Chapter 16 - Part 151

The Glorious Pastime: Alan Gratz

Bestselling kids’ author Alan Gratz talks about his love of detective novels and a book that surprised him

By Maria Browning | August 28, 2020

Knoxville native Alan Gratz takes on tough subjects in his fiction for young readers, as in his 2019 novel, Allies, set during World War II. Resist, a companion novella to Allies, will be released as an ebook and audiobook in September. In response to our Glorious Pastime questionnaire, Gratz tells Chapter 16 what he’s been reading lately and recommends an underappreciated book series.

Leaving

What does it mean to go where you don’t belong?

By Lou Vargo | August 27, 2020

We’re driving up to Marquette, a college town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for the beginning of my freshman year, something no other Vargo has ever done in the history of the Vargos. As we drive, I grow more ashamed with each passing mile marker. My father is old and we are poor and I am 18, trying to reinvent myself in a place I’ve never known.

American Crow to Great White Shark

The Southern Wildlife Watcher surveys the region’s creatures

By Lyda Phillips | August 26, 2020

Rob Simbeck takes a close look at 36 creatures in The Southern Wildlife Watcher: Notes of a Naturalist, offering readers glimpses of the mundane and the miraculous. Simbeck will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 31 and at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

Seeing Other Possibilities

Julia Alvarez talks with Chapter 16 about sisterhood, global community, and living by metaphor

By Joy Ramirez | August 25, 2020

Award-winning author Julia Alvarez helped pave the way for other Latina writers in the U.S. with her 1991 debut novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Alvarez talks with Chapter 16 about her latest novel, Afterlife, and what it means to envision new possibilities in this troubled time. She will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

More than a Dream

Jon Meacham delivers a rich account of a life built on protest and hope

By Michael Ray Taylor | August 24, 2020

In His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham, a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt, has written a moving, rigorously researched account of the late congressman’s life, with an afterword written by Lewis himself. Meacham will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 25.

Throwing Scissors

When safety feels like suffocation

By Bianca Sass | August 21, 2020

Maybe, like my mother, I am not as afraid of fear as I thought. Because, right now, every part of me wants a storm I can stand before.

Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past

By Tore C. Olsson
St. Martin's Press
288 pages
$30

“I recommend Red Dead’s History unreservedly not only to fans of the iconic video game, but also to anyone who wants to understand the riotousness — from Wild West gunslingers to Jim Crow to lynching — that darkened our past, and which continues to influence our culture. Olsson’s prose is graceful, his analysis profound. This is history at its most accessible and exciting.”

~Peter Cozzens, award-winning author of A Brutal Reckoning