Square Books Top 100 List Loaded with Oxford Authors

John Grisham placed books in the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, but a pair of Oxford authors followed close behind in Square Books’ Top 100 Books of 2017, released on Sunday.
Grisham’s “Camino Island” topped the list, with “The Rooster Bar” in second place. But you didn’t have to be a longtime publishing superstar to dominate the list. Oxford resident Elizabeth Heiskell’s cookbook, “What Can I Bring,” came in at No. 3, while John Cofield’s “Oxford, Mississippi: The Cofield Collection,” took the No. 4 spot.
Additional reading: HottyToddy.com book editor Allen Boyer lists his Top 10 Notable Books of 2017.
Numerous other local authors also made the list, proving that Oxford remains ground zero for great writing in Mississippi.
Ace Atkins made the list with his latest Quinn Colson novel, “The Fallen” (No. 29), while Erin Austen Abbot, an Oxford photographer and artist and owner of Amelia, cracked the Top 100 with “How to Make It: 25 Makers Share the Secrets to Building a Creative Business” (No. 92).
The late Ron Borne’s “The Big Nasty” made it to No. 52 on the list, Julie Cantrell claimed the No. 46 spot with “Perennials,” and Kathleen Wickham’s “We Believed We Were Immortal” ranked No. 61.
Additional reading: Oxford’s Elizabeth Heiskell becomes a regular on The Today Show.

Meanwhile, Alexe Van Beuren’s “The BTC Old-Fashioned Grocery Cookbook” claimed the No. 88 spot, while Beth Ann Fennelly’s “Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs” came in at No. 28 and former Ole Miss attorney Mary Ann Connell’s “An Unforeseen Life” was No. 7.
Allen Boyer, HottyToddy.com’s book editor, also made the list at No. 47 with “Rocky Boyer’s War,” a narrative history, based on his father’s diary, of the hard-fought South Pacific air campaign that won WWII, while former Ole Miss professor Ed Croom also made the list with “The Land of Rowan Oak” (No. 33) and UM journalism professor Curtis Wilkie’s “The Fall of the House of Zeus,” published seven years ago, proved a perennial big-seller at No. 38.

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Compiled by staff.