Chapter 16 - Part 12

Gardening with George (and John, and Thomas, and James)

In Founding Gardeners, Andrea Wulf gets to the roots of America’s beginning

By Chris Scott | April 14, 2011

April 14, 2011 In Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation, writer and gardening historian Andrea Wulf makes a bold claim—that understanding America’s creation requires knowing the founding fathers as gardeners. While historians may debate her thesis, it is certain that Wulf has wonderfully illuminated an often overlooked and very important aspect of the founders’ lives, providing new reasons to be inspired by them. As part of the Salon@615 series, she will discuss and sign Founding Gardeners in the courtyard of the Nashville Public Library at noon on April 20.

Digging Up Evil

Jefferson Bass’s sixth Body Farm novel excavates unpleasant truths

By Chris Scott | March 14, 2011

March 14, 2011 Jefferson Bass (a pseudonym for the writing team of Jon Jefferson and Bill Bass) has mined the unfortunately rich history of true crime to inspire another fictional adventure of Bill Brockton, the alter ego of Bill Bass himself, a world-renowned forensic anthropologist. This time the story is a fictional retelling of the very real, horrific history of a Florida reform school, and The Bone Yard is the darkest outing yet for Brockton and his fellow forensic experts. The Jefferson Bass team will discuss the book at locations in Oak Ridge, Knoxville, Farragut, Athens, and Maryville. Check Chapter 16’s events page, here, for details.

Dissecting Bluff City

A serial killer cuts a swath through Memphis in A. Scott Pearson’s second medical thriller

By Chris Scott | March 9, 2011

March 9, 2011 Nashville surgeon A. Scott Pearson has followed up his first medical thriller with a second outing for his alter ego, Dr. Eli Branch. In Public Anatomy, space-age surgical technology meets sixteenth-century medical art in a story of murder and mayhem in Memphis. Pearson will introduce and sign Public Anatomy at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Brentwood on March 9, at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on March 19, and at Mysteries & More in Nashville on March 26.

War and Remembrance

Thomas Sanders and Veronica Kavass preserve the stories of World War II

By Chris Scott | December 2, 2010

December 2, 2010 In The Last Good War: The Faces and Voices of World War II, photographer Thomas Sanders created images of American veterans spanning all walks of life and service branches. Journalist and native Nashvillian Veronica Kevass interviewed the veterans, as well, letting them tell their stories in their own words. The resulting book is a loving thank-you note to the millions who saved the world.

Digging Montana

Homer Hickam’s first mystery uncovers murder—and dinosaurs—in Big Sky Country

By Chris Scott | November 8, 2010

November 8, 2010 Homer Hickam, of Rocket Boys fame, has changed literary course. In his new novel, The Dinosaur Hunter, he presents a mystery set in remote east-central Montana, a land full of cattle, cowboys, ranchers, and paleontologists. It’s a mix sure to cause trouble. On the Square C Ranch, a season of bone digging, romantic entanglements, and dreams of fame and fortune is followed closely by murder and mayhem, putting an ex-cop turned cowboy back into the business of gunfights and catching bad guys. Homer Hickam signs The Dinosaur Hunter at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville November 11 at 7 p.m.

Floating in Memphis

Patrick O’Daniel records the Bluff City’s greatest disaster

By Chris Scott | October 14, 2010

October 14, 2010 In Memphis and the Superflood of 1937: High Water Blues, librarian Patrick O’Daniel has created a compact volume detailing of one of the worst floods in American history. In early 1937, the Ohio and Mississippi valleys were deluged with rain and snow, creating a disaster so far beyond anyone’s experience that the rules of flood control and disaster response had to be rewritten in the aftermath. Thanks to cooperation among federal, state, and local officials and volunteers from every walk of life, one of Memphis’s worst moments became one of its finest hours. O’Daniel will discuss the story at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on October 16 at 1 p.m.

Tender Headed (National Poetry Series)

By Olatunde Osinaike
Akashic Books
80 pages
17.95

“In Tender Headed, Olatunde Osinaike asks the question, what makes a man, and what makes a man like me? As he interrogates the inner and outer workings of masculinity in all its sharp and tender parts, and the way a Black man meets the world, his poems strut and duck and weave across their pages. These poems unpack the ingredients of being and make a meal of language.”

~ Camille Rankine, author of Incorrect Merciful Impulses