Ginger Kauts, general manager of Quail Ridge Books, a Raleigh staple since 1984, recommends fiction, fantasy and Southern authors.
by Ayn-Monique
Kautz joined Quail Ridge in 2018 and became general manager in 2022. Previously, she spent many years working in “big box” bookstores, and she had a much shorter, but still formative, period of time selling tea.
What kinds of books do you gravitate toward, generally?
Thanks to my work, I’m all over the place as a reader. But I read a lot of fiction, fantasy, and oddball histories.
What book are you reading right now?
The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo. My coworkers know I’m a major fan of her writing, so someone kindly gave me an advance copy. It will be published October 6.
What is the best light read you’ve enjoyed recently?
The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives by Elizabeth Arnott. Beverley, Margot and Elsie are very different women who would never have become friends if not for their husbands’ crimes, and each has responded to their own notoriety in dramatically different ways. Watching their investigation push them out of their comfort zones (and into harm’s way) kept me turning the pages!
What’s the best heavier book you’ve read recently?
The Edge of Space Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. Prescod-Weinstein engaged my own curiosity and wonder about the nature of our universe, using poetry and pop culture to move through the world as we experience it, and the non-intuitive reality of quantum physics kept me going back and reading again when I hit a concept that just didn’t make sense the first time.
What is a classic/older book that you either always recommend, or have read many times?
Laozi’s Dao De Jing by Laozi, translated and interpreted by Ken Liu. Ken Liu is a fantastic author in his own right, as well as an established translator. His choices of vignettes to accompany the original text and his explication of translation choices along the way are truly thoughtful and engaging. I’m always fascinated by new translations of classics, by what changes and what remains the same at the core.
What is a book by a Raleigh or North Carolina author that you’d recommend?
Oh, what an impossible question! There are so many authors in this state who are a delight when they stop by the store – whether that’s to give a talk or to sign their books, or as customers themselves. The fiction title that immediately springs to mind for the book itself (though this author, too, is lovely in person) is Hell of a Book by Jason Mott. The way the story loops through the fantastical and surreal to get at the real is amazing, and I love the way it plays with autofiction by centering the story on an author on book tour. Mott’s work truly lives up to the acclaim.
For nonfiction, I’d recommend Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class by Dr. Blair L. M. Kelley. While the author’s topic covers entire generations of laborers across two hundred years, she always brings it back to the personal level. In every chapter, her use of primary sources introduces readers to real, named individuals emblematic of–or sharply defiant of–the labor movements discussed.
Visit Quail Ridge Books at 4209-100 Lassiter Mill Road or online at quailridgebooks.com.
This article first appeared in the August 2026 issue of WALTER Magazine.
