Among the technological firsts of the American Civil War was an odd little boat, built by a group of dedicated entrepreneurs, that heralded the age of underwater exploration and warfare. In The H.L. Hunley: The Secret Hope of the Confederacy, Knoxville historian Tom Chaffin details the remarkable story of the first submarine to sink an enemy ship.
Memphis writer Richard Bausch has long been known as a master of macho, a chronicler of men. But as his latest story collection, Something Is Out There, demonstrates, Bausch is, if anything, a master of the anti-macho, a writer who digs beneath the tough exterior of his protagonists—male and female alike—to find their fears, weaknesses, and dreams.
To review a book with Jane Austen at its heart is, for a passionate Austen fan, a risky endeavor. The subject is powerfully attractive, but the risk of disappointment is huge: few writers have the requisite respect and skill to follow in Austen’s footsteps. In Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart, Nashville resident Beth Pattillo passes the test with a romance that will appeal to non-Austenites, as well. Pattillo appears at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on February 11 at 7 p.m.
Many people believe the major achievements of the civil-rights era came from the federal government: the1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. For all the praise we heap on it, too often the civil-right movement is seen as a supporting player, a catalyst, in this historical drama. Charles W. Eagles‘s definitive new book, The Price of Defiance: James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss, complicates that narrative. It shows how, over the course of a decade, Mississippi blacks fought and eventually won the right to enter the hallowed institution, even under the benign neglect of successive Washington administrations. Eagles will appear at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on February 11 at 6 p.m.
Photographer Bob Schatz and design critic Christine Kreyling combine their talents to create an intimate, surprising portrait of some of Nashville’s most beautiful spaces.
Amy Greene has not written a typical debut novel. Instead, she has turned out nothing less than an epic—a story of madness and magic that spans four generations, an emotionally tangled tale that requires six disparate voices to tell and offers no easy resolutions to the conflicts of the heart. To its everlasting credit, Bloodroot is a big, ambitious book that will never be taught in a ninth-grade English class. Amy Greene will read from it at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on February 8 at 7 p.m., and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on February 9 at 6 p.m.
