October 31, 2013 For Red Holler: Contemporary Appalachian Literature, John Branscum and Wayne Thomas have compiled a group of stories, essays, poems, and graphic narratives from the work of twenty-three Appalachian authors. As the book’s subtitle suggests, the selections are truly contemporary, and many stretch the boundaries of traditional literary forms. They also stretch the old Appalachian stereotypes of primitive violence, poverty, and ignorance.
October 29, 2013 In The Men Who United the States: America’s Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible, Simon Winchester lauds those who physically united a nation. The inventions and public works he describes have served to bring – and hold – together one of the largest and most diverse countries on the planet. Winchester will discuss The Men Who United the States at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 7, 2013, at 6:30 p.m.
October 23, 2013 Garrison Keillor’s popular NPR program, A Prairie Home Companion, has provided the basis for Keillor’s many novels and story collections, a film starring Meryl Streep, and now a volume of comic verse. Keillor will read from O, What a Luxury on October 28, 2013, at 6:15 p.m. at the Nashville Public Library. The event, part of the Salon@615 series, is free and open to the public.
October 21, 2013 Just two months have passed since Marsh Windsor’s identical twin, Austin, was killed in a car wreck, with Marsh at the wheel. But what nobody imagines is the real reason behind the teen’s odd behavior. He’s seeking a “thin space,” a passage through which it’s possible to slip into the afterlife. Jody Casella will read from her debut novel, Thin Space, at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on October 26, 2013, at 2 p.m.
October 16, 2013 There was a time, not too long ago, when you could tell a lot about a Tennessean by his thoughts on the snail darter. The three-inch-long fish, a member of the perch family, lives in certain reaches of Chickamauga Creek and the Sequatchie River, both in East Tennessee. It used to live in the Little Tennessee River, too, until the Tennessee Valley Authority built the Tellico Dam, which destroyed the steady stream of fresh water that the fish needed to survive. In The Snail Darter and the Dam, Zygmunt J.B. Plater, the UT law professor who led the challenge to TVA, tells the full story.
October 15, 2013 More than twenty years have passed since the publication of The Secret History, the extraordinary international-bestselling novel that established Donna Tartt as a literary legend at age twenty-eight, and more than a decade since her most recent, the equally acclaimed The Little Friend. Tartt’s new novel, The Goldfinch—a coming-of-age tale that gradually evolves into a pulse-quickening thriller—is well worth the wait. Tartt will appear at the Nashville Public Library on October 22, 2013, at 6:15 p.m. as part of the Salon@6:15 series. The event is free and open to the public.
