Wondering what to give the dad who has it all? Take him to Page & Palette for an evening he won’t forget.

Just in time for Father’s Day, humorist Roy Blount Jr. will be reading and signing his latest collection of essays, Long Time Leaving — Dispatches from Up South, Thursday, June 14, from 6-8 p.m.

A sly, dry, hilarious collection of essays — his first in more than a decade — Blount focuses on the many conflicts between the North (where he lives) and the South (where he’s from). Scholarly, raunchy, biting and affable, Blount takes on topics ranging from chicken fingers to yellow-dog Democrats to Elvis’ toes.

He also shares some of his personal Southern experiences: chatting with Ray Charles, rounding up rattlesnakes, watching George and Tammy record, meeting an Okefenokee alligator, imagining Faulkner’s tennis game and being swept up, sort of, in the filming of Nashville.

His yarns, analyses, and flights of fancy transcend all standard shades of red, blue, and in between.

Blount’s previous books have included reflections on a Southern president (Jimmy Carter), a novel about a Southern president (Clementine Fox), a biography of Robert E. Lee, a celebration of New Orleans, a memoir of growing up in Georgia and the definitive anthology of Southern humor.

Long Time Leaving is the capper. It is a comic ode to American variety and also a witty assault on complacency in the North and the South.

The New York Times Book Review says Blount is a writer who “is in serious contention for the title of America’s most cherished humorist.”

He is the author of 19 other books, most recently Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans. He is a panelist on National Public Radio’s “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!,” a columnist for Oxford American, a contributing editor to The Atlantic Monthly and president of the Authors Guild.

He lives in western Massachusetts.

For more information, contact Page & Palette at 928-5295, or visit online at www.pageandpalette.com.

Page & Palette is located at 32 S. Section St. in Fairhope.