The Office BFFs, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey.   Foes on the show, but IRL best friends Jenna and Angela here deliver a very personal memoir of not just the show, but of their friendship over the years – forged as two young women first began finding success together on a show that bounced from near-cancellation to cultural dominance, tested when  their lives began going in different directions,  but made all the stronger by the triumphs and reverses they encountered together.  The women don’t go show-by-show, instead organizing the book into bigger categories like “Women of the Office”, “The Holidays”, “Big Pregs, Little Pregs, and Fake Pregs”, but it does largely skew chronological.    Jenna and Angela’s is not a casual friendship: they’re not just show buddies, but intimate parts of one another’s lives: their kids go to the same school, they celebrate holidays together, and each woman has been there for the other in medical emergencies, like when Jenna broke her back. There’s a lot of inside scoops on set goings-on: my favorite being the seemingly cursed episode that Bryan Cranston (Say. My. Name.)  directed in which the cast was very nearly killed after a series of less-lethal accidents.   I listened to the audiobook on my there-and-back-again drives to Natchez, and can report that the book was recorded with the women together, so the back-and-forth is smooth – and there are audiobook bonuses in which Kate Flennory plays the piano and Rainn Wilson leaves a voicemail for Angela.  Rainn and Angela have an….interesting relationship. Absolute delight for an Office fan.

A Craftsman’s Legacy:   Why Working With Our Hands Gives us Meaning,  Eric Gorges. This is a book adopted from a TV show, in which Gorges talks to craftsmen and artisans about their work The work is more varied than the cover implies, because it ranges from the Manly Man stuff like metal-shaping and sword-forging to glass-blowing and weaving. Gorges talks to each artisan at length about the demands and of the work, and of each craft’s unique attributes – like the intimate connection between the potter and the clay – and on artisanry in general: the continuing pursuit of perfection, and the meaning found in continuing a legacy skill, in passing the craft on and contributing to it.

Wooden Churches: A Celebration, Rick Bragg. This is largely a photo collection, but with a long preface from Bragg about wooden country churches. 

Swimming with Serpents,  Sharman Ramsey.   A…weird kind of romance set during the Creek war. The frontleaf promises us action at the Fort Mims massacre, but only its aftermath appears.   The author is effective in showing how confusing loyalties were – with settlers of varying ethnicities and  Creek  populations with opposing goals, so that brothers might be on two different sides of the conflict.