Chapter 16 - Part 19

The Human Whisperer

For kids who struggle to read, therapy dogs can be the best teachers

By Susannah Felts | April 12, 2010

On an early spring day, a visitor comes to Nashville’s Julia Green Elementary School. Her name is Emma, and she sits on the floor on a lime green blanket, in front of low shelves packed with books. Before long, a first-grader named Meghan joins Emma and reads her a story, finding her way slowly but confidently through the unfamiliar words. How does a dog help a child learn to read? Rachel McPherson, author of Every Dog Has a Gift: True Stories of Dogs Who Bring Hope & Healing into Our Lives, will be at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on April 13 at 7 p.m. to discuss her book about therapy dogs like Emma.

Brothers and Lovers

Martin Wilson’s debut novel brings gay coming-of-age tales out of the YA closet

By Susannah Felts | April 2, 2010

The debut novel from Martin Wilson is a welcome contribution to the small but growing genre of young-adult novels about first love between gay teens. The romance in What They Always Tell Us is wrapped in an authentic portrayal of contemporary, upper-middle-class teenage life. In its portrait of two brothers, the novel also offers an uplifting look at the challenges to—and triumphs of—family loyalty.

Food Fighter

Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser brings a message of hope to Nashville

By Susannah Felts | February 9, 2010

A decade ago, few Americans knew the disturbing truth behind the factory farms that supply them with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eric Schlosser‘s books have caused a wakening in consumers—and are slowly having a positive impact on the very system he exposed. In advance of his appearance at Belmont University on February 15, he recently discussed his work, and his recent film Food, Inc., in an interview with Chapter 16.

Fanning the Fire

Essayist, scholar, and novelist Randall Kenan responds with passion to the legacy of James Baldwin

By Susannah Felts | January 26, 2010

In an interview with Chapter 16, author Randall Kenan discusses his latest book, The Fire This Time—an essay collection in which he considers the contemporary African American experience with passion—and in a voice that’s all his own. On January 28, Kenan will discuss his work in Room 101 of Buttrick Hall on the Vanderbilt University campus.

The Chains of Love

In her deeply original debut novel, Dolen Perkins-Valdez looks at the interior lives of the enslaved women kept as mistresses by Southern planters

By Susannah Felts | January 21, 2010

Wench, a story of enslaved concubines and their white male masters, is a surefooted and engrossing work of historical fiction. While debut novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez grounds her story in compelling nineteenth-century research, the book finds its center and momentum not in reams of facts but in one woman’s impossibly conflicted heart. Deeply interior and elegantly written, this novel reveals shades of emotional complexity in the slave-owner relationship, one often portrayed as a classic battle of good and evil, heroes and villains.

Hold the Garlic

Sherrilyn Kenyon’s soul-sucking vampires have earned her a million fans

By Susannah Felts | December 9, 2009

Before Americans were hooked on True Blood, before Twilight sank its teeth into millions of readers and moviegoers, Spring Hill’s Sherrilyn Kenyon was swiftly and quietly building her vampire-lit empire. “Kenyon’s writing is brisk, ironic and relentlessly imaginative,” notes The Boston Globe. “These are not your mother’s vampire novels.”

Driving the Tide (The After Dunkirk Series, Book 6)

By Lee Jackson
Severn River Publishing
444 pages
$19.99

“Driving the Tide is the riveting sixth installment in the After Dunkirk family saga, bringing to life the darkest pages of World War II―and the unflinching bravery of regular people who rose to the challenges of their times.”

~ the publisher