July 28, 2010 Based on plot summary alone, Abducted by Circumstance, a new novel by acclaimed Knoxville-born author David Madden, sounds like a poolside page-turner. Yet this quiet and finely crafted novel is less a psychological thriller than an engrossing, complex exploration of a troubled woman’s identity. It is also a daring narrative experiment in point of view.
July 27, 2010 After making over-medium eggs in Juneau for an ex-goldpanner, Matthew Gavin Frank decided to take the advice of the patron who’d just spit out his food: “In a world full of idiots, you have to go to the place with the fewest idiots.” Barolo is Frank’s account of the six months he spent living and working—the back-breaking labor of grape harvesting—in Barolo, Italy (pop. 646), in the country’s northern Piedmont region. He will read from his book at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on July 27 at 6 p.m. and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on July 28 at 7 p.m.
July 22, 2010 Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass has been lauded for his work for more than three decades. The Apple Trees at Olema brings together selected poems from each of his five award-winning collections, as well as new work, and gives readers a glimpse into the evolution of one of our greatest living poets. Robert Hass will give a public reading at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference on July 23 at 11 a.m.
July 21, 2010 Cast against the dark history of the 1962 Ole Miss Riot, Steve Yarbrough’s Safe from the Neighbors is both an engrossing mystery novel and a quietly incisive exploration of how even the seemingly remote aspects of our lives are shaped by the tides of history. Steve Yarbrough will give a free public reading at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference on July 21 at 8:15 p.m.
July 20, 2010 A physician who has written both medical and crime thrillers (Publisher’s Weekly has characterized her as the “medical suspense queen”), Tess Gerritsen consistently garners reader loyalty and critical acclaim. Her latest book Ice Cold—the eighth featuring characters Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles, the detective and medical examiner who are the basis for TNT’s new drama series Rizzoli & Isles—offers white-hot suspense of the sort Stephen King has publicly admired. Gerritsen will discuss the novel at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on July 20 at 6 p.m.
July 19, 2010 Did a poor black man named Willie McGee rape a white housewife named Willette Hawkins in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1945? Was she even raped, or did she just dream it? Or were the two—as Bella Abzug alleged in McGee’s third trial—lovers? As journalist Alex Heard finds in The Eyes of Willie McGee, the truth is disturbingly gray. The book is part history and part detective story, with Heard intersplicing McGee’s story with the tale of his own hunt for the facts. Heard discusses the book at the downtown branch of Nashville Public Library on July 21 at 5 p.m., and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on July 22 at 6 p.m.
