April 27, 2015 When Anna—the ex-pat heroine of Jill Alexander Essbaum’s debut novel, Hausfrau—falls into an extramarital tangle with a fellow foreigner, the affair seems contrary to her entire nature as a person and threatens the passive surface of her life. Jill Alexander Essbaum will discuss Hausfrau at The Skillery in Nashville on May 1, 2015, at 7 p.m. The event, sponsored by The Porch Writers’ Collective and Parnassus Books, is free and open to the public.
April 21, 2015 An almost-washed-up movie director returns to his hometown to make an indie film that just might salvage his career. That’s the premise of Memphis Movie, Corey Mesler’s wild ride of a novel, which combines Hollywood cynicism with Memphis soul to create a comic tale with a sweet afterglow. Mesler will read from his novel at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on April 30, 2015, at 5:30 p.m.
April 17, 2015 In Denton Loving’s debut poetry collection, Crimes Against Birds, the rhythms of the waking world and the dream world hold equal power. Set among the narrow mountain roads, apple orchards, and cattle pastures of southern Appalachia, these poems push beyond bucolic portraits of nature. They ask us to wake up even as we descend into dreams.
April 16, 2015 In Dear Hank Williams, National Book Award-winning children’s author Kimberly Willis Holt tells the story of an eleven-year-old in 1940s Louisiana through letters the girl writes to Hank Williams. Holt will appear at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on April 22 at 6:30 p.m.
April 15, 2015 In The Patriot Threat, Steve Berry’s latest thriller, Cotton Malone searches for evidence that the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been illegal from its inception—and that for more than a hundred years all federal income tax has been collected fraudulently. Berry will appear at the Nashville Public Library on April 22, 2015, at 6:15 p.m. as part of the Salon@615 series.
April 14, 2015 What Comes Next and How to Like It, Abigail Thomas’s newest memoir, both exemplifies and transcends its genre as Thomas meditates on what it means to edit life down to essentials: love, forgiveness, pleasure, and letting go. Thomas will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 21, 2015, at 6:30 p.m
