News & Notes | Chapter 16

Rescuing the iPatient

CNN talks with Abraham Verghese, novelist and physician, about why a doctor’s touch matters

By Margaret Renkl | September 30, 2011

September 30, 2011 Abraham Verghese is becoming well known for his belief in the importance of the kind of bedside examinations that doctors, in his view, too often skip. For Verghese–the author of the novel Cutting for Stone, which has been on The New York Times bestseller list for eighty-seven weeks–physicians who order high-tech diagnostic tests without ever conducting a physical exam are guilty of reducing human beings to “iPatients.”

Out of the Bookstore Rubble

The New York Times highlights the launch of two Nashville bookstores following the loss of Borders

By Margaret Renkl | September 28, 2011

September 28, 2011 The liquidation of Borders has many publishing-industry analysts—not to mention readers (and at least one bestselling Nashville novelist)—wondering if the bookstore cycle has come full circle: now that Amazon has killed the big-box stores that earlier killed the independents, is it time for the tiny indy bookshop on the corner to make a comeback?

The True Costs of Amazon's Savings

According to a new analysis of a study by UT, it’s even worse than we thought

By Margaret Renkl | September 22, 2011

September 22, 2011 Liz Garrigan’s Dear John letter to Amazon in today’s edition of Chapter 16 is an unvarnished call for book lovers to put their money where their mouths are and support their local bookstores instead of buying books online. Garrigan argues that Amazon’s refusal to collect the state and local sales taxes that other bricks-and-mortar stores collect–taxes that support local schools, police and fire departments, and other civic necessities–amounts to a “powerful incentive for customers to let their fingers do the clicking.”

Hall of Famers

Friends of Literacy announce the 2011 inductees to the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame

By Margaret Renkl | September 21, 2011

September 21, 2011 Five writers have been tapped for the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame: journalist Jim Dykes, novelist Michael Knight, journalist Don Williams, poet Linda Parsons Marion, and blogger Katie Allison Granju.

The Image That Steals the Soul

Madison Smartt Bell considers the nature of celebrity and the role of the writer

By Margaret Renkl | September 21, 2011

December 9, 2011 In an essay for The Huffington Post, Nashville native Madison Smartt Bell recalls an incident in a French bistro that made him consider what it means to be a writer in an age when every reader, or potential reader, has a search engine in his pocket. When some Frenchmen Bell didn’t know Googled him as he stood before them, the novelist was a bit unnerved:

Ninth Inning

Memphis poet Matt Cook lands on the Writer’s Almanac yet again

By Margaret Renkl | September 19, 2011

September 19, 2011 Having a poem read aloud to millions of public-radio listeners by the thick, buttery voice of Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac has to be a high point in any poet’s public life. For Memphis poet Matt Cook, it’s a high with which he’s becoming increasingly familiar: today Keillor read Cook’s poem, “Nonsense”–Cook’s ninth appearance on the program since 2002. Listen to Keillor read it here.

Tias and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us

By Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, illustrated by Josie Del Castillo
Seal Press
304 pages
$30

“Within these pages, I found my abuela, my tías and my primas — laughing, crying, and nodding alongside me. This book is a gift of understanding, and loving one’s family, even when our families are complicated and painful. It’s a beautiful reminder of the power of storytelling and the profound connection of kinship.”

~ Paola Mendoza, author, organizer and filmmaker