In 1948, a wealthy, influential landowner of Meriwether County pistol-whipped a young sharecropper outside of the Sunset Tourist camp in Moreland with such force the gun discharged. John Wallace’s execution by electric chair would be the first time in Georgia that a white man was given the death sentence on the testimony of two men of color, Albert Brooks and Robert Lee Gates. Wallace’s murder of Wilson Turner, a crime which involved three counties, would rock not only the state but the entire country, making legal history in Georgia and inspiring an acclaimed book and celebrated made-for-television...

Your friends at Underground Books have you covered this Valentine's Day with seven literary love songs with which to serenade your lucky valentine and four songs with which to console yourself should things not have gone so well with your last valentine... From bookish lyrics to lyrics straight from the book, we hope you enjoy these as much as we do! Or just listen to the whole playlist!

For Wooing:

The Book of Love by The Magnetic Fields

"The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures
and instructions for dancing
but...

Since its publication over the years 1827 to 1838, John James Audubon’s The Birds of America has not only stood as the standard for ornithological art, but a testament to book arts.

Paired with the accompanying text to his stunning collection of plates, Ornithological Biography, or, An account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, Audubon’s hard won magnum opus finds completion. The two works were separated to avoid the British law requiring a copy of every publication containing text to be donated...

Underground Books recently acquired a small archive of materials related to famed American author Jack London. London, most well known today for his works The Call of the Wild and White Fang, was a dramatic and controversial figure in his time. His passionate activism, outspoken socialism, and racist ideologies made him a polarizing figure whose personal life has been widely studied by scholars, fans, and critics alike.

The highlight of our recent acquisition is a love letter from London to his mistress Charmian Kittredge in 1904. London was married to his first wife at the time, Elizabeth "Bessie"...

The above meme is one that’s popped up frequently this year in social media, and we finally got a volume in the shop! The truth is—well, the truth is, women are humans, not some kind of mysterious humanoid species from another planet, and understanding them merely requires communicating with and listening to them, not a multi-volume academic text. That said, man’s quest to pin and pen woman down is a long, long tradition, and the book the meme depicts would be more accurately titled Misunderstanding Women, Volume One.