For years, Landmark Booksellers in Franklin, Tenn., has issued an open challenge to all visitors: anyone who can correctly identify all 22 portraits of famous Southern writers hanging on the store's walls can win a free book.
Co-owner Joel Tomlin, who opened the store with his wife, Carol, in July of 2005, reported that in the store's entire history only one person has ever been able to name all 22 authors. That person was Dr. Hubert McAlexander, a retired professor of English and Southern Literature at the University of Georgia. The Tomlins hosted McAlexander when he published Peter Taylor: A Writer's Life and, as a reward for completing the challenge, McAlexander received a boxed set of the Complete Writings of Peter Taylor from the Library of America.
Landmark Booksellers sells new, used and rare books, with a specialization in Tennessee history and Southern literature. It resides in an historic building on Franklin's main street that was built between 1806 and 1808.