Book Reviews

When novelist Jill Ciment was 17, she began a relationship with her art teacher, a married man 30 years her senior. Their love affair became a marriage that lasted until her husband’s death more than four decades later. Ciment wrote about their romance in her 1996 memoir, Half a Life. In a new book, Consent, Ciment reconsiders their story. Ciment will discuss the book with Ann Patchett at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 27.

In An Unfinished Love Story, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin remembers her long marriage to speechwriter and presidential advisor Richard Goodwin and explores the complex symbiosis of the two administrations they championed. Doris Kearns Goodwin will discuss the book with Jon Meacham at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville on June 18.

In The Pecan Children, the two authors behind the pen name Quinn Connor capture the eerie magic of a small Southern town and the twin sisters at the center of its spell. Robyn Barrow and Alexandra Cronin will appear at Novel in Memphis on June 11.

Jeff Mann’s Loving Mountains, Loving Men, a hybrid work of poetry and memoir, explores the struggle and resilience of the LGBTQ community in Appalachia. Mann will discuss the book at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on June 9.