A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Dinner with Madame Bovary

June 21, 2016 With rooms the color of a dead armadillo, peeling wallpaper in the bath, and red-“brick” linoleum in the kitchen, how could I ever host a book club in my recently purchased 1958 ranch? My slapdash housekeeping would earn a wagging finger from Heloise and send Madame Bovary calling for the smelling salts.

Grief

June 27, 2012 Two years ago, at 9:30 on Thanksgiving morning, my best friend’s husband was shot to death in his home. My friend had spent the previous evening watching classic movies late into the night and was still sleeping when she heard two shots. She remembers praying, as she wrapped a robe around her, slid into her slippers, and ran down the hallway, that she had heard only the sound of slamming doors.

Tragic Songs

February 22, 2012 A Country Music Hall of Fame inductee and a Grand Ole Opry member from 1955 until his death last year at age 83, Charlie Louvin worked as a musician for six decades; Ira, the elder of the duo known as the Louvin Brothers, died in an automobile accident in 1965. The great bulk of Satan Is Real, Charlie Louvin’s posthumously published autobiography, tells the story of their lives and legendary career together. Wistful at times, the book is not without humor, a heavy shake of salty language, and fascinating anecdotes from life on the road.

Sidekick to a Material Girl

September 15, 2011 In her new memoir, Not About Madonna, Nashville songwriter remembers her skinny, wise-cracking, indefatigable college roommate—before she became an international icon. Hill will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.

Sidekick to a Material Girl

No Quitter

Secrets are safe with Shania Twain. The five-time Grammy winner has sold seventy-five million albums, but she has also lived much of her life in silence, fiercely protecting her family’s “painful” and “embarrassing” past from public scrutiny. The decision to divulge some of those secrets in the hope that it might “be of help to others” is what gives her new autobiography, From this Moment On, its remarkable heart.

Saint Pioneer Feminist

January 31, 2011 Former Nashville Banner reporter Bill Briggs, now a journalist with MSNBC.com, has written a masterful page-turner, a book that serves as a testament to tenacious research, graceful prose, and a true journalist’s skeptical nature. By following the beatification of Mother Théodore, a nineteenth-century American nun, The Third Miracle: An Ordinary Man, a Medical Mystery, and a Trial of Faith uncovers the secret saint-making practices of the Catholic Church. Ultimately, of course, it is a story about the age-old conflict between faith and science. Briggs will discuss the book at the offices of McNeely Piggott & Fox, in Nashville, on February 1 at 5:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

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