September 13, 2011 Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber is structured like literary Chinese handcuffs: no character in this book can be free without first moving closer to the others, and no reader can finish it without looping backwards, too, through her own history. Abu-Jaber will discuss and sign copies of Birds of Paradise at the Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on September 21 at 6 p.m.
September 12, 2011 Tracy Barrett has a way with classical myth. Her last young-adult novel, the brilliant King of Ithaka, is an astonishingly original and surefooted reworking of Homer’s Odyssey, in which she somehow discovered new paths on what must be the Western canon’s most heavily trodden ground. Her newest book, Dark of the Moon, takes another famous Greek legend—the story of Theseus and the Minotaur—and makes it fresh and fascinating, even as it honors the foundations of the original tale.
September 9, 2011 For acclaimed journalist Melissa Fay Greene and her husband, the prospect of being home alone after their four children grew up was not a happy one. No Biking in the House Without a Helmet is Greene’s account of how her family adopted five more children—a son from Bulgaria, and three sons and a daughter from Ethiopia—and found all their lives “enlivened and enriched” in the process. Melissa Fay Greene will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.
September 1, 2011 In his funny, whimsical debut novel, The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson creates a familiar family drama with an outrageous twist. Kevin Wilson will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.
August 29, 2011 In The Chitlin’ Circuit: And the Road to Rock and Roll, Memphis music writer Preston Lauterbach takes us back before the days when black music had its way with white teenagers; back to a time when Southern black musicians like B. B. King, Little Richard, and Ray Charles depended for their livelihood on the informal yet influential association of rural nightclubs, big city “strolls,” and gangsters-cum-entrepreneurs known as the chitlin’ circuit. Lauterbach will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.
August 26, 2011 Already pushing forty, Georgia Bottoms somehow remains the legendary bombshell of Six Points, Alabama, without missing a single Sunday service at the First Baptist Church, and despite a revolving-door cast of gentleman—including the pastor, the sheriff, a prominent judge, and a bank president—all of whom are devoted to her charms and completely unaware that they are not the only “caller” entertained by Miss Georgia in her garage-apartment boudoir. Mark Childress will read from his hilarious new novel, Georgia Bottoms, at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.
