Book Reviews | Chapter 16

Scattered Sparks

With The Pinch, Steve Stern continues his dazzling fictional exploration of the intersection of reality, spirituality, and mysticism

By Ed Tarkington | May 28, 2015

May 28, 2015 High-wire acts performed by an acrobatic enchantress; a young couple making love in a giant tree in the midst of an earthquake; a drug-dealing bookstore clerk who finds a decades-old history of his neighborhood and discovers that he himself appears as a character in its pages—these are some of the elements of The Pinch, Steve Stern’s latest novel. Stern will appear at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis at 6 p.m. on June 4, 2015.

Prologue to Tragedy

Steve Inskeep casts new light on the ideas of land ownership that led to the Trail of Tears

By Brenda Jackson-Abernathy | May 27, 2015

May 27, 2015 In Jacksonland: Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab, Steve Inskeep has produced a compelling study of the interwoven lives of Jackson and Ross, as well as the struggle over land that played out between whites and Native Americans. Inskeep will appear at the Bijou Theater in Knoxville on June 2, 2015, and at the Nashville Public Library on June 4, 2015.

Into History

In Fresh Water from Old Wells, Cindy Henry McMahon confronts her family’s tumultuous path toward social justice

By Emily Choate | May 21, 2015

May 21, 2015 In Fresh Water From Old Wells, Cindy Henry McMahon reveals a tumultuous family history that encompasses both civil-rights activism and backwoods hippie enclaves as she seeks to restore her own fractured memories. McMahon will discuss Fresh Water from Old Wells at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on May 31, 2015, at 2 p.m.

From Cold Cases to Hot Pursuit

What Lies Behind, J.T. Ellison’s new thriller, whiplashes Samantha Owens from a crime of passion to a global conspiracy

By Kathryn Justice Leache | May 20, 2015

May 20, 2015 Samantha Owens, the protagonist of What Lies Behind, J.T. Ellison’s latest thriller, has left crime-scene investigation to take a plum job in academia. Then a brutal crime pulls her back in. Ellison will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 26, 2015; at Reading Rock Books in Dickson on May 28, 2015; and at Books-A-Million at Nashville on May 29, 2015. All events are free and open to the public.

Bad Moon, Good Story

Betsy Phillips’s new novel, The Wolf’s Bane, launches a new series of limited-edition books

By Joe Nolan | May 19, 2015

May 19, 2015 Betsy Phillips’s new book, The Wolf’s Bane, is the inaugural project of the Nashville Limited Edition Club. Founded by Jennifer Knowles of Brown Dog Bindery and Chuck Beard of East Side Story, the club will connect authors, artists, and bookbinders to create one-of-a-kind books published by Knowles and distributed by Beard. Phillips will launch The Wolf’s Bane with a reading at East Side Story in Nashville on May 22, 2015, at 6 p.m.

The Source of an Artistic Soul

In Hold Still, photographer Sally Mann interrogates the past that shaped her

By Maria Browning | May 18, 2015

May 18, 2015 Photographer Sally Mann’s body of work—which includes haunting images of her family and the Southern landscape, as well as unsettling studies of death and decay—is remarkable for its beauty and singular intensity. Hold Still, her new memoir, is a fascinating meditation on the sources of that work, as well as a reckoning with the unreliability of both memory and photography as ways of preserving the past. Mann will discuss the book in a conversation with novelist Ann Patchett at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville on May 21, 2015, at 6:15 p.m.

I Gotta Sing!

By Alice Faye Duncan
WaterBrook
40 pages
$14.99

“A whole barnyard makes noise ‘in the Spirit of joy’ throughout this raucous picture book, a sweetly heartwarming sing-along by Duncan. Kellam conveys comfort and happiness as the loved ones reflect sunny enthusiasm in this gladdening rendition of the Black American religious folk song ‘I’m Goin’a Sing When the Spirit Says Sing.’”

~Publishers Weekly