January 25, 2013 In Writing—the Sacred Art Rabbi Rami Shapiro and his son, Aaron Shapiro, turn a beloved genre inside out. Writing as one voice to insure coherence and illustrate the constructed nature of the narrated “I,” they offer sage advice for the person who really wants to write a book but should first spend more time deconstructing the self: “The self is a story and nothing more,” they note. “By now you know that you are never the story you tell.”
January 22, 2013 “We get what we’re given. Nothing more, nothing less,” writes Marjorie Celona in her debut novel, Y. This terse, stoic observation captures Celona’s ethos as a storyteller. Y limns the lives of Shannon, an infant abandoned on the steps of the YMCA, and Yula, the abused and traumatized teenage mother who leaves her there. Moving back and forth in time, the novel follows the events leading up to the birth and Shannon’s frequently harrowing journey through the foster-care system. Through it all, Shannon waits for the chance to find her birth parents and ask the titular question, “Why?” Celona will discuss and sign copies of Y at Parnassus Books on January 24 at 6:30 p.m.
January 22, 2013 In 2010, during the weeks leading up to the publication of Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys racked up a perfect set of starred reviews, one from each of the four pre-publication review sites used by the bookselling industry to make ordering decisions.
January 15, 2013 “I’m not quite one of those ‘born in the wrong body’ types you see on Oprah or The Learning Channel,” T Cooper writes. “I actually think I was born in the right body. It’s just a little different, and it doesn’t fit squarely into the gender binary.” Cooper will read from and discuss his new memoir, Real Man Adventures, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 17 at 6:30 p.m. On March 11, Cooper will also read at the University of Tennessee’s Hodges Library. Both events are free and open to the public.
January 14, 2013 Any good history of desegregation highlights the unique circumstances of a particular incident without losing sight of the general social transformation it was a part of. Rhodes College professor Stephen R. Haynes has managed to do exactly that in his new book, The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation, which provides a thorough and engaging overview of the struggle to integrate the Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis. Haynes will appear at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on January 22 at 6 p.m.
January 10, 2013 In Alana White’s debut novel, The Sign of the Weeping Virgin, Guid’Antonio Vespucci and his nephew Amerigo return from a two-year diplomatic mission to Paris only to find their native Florence in disarray. A young woman has been kidnapped, supposedly by the infidel Turks, and a painting of the Virgin Mary is weeping in the Vespucci home church. In fifteenth-century Italy, these events are equally disturbing. Many in Florence believe the Virgin is weeping over Lorenzo Medici’s long argument with Pope Sixtus IV. Rebellion and mutiny are in the air.
