Book Reviews

September 28, 2010 Since 1999, the Southern Foodways Alliance has been spreading the gospel of Southern American cuisine. Under the umbrella of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, the SFA stages symposia, produces documentary films, and, every couple years or so, publishes a collection of essays and poems. The latest of these is Cornbread Nation 5: The Best of Southern Food Writing, edited by aptly named Fred W. Sauceman—author and host of the popular Food with Fred program on Johnson City’s WJHL-TV.

September 22, 2010 What do Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, and Michaelangelo Antonini’s L’avventura have in common—apart from being uncontestable classics of the cinema? For Sam B. Girgus, a professor of English at Vanderbilt University, these films come together under an umbrella he calls the “cinema of redemption.” In his new work of criticism, Levinas and the Cinema of Redemption: Time, Ethics, and the Feminine, Girgus explores how many of the ideas illustrated by these films resonate with those of French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Girgus will discuss the book at Davis-Kidd Booksellers on September 22 at 7 p.m.

September 20, 2010 In Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway, Matt Dellinger writes about an unlikely subject: a highway linking Canada to Mexico that may never be completed. (In Tennessee, for example, I-69 remains nothing more than a page of maps and studies on the state Department of Transportation website.) Touted as the “NAFTA Highway” after the North American Free Trade Agreement, the highway is, like the trade deal, controversial, and in that conflict Dellinger has found a story. Matt Dellinger will discuss Interstate 69 at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on September 23 at 6 p.m. and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on September 24 at 2 p.m.

September 16, 2010 Of all the manifestations youthful idealism can take, perhaps the most earnest—and also the most apt to end in disappointment—is the one recorded so memorably by Henry David Thoreau. Walden; or, Life in the Woods was first published in 1854, and for the last 150 years it has inspired a certain kind of young person to move to the wilderness and “live deliberately.” Thoreau’s own life in the woods lasted two years. Jim Minick’s dream of being an organic blueberry farmer lasted a decade longer than that. Minick will discuss his memoir, The Blueberry Years, at 3 p.m. on September 17 at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville, and 2 p.m. on September 18 at Carpe Librum Booksellers in Knoxville.