But if you're gonna be close to my neck of the woods, it would be awesome to have a DU meet up!

I actually reviewed this book in the Houston Chronicle in about 1980. At the time, I was doing some freelance book reviews for the Chronicle's book editor, George Christian, who had been White House Press Secretary under LBJ from 1966 to 1969.

To answer your question, anything by Joan Hess (fiction, humorous mystery series) and Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings". There's one called "Hot Springs" and I can't recall the title of the true story of the murder of Nancy Dillard. Lots of history about the Little Rock school integration and the West Memphis Three.

Can't stop updating. Here's the two Joan Hess series set in Arkansas. I've read them all. Joan lived in Fayetteville and the Claire Malloy series is set there. I think she used Gravette as the setting for the Maggody series. When she passed away, she left the story lines hang. The Nancy Dillard-Lyon book is "Poisoned Dreams".

Claire Malloy series by Joan Hess[Notes 1]
Strangled Prose
The Murder at The Murder at the Mimosa Inn
Dear Miss Demeanor
A Really Cute Corpse
A Diet to Die For
Roll Over and Play Dead
Death by the Light of the Moon
Poisoned Pins
Tickled to Death
Closely Akin to Murder
Busy Bodies
A Holly, Jolly Murder
A Conventional Corpse
Out on a Limb
The Goodbye Body
Damsels in Distress
Mummy Dearest
Deader Homes and Gardens
Murder as a Second Language
Pride v. Prejudice

Maggody series by Joan Hess[Notes 2]
Malice in Maggody
Mischief in Maggody
Much Ado in Maggody
Madness in Maggody
Mortal Remains in Maggody
Maggody in Manhattan
O Little Town of Maggody
Martians in Maggody
Miracles in Maggody
The Maggody Militia
Misery Loves Maggody
Murder@maggody.com
Maggody and the Moonbeams
Muletrain to Maggody
Malpractice in Maggody
The Merry Wives of Maggody

but I really enjoyed “A Painted House” by John Grisham which was based on his childhood growing up in rural Arkansas.

and all her subsequent mystery novels in the hilarious Maggody series

her Claire Malloy series.

May not be the best representation of Arkansas but it is a great movie staring Billie Bob Thornton a native Arkansan and its was filmed there.

Still in Benton AR. Same café (drive-in) that appears in the movie.
"Go git yerself some of them mustard and biscuits"

A book about Hot Springs. I grew up in Cabot and we vacationed several times on Lake Ouachita. When I was older, i spent a few spring Saturdays at the Oaklawn Park racetrack. Never knew the history of the place until I read this book.

From the back cover:

A 2020 New York Times notable book | One of the Chicago Tribune 's best nonfiction books of 2020

"Complex, turbulent, as haunting as a pedal steel solo" —Jonathan Miles, The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)
"One of 21 books we can't wait to read in 2020"* — Thrillist | *A New York Times Book Review summer reading pick | A GQ* best book of 2020 | Named one of the 10 best July books by The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor | A Kirkus Reviews hottest summer read | A Publishers Weekly* summer reads staff pick

The incredible true story of America's original—and forgotten—capital of vice

Back in the days before Vegas was big, when the Mob was at its peak and neon lights were but a glimmer on the horizon, a little Southern town styled itself as a premier destination for the American leisure class. Hot Springs, Arkansas was home to healing waters, Art Deco splendor, and America’s original national park—as well as horse racing, nearly a dozen illegal casinos, countless backrooms and brothels, and some of the country’s most bald-faced criminals.
Gangsters, gamblers, and gamines: all once flocked to America’s forgotten capital of vice, a place where small-town hustlers and bigtime high-rollers could make their fortunes, and hide from the law. The Vapors is the extraordinary story of three individuals—spanning the golden decades of Hot Springs, from the 1930s through the 1960s—and the lavish casino whose spectacular rise and fall would bring them together before blowing them apart.
Hazel Hill was still a young girl when legendary mobster Owney Madden rolled into town in his convertible, fresh off a crime spree in New York. He quickly established himself as the gentleman Godfather of Hot Springs, cutting barroom deals and buying stakes in the clubs at which Hazel made her living—and drank away her sorrows. Owney’s protégé was Dane Harris, the son of a Cherokee bootlegger who rose through the town’s ranks to become Boss Gambler. It was his idea to build The Vapors, a pleasure palace more spectacular than any the town had ever seen, and an establishment to rival anything on the Vegas Strip or Broadway in sophistication and supercharged glamour.
In this riveting work of forgotten history, native Arkansan David Hill plots the trajectory of everything from organized crime to America’s fraught racial past, examining how a town synonymous with white gangsters supported a burgeoning black middle class. He reveals how the louche underbelly of the South was also home to veterans hospitals and baseball’s spring training grounds, giving rise to everyone from Babe Ruth to President Bill Clinton. Infused with the sights and sounds of America’s entertainment heyday—jazz orchestras and auctioneers, slot machines and suited comedians— The Vapors is an arresting glimpse into a bygone era of American vice. **

