Bookshelf: Grit lit, WWI bio, culinary mystery among small and indie press offerings

In a blunt, spare tone that turns poetic at times, Hudson tells humorous and disturbing stories where the marriages are broken, the men are drunks and young girls are prey, set against a backdrop of dollar stores, broke-down trucks and secondhand Christmas gifts. When redemption does come, it is subtle and hard-earned.

“Suzanne Hudson is a fearless writer, unafraid to take us into the darkest recesses of human experience,” author Ron Rash wrote in a book jacket blurb. “We are compelled to keep on reading her, even at moments we wish we could turn away.”

A native of Columbus, Hudson now lives in Alabama and was awarded the 2025 Truman Capote Prize last month at the Monroeville Literary Festival. The annual prize recognizes distinguished writing in short stories or literary nonfiction. Also recognized was Cassandra King, author of “Tell Me a Story,” a memoir about her husband, Pat Conroy. King was given the Harper Lee Award, bestowed on distinguished writers from Alabama or whose writing career developed there.

Credit: Matt Holt Books

Credit: Matt Holt Books

Frozen assets. Steve Carse, co-founder and CEO of King of Pops, has told his wildly successful company’s origin story plenty of times and in plenty of outlets, including this one.

Laid off from an office job with a soul-killing commute, he and his brother, Nick Carse, took Steve’s life savings of $7,000 and started selling frozen pops from a cart in a gas station parking lot.

Now, 15 years later, he’s taken what he’s learned and written “Work Is Fun” (Matt Holt, $28) to instruct readers on how to find meaning in their jobs.

Written in a breezy, accessible style and filled with personal anecdotes, the book distinguishes between “work-life balance” — when “nonwork hours had to be epic to justify the blah that took place from 9 to 5” — and “work-life blend,” where work enhances life beyond a paycheck.

One thing this book is not about is entrepreneurship.

“You don’t need to be an owner,” Carse writes, “but you will have to learn to take ownership. You will have to become invested in the outcomes, not just your inputs.”

Credit: Newman Springs Publishing

Credit: Newman Springs Publishing

Love and war. When it comes to nonfiction books about war, the Civil War and World War II are frequent topics. World War I, not so much. Into the void steps Buford resident Karin Nix. Her book “My Grandfather Was a Polar Bear” (Newman Springs Publishing, $22.95) is a well-crafted biography about her grandfather Nines Simmons, a dentist who was among 5,000 U.S. troops — called the Polar Bears — fighting in Russia during the Great War. Threaded throughout are excerpts from a wartime diary Simmons kept and letters he wrote home to his wife.

Credit: Jamie Allen

Credit: Jamie Allen

Dinner’s ready. Although he lives in Los Angeles now, Jamie Allen was a longtime Atlanta writer and creator of the Squirrel Census, an art and storytelling project that involved counting squirrels in green spaces from Atlanta to New York City. Late last year he self-published the charming, Atlanta-based whodunit “The Dashing Diner,” about a mysterious character who uses magic and hypnosis to run out on his restaurant tabs at the city’s trendiest eateries. A send-up of the foodie scene set against beloved Atlanta landmarks, “The Dashing Diner” is written with wry humor and laced with romance.

Suzanne Van Atten is a book critic and contributing editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She may be reached at suzanne.vanatten@ajc.com.