Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

The Head of the Table

Remembering the late John Egerton, who loved the South as fiercely as he fought its injustices

November 26, 2013 It would not be possible to overstate the cultural and literary influence of Nashville author John Egerton, who died last Thursday of an apparent heart attack at age 78. In books like Speak Now Against the Day and Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History, Egerton’s great project was chronicling and interpreting “this eccentric and enigmatic region in which we live,” as he put it. Here at Chapter 16, we mourn the loss of a great writer—and a great friend.

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Painting the Paradise That Used to Be

A new collection showcases the poetry of the late Wilmer Mills

November 25, 2013 Selected Poems by the late Wilmer Mills includes poems about building a house, plowing a field, and crafting a cradle, among others. This poet, who died in 2011 at age forty-one, writes from specific, hands-on experience but also sees beyond the ordinary to touch what is timeless in each act.

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Proud to Represent Team Ill-Fitting Burlap Sack

Tracy Moore’s new pregnancy guide is an irreverent, hilarious look at modern parenthood

November 20, 2013 With chapter headings like “If Your Friends and Family Start Acting Like Dramatic Weirdos” and “How to Eat All the Stuff You Aren’t Supposed To,” there’s no mistaking Tracy Moore’s Oops! How to Rock the Mother of All Surprises for a garden-variety pregnancy guide. Instead it’s an irreverent, hilarious look at modern breeding from the perspective of a work-hard-party-harder writer who had no plans to get pregnant—and then did.

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Go Down, Moses

Rhonda Hicks Rucker’s Swing Low, Sweet Harriet is an exciting tale of Civil War espionage

November 19, 2013 In Swing Low, Sweet Harriet, her new historical novel for young readers, Knoxville writer Rhonda Hicks Rucker tells a suspenseful story of Civil War espionage and the inspiring struggle for freedom waged by African Americans—both those whose names we know, like Harriet Tubman, and many more unsung heroes.

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Scarpetta's Back

Patricia Cornwell’s latest book isn’t the only new release for the crime novelist

November 15, 2013 Patricia Cornwell turns out a book a year, on average, so it’s never a huge surprise when a new Kay Scarpetta novel hits shelves. The surprise is always in the story itself, and Cornwell has a knack for inventing tales that seem to predict the next wave of media obsession with crime. (After all, her protagonist, Kay Scarpetta, is the original fictional forensic investigator.) This year’s novel, Dust, has just been released.

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We Are What We Bury

In his new novel, Want Not, Jonathan Miles digs through the garbage

November 14, 2013 Jonathan Miles’s second novel, Want Not, follows a middle-aged linguistics professor, a pair of Dumpster-diving “freegans,” and a suburban housewife, all living in greater New York City, as they come to terms with the refuse of their lives. It’s a droll and affecting tale that disguises its philosophical message beneath a comic veneer. Miles will read from Want Not at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 16, 2013, at 4 p.m.

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