Book Reviews | Chapter 16

Forget Me Not

Sharon Cameron’s latest YA fantasy is a meditation on truth and memory

By Tina Chambers | September 1, 2016

TheForgetting “I’ve been taught to write truth in my book since I was old enough to hold a pen. Our books are our sole identity after the Forgetting, the string that connects us to who we were before,” explains the teenage hero of Sharon Cameron’s newest YA fantasy, The Forgetting. Cameron will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 8, 2016, and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016.

Four Brooklyn Girls

Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn meditates on the nature of friendship, love, and loss

By Erica Ciccarone | August 30, 2016

AnotherBrooklyn HC C With Another Brooklyn, celebrated children’s author Jacqueline Woodson has written her first novel for adult readers in twenty years—the coming-of-age story of four Brooklyn girls determined not to be defined by their family’s tragedies. Woodson will speak at the Nashville Public Library on September 7, 2016, and at Crosstown Arts in Memphis on September 8. Both events are free and open to the public.

Falling from Great Heights

In her debut novel, Sunset City, Melissa Ginsburg offers a fresh take on classic noir

By Erica Wright | August 25, 2016

SunsetCity hc c Melissa Ginsburg’s debut crime novel, Sunset City, unravels the brutal killing of a porn star while exploring some unexpected side effects of grief. Ginsburg will be at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016. Festival events are free and open to the public.

A Cruel and Compassionate Hero

James Lee McDonough exposes the many contradictions of William Tecumseh Sherman

By Chris Scott | August 23, 2016

William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life is James Lee McDonough’s detailed look at a brilliant, multi-faceted soldier who never hesitated to visit the hell of war on his enemies. McDonough will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016.

Parallel Lives

Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel, Homegoing portrays the ravages of the slave trade on both sides of the Atlantic

By Sean Kinch | August 17, 2016

Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel, Homegoing, follows the story of two half-sisters born in Ghana in the late-eighteenth century. Effia becomes the “African wife” of a British colonial governor, while Esi is captured by a rival tribe and sold into slavery. Gyasi will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016.

Still So Far from Safe

A transgender teen struggles to survive high school in Meredith Russo’s If I Was Your Girl

By Tina Chambers | August 16, 2016

If I Was Your Girl_final cover (2) Meredith Russo’s powerful YA novel, If I Was Your Girl, is extraordinary not because of the events it depicts but because of its point of view: that of an emotionally fragile transgender teen struggling to survive the ruthless world of high school. Russo will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016.

Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past

By Tore C. Olsson
St. Martin's Press
288 pages
$30

“I recommend Red Dead’s History unreservedly not only to fans of the iconic video game, but also to anyone who wants to understand the riotousness — from Wild West gunslingers to Jim Crow to lynching — that darkened our past, and which continues to influence our culture. Olsson’s prose is graceful, his analysis profound. This is history at its most accessible and exciting.”

~Peter Cozzens, award-winning author of A Brutal Reckoning