November 13, 2015 Basketball has helped to define Barack Obama, both as a person and as a president. In The Audacity of Hoop, veteran sportswriter Alexander Wolff explores the man, the sport, and his era. Wolff will discuss and sign his new book at the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on November 17, 2015, at 6 p.m. The reading will be preceded by a reception at 5:30 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
November 12, 2015 Novelist Charlie Lovett has found his niche in writing novels that combine his passion for classic English literature with his gifts as a storyteller. In The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge, Lovett imagines what might have happened after a change of heart experienced by western literature’s most famous Christmas curmudgeon. Lovett will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on November 18, 2015, at 6 p.m.
November 10, 2015 The first two volumes of Jane Smiley’s Last One Hundred Years trilogy cover 1920-1986, as reflected through the lives of an Iowa family. In Golden Age, the final installment of the series, Smiley takes readers through the heady ‘90s, the shaky aughts, and the present decade, finally offering a disturbing glimpse into the near future. Smiley will discuss her new novel at the Nashville Public Library on November 18, 2015, at 6:15 p.m.
November 9, 2015 In 2010, rock icon Patti Smith won a National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids, a chronicle of her early years in New York City and her relationship with fine-art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Now Smith returns with M Train, a haunting, elegiac meditation on the challenges of translating memory into art. Smith will appear at OZ Arts Nashville on November 13, 2015, at 7 p.m.
November 6, 2015 Winner of Killer Nashville’s 2014 Claymore Award, Dana Chamblee Carpenter’s debut novel is a tale of medieval Bohemia that contains familiar themes of love, death, and religion combined in unfamiliar ways. Carpenter will discuss Bohemian Gospel at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 15, 2015, at 2 p.m. and at Star Line Books in Chattanooga on November 21 at 2 p.m.
November 5, 2015 Peter Guralnick’s Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll not only recounts the musical titans who passed through Sun Records but also explores the ideas and experiences of its iconoclastic hero. Guralnick will discuss the book at the Brooks Museum in Memphis on November 11, 2015, at 7 p.m. and at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville on November 14, 2015, at 1:30 p.m.
