This week I have some book recommendations, not from local newsmakers, but from the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, which has just released its finalists for the 2008 SIBA Awards.

I think it is worth seeing what specific books are read in other parts of the country and also to note some special categories that garner recognition. For example, there are awards for the top cookbook and poetry book. Sometimes these categories are overlooked thought quite popular at bookstores and libraries.

SIBA selects books that it considers to be examples of the best of Southern literature. To be eligible the book must be set in the south. Books are nominated by SIBA booksellers based on their “hand-sell” (love that phrase) favorites. Winners will be chosen by a jury of SIBA booksellers and announced during the Decatur Book Festival during Labor Day weekend in Decatur, Ga.

Enough chatter, here is the list of finalists from the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance:

CHILDREN

1. Aurora County All Stars by Deborah Wiles (Harcourt)
2. Br’er Rabbit Captured by Jean Cassels (Walker)
3. Chicken Dance, Jacques Couvillon (Bloomsbury)
4. Deep in the Swamp by Donna Bateman (Charlesbridge)
5. Louisiana’s Song Kerry Madden (Viking)
6. Something Rotten Alan Gratz (Dial Books)

COOKBOOK

1. A Love Affair with Southern Cooking by Jean Anderson (William Morrow)
2. In Praise of Pecans by June Jackson (Bright Sky Press)
3. Soby’s New South Cuisine by Freidank, Sobocinski, Williams, & Peck (Soby’s)

FICTION

1.Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead (Algonquin)
2. Down River by John Hart (Thomas Dunne)
3. Garden Spells by Sara Addison Allen (Bantam)
4. Rhett Butler’s People by Donald McCraig (St. Martin’s Press)
5. Thistle & Twigg by Mary Saums (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

NONFICTION

1. Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins)
2. Boone by Robert Morgan (Shannon Ravenel Books)
3. Somebody’s Going to Die if Lilly Beth Doesn’t Catch that Bouquet by Gayden Metcalfe & Charlotte Hays (Hyperion)

POETRY

1.House on Boulevard Street by David Kirby (LSU Press)
2. Out of the Garden by Kathryn Kirkpatrick (Mayapple Press)
3. Whatever Remembers Us by Walker & Chambers (Negative Capability)