It just occurred to me that neither of my suggestions are novels, but, hey, they're good books!

Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and a Story of Reconciliation by J. Chester Johnson

Blurb:
An illuminating journey to racial reconciliation experienced by two Americans—one black and one white. The 1919 Elaine Race Massacre, arguably the worst in our country’s history, has been widely unknown for the better part of a century, thanks to the whitewashing of history. In 2008, Johnson was asked to write the Litany of Offense and Apology for a National Day of Repentance, where the Episcopal Church formally apologized for its role in transatlantic slavery and related evils. In his research, Johnson came upon a treatise by historian and anti-lynching advocate Ida B. Wells on the Elaine Massacre, where more than a hundred and possibly hundreds of African-American men, women, and children perished at the hands of white posses, vigilantes, and federal troops in rural Phillips County, Arkansas.

As he worked, Johnson would discover that his beloved grandfather had participated in the Massacre. The discovery shook him to his core. Determined to find some way to acknowledge and reconcile this terrible truth, Chester would eventually meet Sheila L. Walker, a descendant of African-American victims of the Massacre. She herself had also been on her own migration in family history that led straight to the Elaine Race Massacre. Together, she and Johnson committed themselves to a journey of racial reconciliation and abiding friendship. Damaged Heritage brings to light a deliberately erased chapter in American history, and Chester offers a blueprint for how our pluralistic society can at last acknowledge—and deal with— damaged heritage and follow a path to true healing.

Victory Over Japan, winner of the 1984 National Book Award

Ellen Gilchrist was THE revered writer in residence in Fayetteville at the UofA in the late '70's and '80's.

Blurb:
Originally published in 1984, this collection of 14 short stories set in Arkansas and Mississippi went on to win that year’s National Book Award for fiction, confirming Ellen Gilchrist’s place as one of the preeminent literary talents of her generation. Victory Over Japan takes us into the lives of an unforgettable group of Southern women — beautiful, complicated, enchanting, and sometimes dangerous — in and out of bars, marriages, divorces, lovers' arms, and even earthquakes, in an attempt to find happiness, or at least some satisfaction. Throughout these stories, one hears echoes of Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty, but Ms. Gilchrist has her own unique literary voice, and it is outrageously funny, moving, tragic, and always appealing.

PRAISE: “To say that Ellen Gilchrist can write is to say that Placido Domingo can sing. All you need to do is listen.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post. “She is what they call a natural, writing with passion, authority and a noticeable lack of the self-consciousness that weighs down much of contemporary fiction.” —San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle. “Ellen Gilchrist’s achievement is to create lives which refuse to be bound on the page by words and sentences . . . the writing is full of understanding that doesn’t advertise itself as perception or insight.” —London Daily Telegraph

I can't promise that this will be my last recommendation of books about Arkansas, but this one has personal meaning.

The only reason I grew up in Arkansas rather than somewhere else, was because my dad was in an Air Force nuclear missile maintenance crew. Little Rock Air Force Base (LRAFB), was, from the late '50's through the '80's or so, a Strategic Air Command (SAC) base, charged with ownership of a string of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) strung across the middle of Arkansas, more or less following the east-west trajectory of Interstate 40. Eric Schlosser's 2014 book, "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety" is described as follows:

**The Oscar-shortlisted documentary Command and Control , directed by Robert Kenner, finds its origins in Eric Schlosser's book and continues to explore the little-known history of the management and safety concerns of America's nuclear arsenal.

