Chapter 16 - Part 105

The Things That Come for Us All

Ann Patchett’s essays consider the gifts of life and the inevitability of death

By Tina Chambers | November 15, 2021

Nashville writer Ann Patchett’s second volume of essays, These Precious Days, can be enjoyed as a grab bag of personable pieces depicting her interesting life and times. But everyone who opens the book will also be confronted by serious, universal themes — the abundant gifts of life and the tragedy of its inevitable end. Patchett will discuss the book at a virtual event with novelist Amor Towles on December 7.

“The Voice Is My Key”

Playwright and poet Dan O’Brien searches for meaning in the chaos of trauma

By Maria Browning | November 12, 2021

Dan O’Brien’s A Story That Happens, a collection of essays originally delivered as craft lectures at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, weaves observations on the art of playwriting with deeply personal memoir.

Taken

I had no idea my father was capable of such complex treachery

By Anthony J. Rinderer | November 11, 2021

In over 30 years of travel abroad I’ve had ample opportunity to haggle for things in exotic markets. I learned the rules of haggling at a very young age, long before I departed my hometown of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, destined for hard-to-pronounce places at the tattered edges of a map. My father showed me exactly how to play this game, and my first lesson occurred about a mile from our house.

Slow Violence, Then and Now

Rob Nixon discusses writers, activists, and the challenges of the Global South

By Aram Goudsouzian | November 10, 2021

In his award-winning book, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Princeton professor Rob Nixon looks at writer-activists and environmental justice across the Global South. Nixon will give the Naseeb Shaheen Memorial Lecture, hosted online by the University of Memphis on November 18.

Hard Honest Comedy

Padgett Powell’s new collection of nonfiction takes you inside the mind of an unconventional novelist

By Sean Kinch | November 9, 2021

The essays in Padgett Powell’s Indigo, his first collection of nonfiction, introduce readers to the bizarre characters and brilliant prose that fans of his fiction have come to expect.

Fiery and Hopeful

Michael Eric Dyson’s Entertaining Race points toward a more unified future

By Kashif Andrew Graham | November 8, 2021

In his latest book, Entertaining Race, Michael Eric Dyson considers the performative aspect of race in American culture and politics. Dyson will discuss Entertaining Race at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 12.

I Gotta Sing!

By Alice Faye Duncan
WaterBrook
40 pages
$14.99

“A whole barnyard makes noise ‘in the Spirit of joy’ throughout this raucous picture book, a sweetly heartwarming sing-along by Duncan. Kellam conveys comfort and happiness as the loved ones reflect sunny enthusiasm in this gladdening rendition of the Black American religious folk song ‘I’m Goin’a Sing When the Spirit Says Sing.’”

~Publishers Weekly