Book Reviews

April 4, 2012 R.J. Smith can’t be accused of objectivity—his abject adoration of James Brown seeps onto nearly every page—but his acclaimed new bio of the Hardest Working Man in Show Business is exhaustively researched and makes a square accounting of Brown’s triumphs, humiliations, and criminal excesses. R.J. Smith will discuss The One: The Life and Music of James Brown in Nashville at Parnassus Books on April 5 at 6:30 p.m., and at Vanderbilt University’s First Amendment Center on April 6 at 9 a.m. Both events are free and open to the public, but the Vanderbilt event requires a reservation. Email heather.lefkowitz@vanderbilt.edu for admission.

March 28, 2012 “On Memorial Day 2002 I woke up and decided to leave my husband,” begins Margaret Overton’s memoir, Good in a Crisis. Her husband of twenty years, a surgeon, does not object to the divorce as it gives him more time to spend with his young girlfriend. As if this situation were not stressful enough, Overton, a Chicago anesthesiologist with two teenaged daughters, suffers a brain aneurysm a few months later. Good in a Crisis is the story of how she survives the dissolution of her marriage and a life-threatening illness at the same time—with the help of her family and friends and a healthy sense of humor—and all the lessons she learns (mostly the hard way) in the process. Margaret Overton will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 4 at 6:30 p.m.

March 23, 2012 Mark Richard was born with a disability, and both his physical challenges and the assumptions they inspired in others informed his sensibilities, set the stage for his brilliant memoir, House of Prayer No. 2, and ultimately explains why he is now one of the South’s finest writers. Mark Richard will appear at Lipscomb University in Nashville on March 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Ezell Center. The lecture is free and open to the public. Click here for event details.

March 21, 2012 Jonathan D. Sarna’s When General Grant Expelled the Jews is a masterfully written study of the “General Orders No. 11” issued by Ulysses S. Grant in late 1862, a decision that removed all Jewish residents from the military theatre under Grant’s control. Sarna examines the long-term consequences of the order, both for American Jews as a whole and for Grant as an individual. By considering Grant’s motives, the reaction of Jewish leaders in the U.S., and the impact the orders had on Grant’s relationship with the Jewish community for the rest of his career, When General Grant Expelled the Jews persuasively argues that Grant’s actions ultimately strengthened the position of Jews in America and pushed him to seek his own personal redemption. Sarna will discuss the book at the Jewish Community Center in Memphis on March 25 at 2 p.m. Click here for details.