A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Book Reviews

Setting Out for the Promised Land

By Tina LoTufo

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

By Faye Jones

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.

Showing Up for Life

By Tina LoTufo

March 28, 2012 “On Memorial Day 2002 I woke up and decided to leave my husband,” begins Margaret Overton’s memoir, Good in a Crisis. Her husband of twenty years, a surgeon, does not object to the divorce as it gives him more time to spend with his young girlfriend. As if this situation were not stressful enough, Overton, a Chicago anesthesiologist with two teenaged daughters, suffers a brain aneurysm a few months later. Good in a Crisis is the story of how she survives the dissolution of her marriage and a life-threatening illness at the same time—with the help of her family and friends and a healthy sense of humor—and all the lessons she learns (mostly the hard way) in the process. Margaret Overton will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 4 at 6:30 p.m.

The Passionate Storyteller

By Sarah Norris

March 23, 2012 Mark Richard was born with a disability, and both his physical challenges and the assumptions they inspired in others informed his sensibilities, set the stage for his brilliant memoir, House of Prayer No. 2, and ultimately explains why he is now one of the South’s finest writers. Mark Richard will appear at Lipscomb University in Nashville on March 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Ezell Center. The lecture is free and open to the public. Click here for event details.

To Grant a Pardon?

By Tim Boyd

March 21, 2012 Jonathan D. Sarna’s When General Grant Expelled the Jews is a masterfully written study of the “General Orders No. 11” issued by Ulysses S. Grant in late 1862, a decision that removed all Jewish residents from the military theatre under Grant’s control. Sarna examines the long-term consequences of the order, both for American Jews as a whole and for Grant as an individual. By considering Grant’s motives, the reaction of Jewish leaders in the U.S., and the impact the orders had on Grant’s relationship with the Jewish community for the rest of his career, When General Grant Expelled the Jews persuasively argues that Grant’s actions ultimately strengthened the position of Jews in America and pushed him to seek his own personal redemption. Sarna will discuss the book at the Jewish Community Center in Memphis on March 25 at 2 p.m. Click here for details.

Searching for the Poet Laureate of Music Row

By Pablo Tanguay

March 19, 2012 From the time of Homer to the Renaissance, poetry and song were inexorably linked. According to The Poetics of American Song Lyrics, a collection of essays edited by Knoxvillian Charlotte Pence, it’s this shared history that explains why much of the poetic tradition remains embedded in popular songs. To demonstrate, Pence herself, in an essay titled “The Sonnet Within the Song: Country Lyrics and the Shakespearean Sonnet,” compares the structure of several hit country songs to that of the traditional sonnet.

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