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The Georgia Center for the Book has chosen “The Class of ’65” as one of one of its Books All Georgians Should Read for 2016. Your not-quite-humble correspondent is honored to be included in this annual rite of recognition.

The list is compiled from nominations received by an advisory council made up of writers, educators, librarians, media members and others. More than 125 books about Georgia topics or by Georgia authors were considered for the latest roster. Among the 10 titles that made the cut: “Where We Want To Live” by Ryan Gravel, the man who conceived Atlanta’s Belt Line; “Blue Laws” by poet extraordinaire Kevin Young; “Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty” by Charles Leerhsen; and “How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood” by Jim Grimsley. I was pleased to see Jim’s name on the news release; we shared a stage last September at the Decatur Book Festival.

There’s also a list of 10 Books All Young Georgians Should Read that includes the delightful “The Wheels on the Tuk Tuk” by Kabir Sehgal and Surishtha Sehgal.

The Georgia Center for the Book is the state affiliate of the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book. The center is hosted by the DeKalb County Public Library and sponsors lectures and other programs promoting Georgia’s literary tradition. One of those programs will be in August at the Decatur Library auditorium to present the latests lists of books all Georgians should read.

It’s free and open to the public. 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 18. Come by and join us if you can.

Conrad Browne, 1919-2016

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One of Koinonia’s early stalwarts and an important figure in my book, “The Class of ’65,” has died: Conrad Browne. He was 96 and lived in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Con Browne was a Baptist minister fresh out of the University of Chicago when he heard Clarence Jordan speak about Koinonia at a conference. He was so captivated that he persuaded his wife to move to south Georgia in 1949 to become part of the communal farm, even though he knew nothing about tending chickens or growing crops.

Con was one of the leaders of Koinonia during the years when it was boycotted and terrorized for its belief in racial brotherhood. He was in charge of the egg delivery route and saw firsthand how local businesses were boycotting the farm. During the height of violence against the community -- the drive-by shootings and bombings -- Con was attacked in Americus by a man who bashed him in the face simply because he was from Koinonia. The sheriff responded by charging Con, still bruised and bleeding, with a traffic offense.

I flew to Rhode Island to meet Con in 2007, joined by Greg Wittkamper, my main character. In our two days of interviews, I could tell how much affection they had for each other. Greg regarded him as a surrogate father and confided later that it was Connie (as he called him) who had told him about the birds and the bees. As we sat in his home on Narragansett Bay, I asked Con why his family had left Koinonia in 1963. “Do I have to?” he said with a pained expression. The farm was hurting economically and could no longer support very many residents, he explained, and the adults decided that the Brownes should go. Con took a job as associate director of the Highlander Center in Tennessee, the place where Rosa Parks had received training in nonviolent resistance. It was a worthy post, but you could tell that it still hurt him after all those years to think about leaving a place he loved so dearly.

My deepest condolences to Con’s wife, Cay, and to his four surviving children, three of whom (Lora, Charles and John) appear in “The Class of ’65.” Conrad Browne was a good man who practiced his faith even when it was dangerous to do so. May his soul know eternal peace.

Homecoming

Speaking at the Decatur Book Festival was like a spin through the old neighborhood for me. I grew up in Decatur and as a boy used to visit the library next door to the venue where I talked about “The Class of ’65” over the Labor Day weekend: Decatur Presbyterian Church. What’s more, I was raised in a Presbyterian church and first heard about Koinonia and the religious and racial conflicts at the heart of my book during my first job, as an editor at the Presbyterian church’s denominational magazine. 

All of which made it deeply gratifying when I looked out from the pulpit Saturday afternoon and saw that the stately old sanctuary was packed. “It looks like Easter out there,” one of the church staffers joked. I shared the pulpit with Jim Grimsley of Emory University, a decorated novelist who recently published his first nonfiction book, “How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood.” It’s a touching memoir about how he overcame the prejudices of his upbringing in rural North Carolina. Ernie Suggs, my former colleague at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, ably moderated. 

The scene amused me at first; they had the Jims sitting in two of those throne chairs that I thought you had be an ordained minister to occupy. We shared a mic, like a couple of Beatles, and spoke for half an hour, and then took some good questions from the people in the pews. With that, we were whisked across the street to sign books in a tent run by FoxTale Book Shoppe, an indie in Woodstock, Ga., one of whose partners, Ellen Ward, happened to go to high school with me. Several of the people lined up to get their copies signed had known my parents or were friends of my sisters or brother. !t was like a class reunion.

A quick word about the Decatur Book Festival: It’s one of the best events of its type anywhere. For two days, they shut down several streets in central Decatur and turn the city over to thousands of strolling book lovers and vendors catering to them. Every sanctuary, hotel ballroom and government chamber for blocks around becomes a speaking platform for one of the hundred or so authors who come to promote their books and meet their readers. The crowds are big and engaged. This was the 10th annual edition, and I was honored to be involved -- especially because it’s my hometown.