Ace Atkins’s third Spenser mystery takes Robert B. Parker’s legendary detective into the world of professional football
May 5, 2914 In 2011, the Robert Parker estate tapped Ace Atkins to continue the late writer’s beloved series of thrillers. With Cheap Shot, his third Spenser novel, Atkins proves again that he is indeed up to the challenge. Atkins will appear at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on May 15, 2014, at 7 p.m.
A suspicious death at a military base exposes secrets and threatens careers in N.P. Simpson’s new thriller
May 1, 2014 It was not unusual for Ann Burkhalter to stay at the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters (B.O.Q.) when she returned to Camp Lejeune for a visit. But when Burkhalter is found floating in the New River, Fran Setliff, the only female NCIS officer at Camp Lejeune, must discover whether the drowning is a tragic accident, a suicide, or foul play. N P. Simpson, who spent part of her childhood in Memphis, sets her mystery novel debut, B.O.Q., in the insular world of a military base—and in the process offers a new take on the police procedural.
Jesse Mathison gets his priorities straight with a new book of verse and images
April 30, 2014 Priorities is both a book of poetry accompanied by art and a book of art accompanied by poetry. The text and images contradict, coerce, command, and communicate with each other as the project marks a successful collaboration between Nashville poet Jesse Mathison and a group of visual artists who together form the Creek collective. The group will host an exhibition and book-release party on May 3 at 6 p.m. at the Frothy Monkey in downtown Nashville.
Singer-songwriter Todd Snider, known for his hilarious concert tales, has finally written a memoir
April 29, 2014 During two decades of touring, record-cutting, and inciting off-the-rails incidents, acclaimed singer-songwriter Todd Snider has become known for spinning wild true-life yarns at his live performances. Many of those stories are gathered into Snider’s funny and frank new memoir, I Never Met a Story I Didn’t Like, a sort of freewheeling Künstlerroman of the musical set.
Greg Iles is back, and his new thriller channels the storytelling style of William Faulkner
April 24, 2014 In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the mayor of Natchez, Mississippi, gets a phone call that will change his life forever—and possibly reveal many secrets from the South’s deadly civil-rights struggle. New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles is back with a megathriller, Natchez Burning, the first in a trilogy whose themes of race relations, Southern tradition, and the corrupting nature of power are woven throughout a story so powerful that its 800 pages seem less like a challenge than a gift. Iles will discuss Natchez Burning at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on May 1, 2014, at 6 p.m.
Christian Wiman, former editor of Poetry magazine, searches for the “poetry and prose” of contemporary faith
April 23, 2014 A married father of two fighting a rare cancer, Christian Wiman faces the bottomless questions of existence and craves the “poetry and prose of knowing.” His memoir, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer, draws on both forms to describe his own experiences of grace. Wiman will speak at the Buechner Institute at King University in Bristol on April 24, 2014, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
