18 books from small presses you won't want to put down
 Family secrets, popular culture, literary experimentation, and more to love in these new and forthcoming books from small presses.
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Read this if: You love a modern retelling of a classic  Credit: William Morrow Anne of Manhattan by Brina Starler
In this modern Anne of Green Gables reimagining, Anne has left behind her idyllic early life in Avonlea, Long Island for grad school in New York City. Excited to finally pursue her dream of becoming a writer, Anne is disgruntled to find that her longtime rival Gilbert Blythe attending the same school — just a few years after kissing and ghosting her. When they're forced to work together, their competitive passion ignites into something more. Anne is ready to reconsider her feelings towards Gilbert, until he seemingly betrays her. Now, it's up to Gil to set the record straight and win her back before it's too late. Get your copy. —Shyla Watson Long Read: "I Visited A Former Plantation To Understand Why People Get Married There. All I Saw Was Pain." by Clint Smith  In Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites, historian Julia Rose wrote of how in 1999, around the time when my mother and I would have gone on this field trip, she had asked the director of the Magnolia Mound Plantation in Baton Rouge for information about the enslaved community who once lived and worked there. The director responded, "There isn't any."
An internet search for information about wedding venues in Louisiana leads me to a wedding website called Here Comes the Guide, which presents the reader with "7 Gorgeous Private Estate and Mansion Wedding Venues." In their description of the options, they write: "Want your wedding to have some serious southern style? Tie the knot at one of Louisiana's sprawling estates or magnificent mansions! Just think: romance in spades, columned porticos, gorgeous gardens, and moss-covered oaks. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more beautiful backdrop!"
Each of the seven venues is a former plantation.
Back home in Louisiana and visited the Magnolia Mound Plantation myself. The August heat staked its claim on my skin as I stepped out of the car, swallowing the warm, humid air. The south Louisiana summer mosquitos made a feast of my exposed ankles. I arrived as soon as the site opened and was on the first tour of the day along with a couple from England and their 5-month-old baby, who slept soundly in his carrier during the entire presentation.
Our guide, Sheila, was a middle-aged white woman with short blonde hair, a warm smile, and a green lanyard that hung with keys at the end from her neck and jangled like wind chimes whenever she moved. The tour was centered largely on the main house, a late 18th-century French construction that was one of the first homes built in present-day Baton Rouge. Throughout the tour, Sheila spoke about the architecture of the home — how the panels that kept the house upright were built from cypress trees just beyond the river; how the china that was used was imported from France so that during each meal the family could feel a little bit closer to the country from which they came; about the structural anatomy of the French doors, how they were designed to open in ways that brought the breeze in to cool the residents' faces on even the hottest of days. It is not that enslaved people weren't mentioned at all — Sheila discussed how they managed the kitchen and were charged with the upkeep of the home — but the discussion about them and their lives were so peripheral to the larger presentation that it made them seem like an afterthought rather than the force central to the place's existence.
At the end of the tour, I asked Sheila how many people had been enslaved here. At first, she said, there were six, but then it grew to be around 68 over the course of about eight decades. I then asked her if the plantation hosted weddings. She said that it did, and pointed about 100 yards away to a building on the other side of a brown wooden fence. I thanked her and walked down in that direction. More From BuzzFeed
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