Clyde Edgerton brilliantly captures the complex dance of music and race in a small Southern town in 1963
August 12, 2011 At barely 200 pages, The Night Train is Clyde Edgerton’s shortest book, and yet in its simple story of two musically inclined teenagers, one white and one black, it may surpass Walking Across Egypt and The Bible Salesman as his best. Edgerton will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.
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Shania Twain’s new memoir is a tale of passion and perseverance
Secrets are safe with Shania Twain. The five-time Grammy winner has sold seventy-five million albums, but she has also lived much of her life in silence, fiercely protecting her family’s “painful” and “embarrassing” past from public scrutiny. The decision to divulge some of those secrets in the hope that it might “be of help to others” is what gives her new autobiography, From this Moment On, its remarkable heart.
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In Myra McEntire’s YA thriller, Hourglass, two young sweethearts travel into the past to prevent a murder
August 8, 2011 When Emerson Cole discovers that she may have the ability to travel through time, she’s not particularly thrilled. As a high-school senior with exactly one friend, she’s actually far less interested in time travel than in avoiding the label of total freak. In Hourglass, Myra McEntire takes a twisting, turning journey through the physics of time, but the most important journey is Emerson’s discovery of her own surprising reserves of courage, love, and loyalty. Timeless qualities indeed. On August 8 at 6:30 p.m, McEntire will read at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Brentwood as a part of the Ash2Nash Tour of YA authors.
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Will Kaufman’s political biography of Woody Guthrie teaches a lesson in homegrown radicalism
August 4, 2011 Folk singer Woody Guthrie is best known for “This Land Is Your Land,” a patriotic travelogue that has become America’s second national anthem. Like Guthrie’s own image, however, the song has been gutted of its political importance over the years. In Woody Guthrie, American Radical, Will Kaufman reclaims Guthrie’s radicalism, painting a picture of an inconsistent yet passionate crusader who saw tyranny as the greatest of all evils. At noon on August 10, Kaufman will present a live musical documentary on the songs and politics of Woody Guthrie, American Radical at the Nashville Public Library as part of the Salon@615 series.
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Victoria Schwab grew up with her head in J.K. Rowling’s fictional world; now she’s writing fiction of her own
August 2, 2011 In The Near Witch, the debut young-adult novel from Nashville author Victoria Schwab, an unfamiliar boy shows up in the insular village of Near, which has not been visited by strangers in decades. Soon, children are going missing from their homes, night after night. Only a young girl, Lexi, who narrates the story, is convinced that the strange boy is not to blame. Darkly atmospheric, this story by a twenty-three-year-old debut author is an accomplished take on the classic fairy-tale form. Victoria Schwab will read from The Near Witch as part of the “Ash To Nash Tour” of YA writers. They will be in Kingsport on August 6, Knoxville on August 7, and Brentwood on August 8. For details, visit the tour’s website here.
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In Silver Sparrow, Tayari Jones explores the burden of secrecy
July 22, 2011 In Silver Sparrow, the third novel from Tayari Jones, a girl named Dana Lynn Yarboro grows up a captive to her parents’ secrets: her father, James Witherspoon, who is married to her mother, has another wife and daughter. From an early age, Dana learns what it means to be an “outside child,” forbidden to tell anyone of her real father. But over time her desire to know her sister, and her desire to be known, gets the best of her, and she begins to pick away at the thin membrane of secrecy that keeps the girls apart. Set in the 1980s, Silver Sparrow is a thoughtful story about bigamy, but it is also a lovely, realistic portrait of two teenage African-American girls, and an exploration of the bonds between mothers and daughters. Tayari Jones will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.
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