Book Reviews | Chapter 16

Without Spin

R.A. Dickey, Nashville native and New York Mets knuckleballer, has written a redemption narrative that spares no detail about why he needed to be redeemed

By Pablo Tanguay | April 11, 2012

April 11, 2012 In his new memoir, Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball (written with New York Daily News sportswriter Wayne Coffey), R.A. Dickey recounts his struggles to make it in the major leagues, achieving real success only after he transformed himself from a conventional pitcher into a knuckleballer. Dickey parallels that story with his real subject: how finally confronting the trauma of being sexually molested as a child freed him from self-centeredness and shame. For Dickey, mastering the knuckleball went hand-in-hand with mastering his own demons. Dickey will discuss the book on April 12 at Franklin’s LifeWay Christian Store at 4 p.m. and at Nashville’s Books-A-Million at 7:30 p.m.

Best of the Achaeans

Madeline Miller’s acclaimed debut novel introduces The Iliad’s great hero as a fighter and a lover

By Fernanda Moore | April 10, 2012

April 10, 2012 Madeline Miller’s debut novel, The Song of Achilles, aims to uncover the passionate love story hidden inside the greatest war epic in Western literature. The romantic leads are Achilles, the Greek war-hero par excellence, and Patroclus, his tent mate and best friend. Whether the men were actually lovers or simply “boon companions” has been up for debate since Homer first composed his epic saga of the Trojan War, but the love story Miller tells is glorious, and the context in which it plays out is faithful to the original. Miller will discuss The Song of Achilles at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 17 at 6:30 p.m.

Not On Miss Julia’s Watch

In her latest madcap adventure, Ann B. Ross’s popular heroine has no intention of letting a cult win the soul of her handyman

By Faye Jones | April 5, 2012

April 5, 2012 While a major home-renovation project would keep most people busy, Miss Julia finds time to run to West Virginia to break a man out of the hospital and crash a snake-handling worship service. But in this thirteenth outing for Ann B. Ross’s popular heroine, things aren’t much quieter back home, where she must battle some New Age cultists for the body and soul of her carpenter. Ann B. Ross will discuss Miss Julia to the Rescue at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on April 9 at 6 p.m., at Books-A-Million in Nashville on April 10 at 7 p.m., and at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on April 14 at 1 p.m.

The Cape Act

In The One, music journalist R.J. Smith makes an impassioned case for the Godfather of Soul as the most important American musician of the twentieth century

By Ed Tarkington | April 4, 2012

April 4, 2012 R.J. Smith can’t be accused of objectivity—his abject adoration of James Brown seeps onto nearly every page—but his acclaimed new bio of the Hardest Working Man in Show Business is exhaustively researched and makes a square accounting of Brown’s triumphs, humiliations, and criminal excesses. R.J. Smith will discuss The One: The Life and Music of James Brown in Nashville at Parnassus Books on April 5 at 6:30 p.m., and at Vanderbilt University’s First Amendment Center on April 6 at 9 a.m. Both events are free and open to the public, but the Vanderbilt event requires a reservation. Email heather.lefkowitz@vanderbilt.edu for admission.

Setting Out for the Promised Land

Marching to the Mountaintop, Ann Bausum’s overview of civil-rights history for young readers, begins in Memphis

By Tina LoTufo | April 3, 2012

April 3, 2012 On February 1, 1968, Echol Cole and Robert Walker were crushed to death when a loose shovel fell into the mechanism of the garbage truck in which they were riding. Eleven days later, nearly one thousand sanitation, sewer, and roadway workers in Memphis began a city-wide strike for safer and more humane working conditions, higher and more consistent wages, and the right to have a voice in their own treatment. Two months after that, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated on a motel balcony. Marching to the Mountaintop, Ann Bausum’s careful and thorough portrayal of this pivotal period, shows young readers how one event can set in motion forces powerful enough to change a city, a state, a nation—and maybe even the history of the world. Bausum will appear in Memphis at The Booksellers at Laurelwood on April 5 at 6 p.m.

Sewing Up Another Mystery in South Carolina

Elizabeth Lynn Casey takes her latest Southern Sewing Circle mystery to the movies

By Faye Jones | April 2, 2012

April 2, 2012 In Reap What You Sew, her sixth Southern Sewing Circle mystery, Elizabeth Lynn Casey returns to Sweet Briar, South Carolina, where Tori Sinclair has her dream job as the director of the town’s library, is engaged to a handsome and kind schoolteacher, and—perhaps most important—is now firmly ensconced in the town’s sewing circle, which has become family to her. But then a murder occurs, and Tori’s new friends are implicated. The result is a classic Casey cozy. To celebrate the fourth anniversary of Mysteries & More in Nashville, Elizabeth Lynn Casey will discuss and sign copies of Reap What You Sew on April 7 at 2 p.m.

Tias and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us

By Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, illustrated by Josie Del Castillo
Seal Press
304 pages
$30

“Within these pages, I found my abuela, my tías and my primas — laughing, crying, and nodding alongside me. This book is a gift of understanding, and loving one’s family, even when our families are complicated and painful. It’s a beautiful reminder of the power of storytelling and the profound connection of kinship.”

~ Paola Mendoza, author, organizer and filmmaker