Book Reviews

August 30, 2012 Regardless of where one stands on the subject of Barack Obama, the trajectory of his life—his nomadic ancestors on both sides, his naively courageous mother and mercurial father, his global childhood , and his search for identity and purpose as a young man—can only be seen as remarkable. With Barack Obama: The Story, David Maraniss delivers what will likely stand as the first volume of the president’s definitive biography and an absorbing history that, through the window of an extraordinary life, is also the story of America—past, present, and future. David Maraniss will discuss Barack Obama at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

August 29, 2012 Perhaps all avid readers mark their lives by the books they’ve read and by the way those books have influenced them. Frye Gaillard certainly does, and as a journalist he also has a strong sense of how books show us pictures of the world at a certain time and place. More than just a memoir, The Books That Mattered is a fascinating blend of personal, cultural, and literary history. Gaillard takes readers to a segregated courtroom in Alabama, a prison in Argentina, the dust bowl of Oklahoma, and a small attic hideout in Europe. As disparate as those books and places are, they all live on in Gaillard, who will appear at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

August 22, 2012 In Buzz Bissinger’s Father’s Day: A Journey into the Mind & Heart of My Extraordinary Son a ten-day road trip across America is the backdrop for a haunting and brutally honest account of a father’s struggle to understand the adult his special-needs child has become. Bissinger, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Friday Night Lights, presents an unforgettable portrait of his son Zach, a cognitively disabled man in his mid-twenties who speaks in nonstop non sequiturs, can name and give the birthday of every person he has ever met, and memorizes maps so accurately that his family refers to him as a “human GPS.” Bissinger will discuss Father’s Day at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.