Editor's Note

If you’re in the Nashville area, now’s the time to RSVP for the Southern Festival of Books reveal party on June 18. Be the first to hear about this year’s stellar lineup of authors. 

And just a reminder: The Humanities Tennessee spring fundraising campaign is underway through June 18. Please give to support the festival and other HT programs, including Chapter 16. 

Today at the site, Amy Lyons reviews the debut adult novel by bestselling YA author Ruta Sepetys. A Fortune of Sand, set in 1920s Detroit, is “a period mystery full of sparkle, drama, a dash of romance, and one woman’s quest to fight patriarchal forces in defense of her artistic freedom.” 

David Wesley Williams looks at Hope House, the debut novel by Joe Bond set in a home for young offenders. David writes, “The Hope House boys may be delinquents and criminals — as they sometimes call themselves — but they’re not caricatures, sketches, stock characters. … They’re real boys with beating hearts beneath all those scars.”

We round out this week’s offerings by revisiting the title poem from Annette Sisson’s 2022 collection, Small Fish in High Branches. 

News Roundup

• The judges for this year’s Tennessee Book Awards will be Geraldine Brooks (fiction), Timothy Egan (nonfiction), and Danez Smith (poetry). 

• David George Haskell was interviewed for Garden & Gun. 

• Thousands of Cormac McCarthy’s books have been given to the University of Tennessee. 

• Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Roots has been targeted for removal from the libraries of Knox County Schools. 

• The Smyrna Public Library is seeking vendors, performers, educators, and community organizations to participate in Walking Through History: An America 250 Festival on August 1.