Chapter 16 - Part 390

The Risky Business of Fairy Tales

In Elizabeth Gentry’s Housebound, dark riddles and magical discoveries fuel a gothic novel

By Emily Choate | November 27, 2013

November 27, 2013 Housebound, the debut novel by Knoxville author Elizabeth Gentry, is an adventure in genre, immersed in the strange, dark world of fairy tales and gothic novels. The story centers around Maggie, the eldest of nine children in a family held together by a mysterious collection of unspoken yet airtight rules. When she breaks house rules by announcing her intention to leave home, Maggie embarks on an adventure that will change her life. Elizabeth Gentry will discuss Housebound at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville at 6 p.m. on December 6, 2013.

The Head of the Table

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

By Margaret Renkl | November 26, 2013

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.

Painting the Paradise That Used to Be

A new collection showcases the poetry of the late Wilmer Mills

By Tina LoTufo | November 25, 2013

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.

Proud to Represent Team Ill-Fitting Burlap Sack

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

By Susannah Felts | November 20, 2013

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.

Go Down, Moses

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

By Tina LoTufo | November 19, 2013

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.

Scarpetta's Back

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

By Margaret Renkl | November 15, 2013

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.

Tender Headed (National Poetry Series)

By Olatunde Osinaike
Akashic Books
80 pages
17.95

“In Tender Headed, Olatunde Osinaike asks the question, what makes a man, and what makes a man like me? As he interrogates the inner and outer workings of masculinity in all its sharp and tender parts, and the way a Black man meets the world, his poems strut and duck and weave across their pages. These poems unpack the ingredients of being and make a meal of language.”

~ Camille Rankine, author of Incorrect Merciful Impulses