BOOKS AND BEIGNETS WITH GARY RICHARDS

This year’s focus shifts to beloved fiction writer Eudora Welty (1909-2001). A native of Jackson, Mississippi, she explored the US South in novels such as Delta Wedding, Losing Battles, and The Optimist’s Daughter, but scholars and readers alike often feel that her most brilliant work was with her short stories. The group will sample a half-dozen of these to get a taste for Welty’s sly humor, exquisite style, and impressive range: “Lily Daw and the Three Ladies,” “Why I Live at the P.O.,” “A Curtain of Green,” “Powerhouse,” “Moon Lake,” and “No Place for You, My Love,” the last of which is set in New Orleans and the coastal areas of southeastern Louisiana. They are available in The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (ISBN: 978-1328625649).