Book Reviews

For more than five decades, Nikki Giovanni has written about what it means to be a Black woman in America, calling attention to the injustices suffered by her community but also to its joys and triumphs. In her new collection of poetry and prose, Make Me Rain, her unique voice, bold yet tender, is on display again with a new relevance.

“I was born with a God-given gift for music,” writes country music superstar Sara Evans in Born to Fly. Evans tells the story of her rise in the music industry and dispenses hard-earned wisdom — from qualities to look for (and avoid) in a mate to the comfort of her Christian faith.

Do You Feel Like I Do? is a catalog of musician Peter Frampton’s life and career, told by Frampton himself for the first time. Frampton’s renowned gift for songwriting translates to storytelling, and his vivid, conversational style lends this memoir the intimacy of a coffee shop chat. Frampton will discuss the book in a ticketed virtual event hosted by Parnassus books in Nashville on October 20.

No wonder so many writers have made Memphis their subject, this city that changed the world through sound. Now comes David A. Less with Memphis Mayhem, a slim volume touted by its publisher as the “definitive story of the birthplace of rock and roll.”

In his story collection Hallelujah Station, Memphis native M. Randal O’Wain explores lives we’ve pushed to the margins. There’s suffering aplenty, but there are also dashes of art — poets, Dutch Masters, David Lynch — to leaven the pain.