Chapter 16 - Part 11

Taking Notes on the Spiritual Landscape

Poet Mark Jarman stalks elusive truths in The Heronry

By Maria Browning | February 16, 2017

Mark Jarman’s eleventh poetry collection, The Heronry, contains his central themes of spirituality and nature, his characteristic fondness for abiding in the mystery of ordinary experience, and his quietly fierce moral sense, all conveyed in language that is at once simple and cerebral. Jarman will discuss The Heronry in Buttrick Hall Room 102 on the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville on February 23 at 7 p.m.

Wandering, Escaping, Arriving

Sybil Baker considers many kinds of travel in Immigration Essays

By Maria Browning | February 6, 2017

Travel can be a luxury, a diversion, an obsession, a necessity, or a means of survival. In Sybil Baker’s Immigration Essays, it’s all those things, as well as a kind of meditation on how to be in the world. Baker will discuss Immigration Essays at Starline Books in Chattanooga on February 15 at 7 p.m.

The Dysfunctional Village

In Perfect Little World, Kevin Wilson depicts an experiment in communal parenting

By Maria Browning | January 19, 2017

In Kevin Wilson’s Perfect Little World, a child psychologist’s Infinite Family Project brings ten newborns and their parents to a compound outside Nashville, where they will live and grow together, their every need met. Wilson will discuss his second novel at Bounty on Broad in Memphis on January 24 at 6 p.m., and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 26 at 6:30 p.m.

Clear-Eyed Mystic

Joy Harjo’s poems celebrate transcendence and confront fear

By Maria Browning | January 18, 2017

Acclaimed poet Joy Harjo’s most recent collection, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, delivers the exquisite mix of beauty, transcendence, and pain her work is known for. Harjo joined the creative-writing faculty at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville this year and will give a free public reading at UT’s Hodges Library on January 23 at 7 p.m.

Fate of a Friendship

Zadie Smith’s Swing Time looks at female love and cruelty

By Maria Browning | January 12, 2017

Zadie Smith’s Swing Time tells the story of a childhood friendship and grapples with themes of race, class, and gender. It transcends the personal without ever losing sight of human passion, embodied in the intense feelings between two little girls. Smith will appear at Belmont University in Nashville on January 19 at 6:30 p.m.

Love and Money in Wartime

Lydia Peelle’s debut novel, The Midnight Cool, is a tale of two Tennessee horse traders during World War I

By Maria Browning | January 4, 2017

In Lydia Peelle’s debut novel, The Midnight Cool, a pair of itinerant horse traders is drawn into a web of mystery, love, and opportunity as WWI throws the country into turmoil. Peelle will read from the book at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on January 16, Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 21, and at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on February 10. At each event, Peelle’s husband, Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show, will perform music from the era.

Driving the Tide (The After Dunkirk Series, Book 6)

By Lee Jackson
Severn River Publishing
444 pages
$19.99

“Driving the Tide is the riveting sixth installment in the After Dunkirk family saga, bringing to life the darkest pages of World War II―and the unflinching bravery of regular people who rose to the challenges of their times.”

~ the publisher