Mary is hired as the "Emotional Girlfriend" -- certainly better than the "Anger Girlfriend" or the "Maternal Girlfriend" -- and is pulled into Kurt's ego-driven and messy attempt at human connection.

Told in her signature spiraling prose,  The Answers is full of the singular yet universal insights readers have come to expect from Lacey, who is the current writer-in-residence at the University of Mississippi, a winner of a 2016 Whiting Award, and named as one of Granta's Best  Young American Novelists. It is a gorgeous hybrid of the plot- and the idea-driven novel that will leave you reeling.
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Tuesday, April 24th at 5 p.m.

Alexander Chee
(in conversation with Kiese Laymon)
(Mariner Books, $15.99)


As a novelist, Alexander Chee has been described as "masterful" by Roxane Gay, "incomparable" by Junot Díaz, and "incendiary" by the  New York Times. With  How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, his first collection of nonfiction, he's sure to secure his place as one of the finest essayists of his generation as well.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the Chee's manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation's history, including his father's death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing -- Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley -- the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump.
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Wednesday, April 25th at 5 p.m.

Charles Frazier
(Ecco Press, $27.99)


In his powerful fourth novel, Charles Frazier returns to the time and place of the National Book Award-winning  Cold Mountain, vividly bringing to life the chaos and devastation of the Civil War.

With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a Mississippi landowner. Instead, he pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy. The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives with "bounties on their heads, an entire nation in pursuit."
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Thursday, April 26th at 5 p.m.

Michael Kardos
(in conversation with 
Michael Farris Smith)
(Mysterious Press, $26.00)


At twenty-seven, magician Natalie Webb is already a has-been. A card-trick prodigy, she started touring at seventeen, took first place at the World of Magic competition at eighteen, and never reached such heights again. Shunned by the magic world after a disastrous liaison with an older magician, she now lives alone with her pigeons and a pile of overdue bills in a New Jersey apartment. In a desperate ploy to make extra cash, she follows up on an old offer to write a feature magazine article -- on the art of cheating at cards. But when she meets the perfect subject for her article, what begins as a journalistic gamble brings into question everything Natalie thinks she knows about her talent, and herself. Natalie is dazzled by the poker cheat's sleight of hand and soon finds herself facing a proposition that could radically alter her fortune -- to help pull off a $1.5 million magic trick that, if done successfully, no one will ever even suspect happened. With Kardos raising the stakes chapter after chapter,  Bluff is a breathtaking work of suspense from a writer at the top of his game.

Michael Kardos is the Pushcart Prize-winning author of the novels  The Three-Day Affair and  Before He Finds Her and the story collection  One Last Good Time. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where he co-directs the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.
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Thacker Mountain Radio
at Double Decker
Friday, April 27th at 7 p.m.

Aminatta Forna
(Atlantic Monthly Press, $26.00)


Thacker Mountain Radio takes place at the Double Decker stage this week. Aminatta Forna will be at Square Books at 5 p.m. to sign books before she reads at 7 p.m.

"Moving back and forth in time, and all over the globe --London, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, New England, Iraq, Accra -- this fascinating novel focuses on Jean, an American studying urban foxes, and Attila, a Ghanaian psychiatrist specializing in trauma who has been trying to establish contact with Ama, his niece. In an immigrant crackdown on the London  West African population, Ama's young son goes missing, and Jean and Attila join forces to find him. Their relationship deepens, and Attila experiences his own  grief and trauma, realizing how limited his academic understanding of it really was. A rich and timely story." - LH
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Celebrate Independent Bookstore Day
Saturday, April 28th

Independent Bookstore Day marks its fifth year of celebrating independent bookstores nationwide.

Square Books and Square Books, Jr. will offer cool giveaway items and exclusive day-of merchandise created especially for Independent Bookstore Day by major publishers and authors. Square Books, Jr. will also host a special Llama Llama
 storytime at 10 a.m.

Visit our website for a list of our limited edition merchandise.
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SAVE THE DATE
for upcoming events:

Monday
4/30
Tuesday
5/1
Wednesday
5/2
Saturday
5/5
Tuesday
5/8
Thursday
5/10
Friday
5/11
Thursday
5/17
Thursday
5/17

Click here for a full listing of scheduled events.

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   Events are always free and wheelchair accessible.