Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Michael Ray Taylor

Of Flight and Flappers

Bill Bryson’s One Summer: America, 1927 chronicles five eventful months of popular history

October 9, 2013 Nonfiction author Bill Bryson is legendary for his ability to mine a readable story from a vast subject. In a twist, Bryson’s new book, One Summer: America, 1927, takes a deceptively narrow focus, describing events that occurred over a five-month period in Jazz Age America—but what a summer 1927 proved to be. Bryson will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13, 2013. All festival events are free and open to the public.

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A Flood of Emotion

The Tilted World, a novel by Beth Ann Fennelly and Tom Franklin, sets romance and suspense against the great Mississippi flood of 1927

September 30, 2013 The Tilted World, by poet Beth Ann Fennelly and novelist Tom Franklin, is a novel set against the great Mississippi flood of 1927. In the book, their first literary collaboration, male and female protagonists speak in alternating chapters to create a story of both brutal action and satisfying romance. Fennelly and Franklin will appear at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on October 4, 2013, at 5 p.m., and at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13, 2013.

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Walking to Justice

In a moving work of graphic nonfiction, Congressman John Lewis recalls his path from Nashville lunch counters to the National Mall during the American civil-rights movement

September 9, 2013 Like the acclaimed graphic novels Maus and Persepolis, the new graphic memoir March is a coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of violent, historical confrontation. A collaboration between Representative John Lewis, Democratic congressman from Georgia, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, the book tells the story of Lewis’s involvement in the American civil-rights movement. Congressman Lewis and his collaborators will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13, 2013. All festival events are free and open to the public.

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Lexicon Man

Humorist Roy Blount Jr.’s second stab at the dictionary confirms him master of all words

July 23, 2013 In 2008, Vanderbilt graduate and popular humorist Roy Blount Jr. became a modern-day Samuel Johnson with his twentieth book, Alphabet Juice, an eclectic—and often hysterical—dictionary of words and phrases that struck the author’s fancy. His new sequel, Alphabetter Juice: or, The Joy of Text, is funnier still. Blount will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. All festival events are free and open to the public.

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Dream Season

Former NBA superstar Penny Hardaway coaches a team of disadvantaged Memphis youth to victory in Wayne B. Drash’s moving first book, On These Courts

May 3, 2013 Wayne B. Drash’s On These Courts: A Miracle Season that Changed a City, a Once-Future Star, and a Team Forever is the story of how former NBA star guard Penny Hardaway coached the boys’ basketball team at Lester Middle School—where he had once played himself—to a Tennessee state championship. That season provides a backdrop to the most inspiring sports story to come out of Memphis since Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side, and like that book, it too seems custom-made for Hollywood. Drash and Hardaway will discuss and sign copies of On These Courts at the University of Memphis Bookstore on May 8 at 6 p.m., and at The Booksellers at Laurelwood on May 10 at 6 p.m.

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Twisted Tales

Jamie Quatro’s stunning debut collection portrays Lookout Mountain in stories that are haunting, provocative, and delightfully weird

April 2, 2013 There is little danger that Jamie Quatro’s stunning debut collection, I Want to Show You More will ever be shelved with science fiction. The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The New Yorker, and many other publications have hailed Quatro as a significant new voice in American literature and rightly so. Yet her odd and beautiful stories are built on the devices of science fiction: a couple who sleep in a bed divided by the decomposing corpse of the wife’s distant lover, a runner who must carry a heavy government-provided trophy through a marathon, a young athlete with a whirlpool in his heart. On April 11 at 6:30 p.m., Jamie Quatro will discuss I Want to Show You More at Parnassus Books in Nashville, where she will appear with Jessica Francis Kane, author of This Close. Quatro will also appear on April 18 at the Chattanooga Public Library on April 18 at 9 a.m. as part of the Celebration of Southern Literature, and on April 27 at 2 p.m. at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville.

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