The energy and attitude of punk music inspired Rob Rufus after a devastating diagnosis
As a teen growing up in the 1990s, Rob Rufus and his friends felt the classic alienation of youth. In Die Young with Me: A Memoir, Rufus tells the story of discovering punk music and his simultaneous battle with cancer.
Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf demystify a founding father
Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination by Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf explores the ideas, times, and misconceptions about a founding father often described as indecipherable. Gordon-Reed will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16.
Adam Hochschild argues that the Spanish Civil War was one of the first great populist causes
Adam 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.
A cold case warms up as Beverly Lowry disentangles a web of accusations and false confessions
Beverly Lowry’s Who Killed These Girls? chronicles the cold case of the Yogurt Shop Murders, from crime to false confessions, that left Austin a changed city. Lowry will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-15.
Virginia Reeves explores the way a passion for work can imprison the worker
In her debut novel, Work Like Any Other, Virginia Reeves explores the nature of work, how it defines and shapes families. Reeves will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16.
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In Robert Olen Butler’s Perfume River, Vietnam haunts soldiers and their families decades after the war
In Robert Olen Butler’s new novel, Perfume River, the past is very much present as an aging history professor struggles to shake traumatic memories of the Vietnam War and the way it tore his family apart. Butler will discuss Perfume River at Crosstown Arts in Memphis on October 13 at 6 p.m., and also at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16.
