Dispatches from the Default Period
December 2, 2014 Despite a body of work that traverses a broad landscape of American character and experience, Richard Ford will always be recognized first as the creator of Frank Bascombe, American Everyman. Bascombe returns in Let Me Be Frank With You, a series of spare, ruminative tales of quiet longing in New Jersey in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Richard Ford will appear on December 10, 2014, at 6:15 p.m. at the Nashville Public Library. The event, part of the Salon@615 series, is free and open to the public.
November 25, 2014 Flesh and Blood is Patricia Cornwell’s twenty-second novel featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta. Since the series began, with the 1990 publication of Postmortem, Cornwell’s books have sold more than 100 million copies in 120 countries, and fans will be glad to know that Flesh and Blood includes the same core cast of characters they have come to know and love.
November 24, 2014 Short Stories by Jesus, the latest book by Vanderbilt professor Amy-Jill Levine, analyzes a misunderstood and nearly forgotten literary form: the parable. Levine, a professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt, argues that Jesus’s parables have been domesticated into easy lessons, robbed of their power to surprise, subvert, and indict.
November 21, 2014 Sharyn McCrumb gives fans of her Ballad series an early Christmas present with her new novella, Nora Bonesteel’s Christmas Past, which is told in alternating vignettes featuring Sheriff Spencer Arrowood and Nora Bonesteel, two popular characters from the series.
November 20, 2014 “A Story in Every Cup”—that’s the motto of Nashville’s Thistle Stop Café. In The Way of Tea and Justice, Becca Stevens, Episcopal priest and founder of Thistle Farms, tells the story of the Thistle Stop Café, where, in Stevens’ words, “we recognize the dignity of each person” while providing additional employment opportunities for former prostitutes in recovery.
November 19, 2014 The stories in The Last Bizarre Tale, a new collection by Knoxville native David Madden, exhibit the protean nature of Madden’s gifts: his masterful tales run the gamut of literary styles and genres, each entry marked with the stamp of its author’s ingenuity. Madden will appear at Knox Heritage in Knoxville on November 21, 2014, at 11:30 a.m.