June 29, 2010 The book’s been out only a week, but already it might be time for reviewers to invest in a thesaurus. Adam Ross’s debut novel, Mr. Peanut, is inspiring the same adjectives again and again: “challenging,” “ingenious,” “brilliant,” “riveting,” and the surprisingly recurrent “audacious.”
June 21, 2010 Yesterday on ReadRollShow, Rebecca Skloot answered a question about how she came up with the seemingly unique structural organization of her runaway bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Turns out, Fannie Flagg had a lot to do with it. Watch the clip here.
June 17, 2010 Michael Sims has at least two literary careers (and that’s not counting his budding career as a photographer): he’s the author of four books about science and nature, and he’s the editor of five collections of Victorian-and Edwardian literature. His sixth outing as an editor, Dracula’s Guest: A Connoisseur’s Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories will hit shelves next week.
June 16, 2010 Nashville music journalist Barry Mazor has won the Belmont Book Award for his book, Meeting Jimmie Rodgers. The prize for the best country-music book of the year is given at the International Country Music Conference at Belmont University in Nashville. Read more about the award here and a Q&A with Barry Mazor here.
June 10, 2010 Poet, novelist, and Chapter 16 editorial board member Darnell Arnoult has accepted the position of writer-in-residence at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate. She will replace Silas House, who is leaving Tennessee to return to his native Kentucky as National Endowment for the Humanities Chair in Appalachian Studies at Berea College.
June 3, 2010 Constant images from the oil plume spreading devastation across the Gulf coast inspire Harrogate novelist Silas House to consider the similar costs to Appalachia of mountaintop-removal mining. And he has some advice for the president: “It’s time to start talking about sustainable jobs for miners who are losing theirs to machines on MTR sites. It’s time to try to salvage these devastated MTR sites into the only thing they’re really usable for now: wind farms.
