A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Quintessential Observer

Brandon Taylor’s prizewinning story collection, Filthy Animals, has just been released in paperback. He spoke with Chapter 16 about his Southern roots, his Baptist upbringing, how his brief career as a scientist has influenced his writing, and why he has been increasingly drawn to analog technologies in our digitally obsessed world.

Quintessential Observer

Discovering the Soil All Over Again

When he died in January 2022, historian John Rice Irwin was described as the “guardian of Appalachia’s past.” In a 2008 interview, he talked with poet Jesse Graves about his family and his life’s work.

Discovering the Soil All Over Again

Building Momentum

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: A former crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Michael Connelly discusses with Chapter 16 the slow death of local newspapers; his latest Harry Bosch installment, Nine Dragons; electronic books; and his popular legal-series protagonist, Mickey Haller. 

Building Momentum

Deconstructing a Dog

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Whether you’re the adoring owner of a pittie or a person who thinks pit-bull bans make perfect sense, you are likely to find some of your assumptions overturned by Bronwen Dickey’s Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon. Dickey sifts through a great deal of history, science, and popular culture to uncover the truth about the dogs and the source of our extreme ideas about them. 

Deconstructing a Dog

Finding Her Place in the Sun

Jamie Sumner’s middle-grade novel The Summer of June tells the story of one 12-year-old’s struggle to manage her anxiety. Sumner will sign the book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 4.  

Finding Her Place in the Sun

Faction Jackson

In The First Populist: The Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson, biographer David S. Brown explains the world that shaped the seventh president of the United States, while illustrating how Jackson’s brand of raucous, divisive politics changed the new American nation.

Faction Jackson

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