The hero of Inman Majors’s new comic novel, Penelope Lemon: Game On!, is at a crossroads. Divorced and broke, she must use all her cunning and fortitude to start over—and maybe have some fun along the way. Majors will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on August 13, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 14, at Novel in Memphis on August 16, and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.
The action of Emily Giffin’s new novel begins with a scandal that forces two sets of parents to find out how far they’ll go to protect their teenagers. Giffin will discuss All We Ever Wanted at Cheekwood Estate & Gardens in Nashville on June 23 at 4 p.m.
Charles Frazier’s Varina returns to the era of Cold Mountain but focuses on the Southern elite who bear the historical burden of instigating the Civil War. Frazier will discuss Varina, in conversation with novelists Paula McLain and Ann Patchett, at the Nashville Public Library on May 14.
In Make Trouble, Cecile Richards shares the lessons she’s learned in a lifetime on the front lines of battles for social change. Richards will appear in conversation with Ann Patchett at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music in Nashville on May 9.
In Islandology, Marc Shell uses Shakespeare’s Hamlet as the key to unlocking lessons hidden in the way nations describe their homeland. Shell will give a free public lecture at Rhodes College in Memphis on March 15.
Mary Ellen Pethel’s Athens of the New South argues that Nashville’s growth as a center for commerce and culture is rooted in the institutions of higher education that were founded in the decades after the Civil War.
