Book Reviews

December 26, 2010 What is the South, and who owns its memory? At the core of the question, renewed in Michael Kreyling’s The South That Wasn’t There: Postsouthern Memory and History, is the conflict between an idealized cultural “memory” of the South as it appears in the iconic Gone With the Wind, and the grim, brutal realities of Southern history that haunt the characters of Toni Morrison’s 1987 masterpiece, Beloved.

December 2, 2010 In The Last Good War: The Faces and Voices of World War II, photographer Thomas Sanders created images of American veterans spanning all walks of life and service branches. Journalist and native Nashvillian Veronica Kevass interviewed the veterans, as well, letting them tell their stories in their own words. The resulting book is a loving thank-you note to the millions who saved the world.

December 1, 2010 At first glance, Roy Blount Jr.’s Hail, Hail, Euphoria! Presenting the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, the Greatest War Movie Ever Made appears to be an essay, perhaps for Entertainment Weekly, that got out of hand. It is 145 pages long, including photos and a page of photo credits, and they aren’t very big pages at that, barely registering eight-by-five inches. The title is almost longer than the book. The book is barely longer than the script of the 1933 farce it celebrates. But dip into the pages of all things Fredonia, and you realize you are in the presence of a profoundly gifted (Groucho) Marxist delivering his greatest lecture on (Groucho) Marxism.

November 30, 2010 A fold-and-glue tour of iconic Gotham architecture and scenes, Kell Black’s new book, Paper New York, is a tiny treasure trove, an architecture primer, and a sentimental postcard from The City, all wrapped up in one, slim, tasteful volume. Including simple instructions, twenty die-cut, pop-out models, and a smattering of smart, engaging information about the buildings that the book depicts—and its readers recreate—Paper New York is much more than just a crafty activity pack.

November 17, 2010 “A spy prefers to share only that which is to his benefit, no more, and much of what he shares will not be true,” cautions the journalist Steve Hendricks in an early chapter of A Kidnapping in Milan: The CIA on Trial. “This presents a conundrum for all who would understand espionage: Trust spies not at all, and one learns nothing. Trust them too much, and one might as well have learned nothing.” In researching his new nonfiction thriller, Hendricks, a freelance reporter living in Knoxville, appears to have trusted spies just the right amount, interviewing them on three continents over the course of two years. He clearly learned a great deal—not only about spies, but also about the terrorists they seek to catch by any means they deem necessary.