Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Jim Patterson

The State of the Workers

An Arkansas journalist reveals hard truths about the food industry

Alice Driver’s Life and Death of the American Worker tells the stories of the men and women who labor for a food industry giant. Driver will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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A Connection to the Earth

Brooks Lamb works to preserve the family farm

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Family farming is hard work, acknowledges Brooks Lamb in Love for the Land: Lessons from Farmers Who Persist in Place. In this 2023 Chapter 16 interview, he says it’s also a rewarding lifestyle worth saving, for the sake of the environment and ourselves. Lamb will discuss Love for the Land at Patagonia Nashville on May 16.

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In Praise of Regulation

Ganesh Sitaraman explains how to fix flying

Anyone who relies on the airline industry to get where they need to go can tell stories about delays, cancellations, shrinking storage space, and general dissatisfaction with the entire process. Vanderbilt University professor Ganesh Sitaraman spells out the remedy for this state of affairs in Why Flying Is Miserable and How to Fix It.

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Ministering to the Least of These

A family learns about grace from a death row prisoner 

He Called Me Sister: A True Story of Finding Humanity on Death Row, by Suzanne Craig Robertson, chronicles the relationship between her family and death row prisoner Cecil Johnson. Robertson will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 21.

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Your Brain on Music

Richard Manning explores the mysterious allure of song

In If It Sounds Good, It Is Good, Richard Manning makes a case for learning music by ear and explains why it’s a shame music-making is left more and more to professionals. Manning will appear at the 2022 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 14-16.

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