A full recap of our Flannery O’Connor Symposium. Best books of 2012, bookshelves of famous readers, the next great Southern writer & a Hemingway cocktail recipe in Literary News. Carl Hiaasen and Truman Capote in (Non)Required Reading. Celebrating the holidays with Poe, Joel Chandler Harris and Zora Neale Hurston in Literary Events. And a new poem and short story in Southern Voice. Literary Friday is back!

Held October 27 on the grounds of and inside the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, the Louisiana Book Festival was a wonderful way to spend a sunny, chilly day.

This Saturday, October 27, Louisiana’s State Library in Baton Rouge and the Louisiana Center for the Book host the Louisiana Book Festival – a free literary celebration with 148 authors and more than 100 programs.

Gore Vidal’s Southern ties. Literary Bad Boys. Gone Girl: The Movie. 11 Great Southern Novels from Wiley Cash. A huge Faulkner giveaway. Flannery O’Connor in Literary Events & a poem about watermelon. Happy Literary Friday!

Farewell to an independent bookstore in Alabama’s Literary Capital. Johnny Depp, Harper Lee and Myrtle Beach in Literary News. FIVE book giveaways. Dining among rare books in Literary Events, plus some big booksignings this weekend & new fiction in Southern Voice. It’s time for Literary Friday!