Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Clay Risen

It’s 1968 All Over Again

A new book by Memphis historian Aram Goudsouzian explains the rise of partisan politics

As Aram Goudsouzian makes clear in The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America, the tensions that animated the 1968 election still dominate public discourse today. Goudsouzian will discuss his new book at Novel in Memphis on April 10.

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Home to Ackerman’s Field

The Lost Country, a new posthumously published novel, is classic William Gay

William Gay’s writing doesn’t capture Middle Tennessee; it is Middle Tennessee, as much a part of the landscape as its fields and barns and creeks. Every turn of phrase, every scene describes with effortless perfection the curve of a hill, the angle of an eave, the lilt in a drawl.

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Telling Stories

Hampton Sides talks about Memphis, civil rights, and why some people think he’s a CIA agent

Hampton Sides will appear in conversation with novelist John Grisham in the University Theater at Christan Brothers University in Memphis on October 26 at 7 p.m. Ticket price includes a copy of Grisham’s new novel, The Rooster Bar.

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Black and White and Red All Over?

Thomas J. Hrach shows how better reporting on race reduced rioting in the 1960s

In his new book, The Riot Report and the News, Thomas J. Hrach, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Memphis, shows how rapidly diversifying newsrooms in the 1960s had revolutionary consequences for the way news is reported.

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Into the Breach

Adam Hochschild argues that the Spanish Civil War was one of the first great populist causes

spaininourhearts_hiAdam Hochschild’s highly readable new book is not a history of the Spanish Civil War. Though he touches all the highlights—Picasso’s “Guernica,” Hemingway’s tour to the front, George Orwell’s foray into Catalonia—Spain in Our Hearts is a character-driven story. Hochschild will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held Oct. 14-16 at Legislative Plaza and the Nashville Pubic Library. Festival events are free and open to the public.

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Like A Kid Who Doesn’t Quite Belong

Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance still loves the Appalachia he left behind

HillbillyElegy Final JacketJ.D. Vance’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, is more than the story of Vance’s still-young life: it is also a sharp, compelling analysis of anomie and social breakdown in modern America. Vance will discuss Hillbilly Elegy at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016.

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