Beloved children’s author Dav Pilkey talks with Chapter 16 about Captain Underpants
August 19, 2015 There’s something rotten in the state of Ohio in Captain Underpants and the Sensational Sir Stinks-A-Lot, the twelfth “epic novel” in Dav Pilkey’s popular series of graphic novels for children. Pilkey will appear as part of the Salon@615 series at the Nashville Public Library on August 25, 2015, at 6:15 p.m.
Bettyville is George Hodgman’s moving memoir of life with his elderly mother
August 4, 2015 What happens when a gay editor in his fifties leaves New York City to care for his ninety-year-old mother in the dying town of Paris, Missouri? In George Hodgman’s elegant memoir, Bettyville, the result is humor, a monumental battle of wills, and a moving reflection on the meaning of family. Hodgman will discuss Bettyville at the twenty-seventh annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015. All festival events are free and open to the public.
Ace Atkins discusses The Redeemers, his fifth novel featuring Mississippi sheriff Quinn Colson
July 16, 2015 The Redeemers is Ace Atkin’s fifth novel in a suspense series featuring Mississippi sheriff Quinn Colson, a truly Southern action hero who seems destined to build a following similar to John Sandford’s Virgil Flowers or C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett. Atkins will appear at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on July 26, 2015, at 4 p.m.
Novelist Matthew Quick talks with Chapter 16 about teachers, humor, Hollywood, and his new book, Love May Fail
June 16, 2015 In Matthew Quick’s Love May Fail, the sixth novel from the author of The Silver Linings Playbook, a woman leaves a failed marriage in Florida to return to her South Jersey roots, where she discovers how a high school teacher played a profound role in shaping her life. Quick will discuss Love May Fail at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 19, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
Margaret Lazarus Dean bids a nuanced farewell to American spaceflight
May 14, 2015 In 2011, Margaret Lazarus Dean drove repeatedly from her home in Knoxville to Cape Canaveral in Florida to watch the final launches of the three surviving craft in the American space-shuttle fleet. In Leaving Orbit: Notes From the Last Days of American Spaceflight, she recounts these trips and reflects eloquently on what it means to have lost the ability to launch humans into space from U.S. soil. Dean will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on June 18, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
Robert Gipe’s illustrated debut novel, Trampoline, introduces a troubled teen coming of age during an Appalachian coal war
April 7, 2015 It’s been a while since anyone produced a great American coming-of-age-novel, but Kingsport native Robert Gipe hits the mark with Trampoline, an inventive debut set in the coal country of Eastern Kentucky. Narrator Dawn Jewell, fifteen, is as smart as Scout Finch, more profane than Holden Caulfield, and as tough in a fight as Mattie Ross. Gipe tells her story not only in flawless prose but also with 220 comics-style drawings that keep the book grounded in the world of an Appalachian teenager.
