Nonfiction

February 8, 2011 When Molly Caldwell Crosby’s first book, The American Plague, appeared in 2006, critics praised the way it wove individual tales of horror and heroism into a broader scientific framework. The book recounted how the population of Memphis, where Crosby lives, was decimated by a yellow fever epidemic in 1878, and told the stories of doctors fighting to identify the disease and halt its spread. In her second book, Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic That Remains one of Medicine’s Greatest Mysteries, published last year and now out in paper, Crosby used a similar mix of memorable characters and scientific detection to follow a chilling epidemic of sleeping sickness in the wake of World War I, a disease that left most of its victims dead or brain-damaged. Prior to her appearance at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on February 8 at 6 p.m., she answered questions from Chapter 16 about the process of combining very human stories and scientific research.

January 27, 2011 Novelist Robert Hicks was standing in the McGavock family parlor of Carnton Plantation, talking about Carnton Plantation: Where the Old South Died, when an antique clock struck. Hicks fell silent as three distinct metallic chimes drifted through the stately chambers of the home. “You see? Right there,” he said. “Imagine this parlor in November of 1864 and the hundreds of wounded lying here, in the halls, in the bedrooms. The sound of that clock. Every hour on the hour. That’s a sound they would have heard.”

January 12, 2011 In their essay collection, Tennessee’s New Abolitionists, editors Amy L. Sayward and Margaret Vandiver document efforts to halt capital punishment in Tennessee. In an email interview with Chapter 16, Vandiver, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Memphis, weighs in on the future of capital punishment in the Volunteer State. Vandiver and contributor Pete Gathje, a professor of Christian ethics at Memphis Theological Seminary, will read from Tennessee’s New Abolitionists at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on January 15 at 1 p.m.