February 27, 2012 Musician and poet Gil Scott-Heron, who died in 2011, became a pop culture icon thanks to his classic spoken-word recording “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” and he is widely regarded as the father of rap and hip-hop. His posthumously published book, The Last Holiday: A Memoir, traces his life as an artist and activist.
February 22, 2012 A Country Music Hall of Fame inductee and a Grand Ole Opry member from 1955 until his death last year at age 83, Charlie Louvin worked as a musician for six decades; Ira, the elder of the duo known as the Louvin Brothers, died in an automobile accident in 1965. The great bulk of Satan Is Real, Charlie Louvin’s posthumously published autobiography, tells the story of their lives and legendary career together. Wistful at times, the book is not without humor, a heavy shake of salty language, and fascinating anecdotes from life on the road.
February 13, 2012 In Reefs and Shoals, Dewey Lambdin’s eighteenth Alan Lewrie adventure, Great Britain is at war again with France and Spain. With privateers attacking British shipping in the Caribbean and Florida Straits, the Admiralty orders Captain Lewrie to take his frigate southwest, via Bermuda, to the Bahamas. Once there he is to assemble a squadron and put a stop to the depredations, whatever it takes. In telling his tale, Lambdin recreates the context, the technology, and the swashbucklers of that time and place.
February 9, 2012 Same Sun Here, a new middle-grade novel by Silas House and Neela Vaswani, examines what happens when people find a way to overcome social barriers and make a real connection to another person—no matter how “other” the other may seem. In the process, the authors suggest, they might find that the things which unite them—love for family, dreams for the future, and a belief in the necessity of justice and compassion for all—are greater than the circumstances which separate them.
February 8, 2012 At age fourteen, Margo Crane, a quiet and beautiful girl, learns to shoot a rifle. A natural with the weapon, she feels “the guidance of the gun itself,” writes Bonnie Jo Campbell in Once Upon a River. “It held her steady, and then sadness perfected her aim.” Absorbing, exotic, and relentlessly heartbreaking, this second novel from the National Book Award finalist is a transcendent example of a journey narrative, centered on a singular, complex protagonist who refuses to be contained or forgotten. Campbell will read from her work February 9 at 7 p.m. in Buttrick Hall, Room 101, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The event is free and open to the public.
February 6, 2012 David Scheffer served as the first-ever U.S. ambassador-at-large for war-crimes issues, an office sometimes referred to by his colleagues as “Ambassador to Hell.” In All the Missing Souls, Scheffer gives a firsthand account of the political and diplomatic struggle to form international courts of justice for what he calls “atrocity crimes,” and provides vivid accounts of his own encounters with the survivors of unimaginable brutality. David Scheffer will discuss All the Missing Souls in Nashville at noon on February 7 in the Flynn Auditorium of the Vanderbilt University Law School. The event is free and open to the public.
