The Southern Festival of Books, one of the oldest and largest literary events in the country, expects to welcome more than 25,000 attendees for panel discussions, book signings, and readings. In addition to 100 sessions over two days, the festival features more than 100 vendors, as well as food trucks and three performance stages for music, theater, spoken word, and poetry, as well as programming for children.
More than 150 authors, including Renée Watson, Erik Larson, Ace Atkins, and Joan Baez, will appear for panels, book signings, readings, and discussions at Bicentennial Mall in Nashville on October 26 and 27.
This final installment of the 50 Book / HT 50 series features two Pulitzer Prize winners, a book about a controversial figure in the Civil Rights Movement, a richly imagined historical novel set in Nashville, and an award-winning collection of essays about the South.
The mid-2010s were an eventful time on the Tennessee literary scene. Awards were received, some beloved writers left us, and of course, the Southern Festival of Books brought amazing authors to Tennessee every year. There were also plenty of wonderful Tennessee books released. The sampling in this installment of the 50 Books / HT50 series features titles with a connection to each region of the state, and — though we didn’t plan it that way — there’s not a traditional novel in the bunch.
This installment of the 50 Books / HT50 series is entirely devoted to novels and features two deftly comic tales, a searing depiction of Stalin’s gulag, a finely wrought drama set in occupied Japan, and an Appalachian story of beauty, climate change, and personal evolution.
The years from 2006 to 2010 brought a shocking financial crisis and the global Great Recession that followed, but there was happier news in the Tennessee book world, as well as a new outlet for reporting it: Chapter 16 was launched in September 2009. This seventh installment of the 50 Books / HT50 series includes two Pulitzer Prize winners, a riveting account of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and two highly praised novels.
