Girl at a Crossroads
January 15, 2015 Eleven-year-old Stella Mills has always felt safe in the embrace of her family and community. But Stella feels helpless during a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan—until she finds a way to help. Sharon Draper, five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, will discuss her new middle-grade novel, Stella by Starlight, at the Nashville Public Library on January 22, 2015, at 6 p.m. and at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on January 23, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
January 13, 2015 Regina Mary Robichard, the determined young NAACP lawyer at the center of Deborah Johnson’s The Secret of Magic, finds herself deeply drawn to the case of a brutal murder in segregation-era Mississippi. Investigating, she enters a world of both racial conflict and magical surprise. Deborah Johnson will discuss The Secret of Magic at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 17, 2015, at 2 p.m.
January 9, 2015 Barbara Barnes Sims spent three years witnessing rock’n’roll history from the ground level, working at the legendary Sun Records label in the late 1950s. Her fascinating memories of that time are collected in The Next Elvis: Searching for Stardom at Sun Records.
January 8, 2015 In The Deepest Human Life: An Introduction to Philosophy for Everyone, Scott Samuelson brings together a broad range of philosophical writings, poetry, stories from his students, and the occasional folk song. It is an approachable book full of insight and wonder. Samuelson will appear at Rhodes College in Memphis on January 15, 2015, at 6 p.m.
January 6, 2015 Christopher Scotton’s debut novel, The Secret Wisdom of the Earth, is both contemporary and old-fashioned, addressing present-day issues in a novelistic form that harks back to the nineteenth century. Scotton will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 13, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
December 11, 2014 Gil Scott-Heron’s rise to prominence and inexorable fall into addiction seem to echo an old and oft-repeated story in the music world, but Marcus Baram’s Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man delves deeply into the artist’s life and psyche, offering insight into why this particular man went down that sad road.