March 10, 2016 Vanderbilt alum Nate Marshall grew up on Chicago’s troubled far South Side, miles and worlds away from the city’s tourist attractions and gleaming skyscrapers. His debut poetry collection, Wild Hundreds, evokes the beauty and joy that exist there alongside the struggle. Marshall will give a free public reading at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on March 18, 2016, at 4 p.m.
March 8, 2016 The struggle is real for Toby Wilcox, a fourth-grader at the McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children. In Mrs. Ravenbach’s Way by William M. Akers, spirited and independent Toby clashes with the overbearing and inflexible Mrs. Ravenbach, leading to an end-of-the-year showdown. Akers will read from his debut middle-grade novel at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 12, 2016, at 2 p.m.
March 7, 2016 Forest of Wonders is the first book in Linda Sue Park’s new fantasy trilogy, Wing and Claw. The Newbery winner will give a free public reading from her latest novel for middle-grade readers at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 9, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.
March 4, 2016 In Jeff Crook’s The Covenant, a recovering heroin addict with a less-than-steady job as a crime-scene photographer can’t afford to turn down work. But when she stumbles across a murder that local police seem disinclined to solve, she starts to wish she’d never left Memphis.
March 2, 2016 “What a special place I have in my heart for [those] who dream of a bigger world than the one they inhabit,” writes Nashville novelist Jeff Zentner in his debut young-adult novel, The Serpent King. Zentner will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 8, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.
February 29, 2016 We all hold something sacred, even if it’s only the right to hold nothing sacred. In Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious, David Dark sets out to wring some deeper truth from this facile notion and find possibilities for connection hidden within the very beliefs that appear to divide us. Dark will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 4, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.