A myth-shattering exposé of America’s nuclear weapons

Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved—and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. While the harms of global warming increasingly dominate the news, the equally dangerous yet more immediate threat of nuclear weapons has been largely forgotten.

Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States.

Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with people who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age. ** *

I saw the original movie at the Little Rock Air Force Base theater in 1969, I think. I have yet to see the remake. If you went to school in Arkansas, you learned that Fort Smith was the last outpost of the Marshal Service, otherwise known as The United States, before you hit the Indian Territories (aka Oklahoma). "Hangin' Judge' Isaac C. Parker presided from his courthouse in Fort Smith, where he oversaw the hanging of more than 70 criminals captured in the Indian Territories. At least that's what the Arkansas history book, fed to all us grade-school students, claimed. Anyway, here's the blurb.

True Grit tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen when the coward Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father's blood. With one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the killer into Indian Territory. True Grit is eccentric, cool, straight, and unflinching, like Mattie herself. From a writer of true status, this is an American classic...

#1 New York Times bestseller
“An epic and a legend” — Washington Post
“Quite simply, an American masterpiece.” — Boston Globe
“The dialogue in True Grit is exquisite.” —David Mamet
“Charles Portis had a wonderful talent—original, quirky, exciting.” —Larry McMurtry

Charles Portis has long been acclaimed as one of America’s most enduring and incomparable literary voices, and his novels have left an indelible mark on the American canon. True Grit , his most famous novel, was first published in 1968, and has garnered critical acclaim as well as enthusiastic praise from countless passionate fans for more than fifty years.

This story of danger and adventure in the old west became the basis for two award-winning films, the first starring John Wayne, in his only Oscar-winning role, as Marshall Rooster Cogburn, and the widely praised remake by the Coen brothers, starring Jeff Bridges.

True Grit is essential reading. Not just a classic Western, but an undeniable classic of American literature as eccentric, cool, funny, and unflinching as Mattie Ross herself. For fans of either the John Wayne classic or the more recent Coen brothers’ movie, it’s a chance to relive the story of Mattie and Rooster and experience their story as it was originally told. For fans of taut, funny storytelling, it will be a joy to experience in its original form.
This edition includes an afterword by bestselling author Donna Tartt ( The Secret History and The Goldfinch )

Review
“How to describe the indescribable? Probably the best description I can give of True Grit is that I’ve never given it to any reader — male or female, of any age or sensibility — who didn’t enjoy it.” ― Donna Tartt , New York Times Book Review
“Skillfully constructed, a comic tour de force.”―New York Times Book Review
“Quite simply, an American masterpiece.”―Boston Globe
“Rollicking . . . a beaut narrated in the unforgettable voice of Mattie Ross . . . Portis has crazy-cool literary swagger.”―Entertainment Weekly
“Charles Portis is an original, indescribable sui generis talent . . . Rereading Portis is one of the great pure pleasures—both visceral and cerebral—available in modern American literature.”― Ron Rosenbaum , Esquire
“It’s possible that True Grit is the genuine article—a book so strong that it reads as myth."― Ed Park , The Believer
“Charles Portis’s True Grit is a masterpiece.”― Anthony Bourdain , New York Times Book Review
“The dialogue in True Grit is exquisite.”― David Mamet , The Week
“I’ve always thought Charles Portis had a wonderful talent—original, quirky, exciting.”―Larry McMurtry
“An epic and a legend.”―Washington Post
“Charles Portis’s True Grit captures the naive elegance of the American Voice.”―Jonathan Lethem

About the Author
Charles Portis (b. December 28, 1933, d. February 17, 2020) lived in Arkansas, where he was born and educated. He served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War, was the London bureau chief of the New York Herald-Tribune , and was a writer for The New Yorker. He was the author of five novels: Norwood , The Dog of the South , Masters of Atlantis , True Grit , and Gringos.