Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Learning to Speak Silence

Pico Iyer’s observations and provocations about Japan leave quiet spaces for the reader’s voice

In A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, Pico Iyer explores what it means to pay attention to a culture you can’t hope to fully understand. Iyer will appear at the 2019 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville on October 11-13.

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Fields of Dreams

Patriarchal mores and the ghosts of genocide haunt a Cambodian farming family

In Three Flames, novelist Alan Lightman weaves together a rural Cambodian family’s stories, as each struggles against poverty, the wounds of war, and rigid societal expectations. Lightman will discuss the book at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on September 19.

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Of Facts and Fables

Maurice Carlos Ruffin discusses his mesmerizing debut novel, We Cast a Shadow

Maurice Carlos Ruffin casts a satirical spell in his debut novel, We Cast A Shadow. Its unnamed narrator, driven by fierce love for his son, makes decisions that expose his family to the dangers of a world that may seem dystopian but in fact lies excruciatingly close to our own. Ruffin will appear at the 2019 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville on October 11-13.

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Miami Meets Middle America

A Cuban American writer recounts the revelations of her own otherness in white America

In My Time Among the Whites, Jennine Capó Crucet, the American-born daughter of Cuban refugees, describes a childhood spent in the relative cultural comfort of Miami and then, as an adult, her disparate life experiences against the wider American landscape. Crucet will appear at the 2019 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville on October 11-13.

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A Hero’s Journey

Four orphans search for answers in William Kent Krueger’s This Tender Land

William Kent Krueger’s This Tender Land follows four orphans as they venture beyond all they’ve known to find answers about their families. Krueger will discuss the novel at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 10 and at Novel in Memphis on September 11.

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Poltergeists in Paris

A girl and a ghost take on a poltergeist in Victoria Schwab’s Tunnel of Bones

In Tunnel of Bones, the second book in Victoria Schwab’s middle-grade City of Ghosts series, Cassidy Blake and her ghostly best friend, Jacob, encounter a poltergeist in Paris. Schwab will discuss Tunnel of Bones at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 8.

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