Tara Westover’s Educated joins the ranks of fearless modern-day memoirs of abuse and adversity such as Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle. Westover will appear at Lipscomb University in Nashville on May 21 at 6:30 p.m.
In her new YA novel, Girl Made of Stars, Ashley Herring Blake addresses complex cultural issues in the context of the everyday drama of high school. Blake will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 18 in conversation with novelist Lily Anderson.
Kaitlyn Sage Patterson’s The Diminished examines themes of sexual identity, individual freedom, and cultural expectation. Patterson will discuss her debut fantasy YA novel at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on May 5.
Ostensibly the story of a kidnapping, Leah Stewart’s clever new novel, What You Don’t Know About Charlie Outlaw, is also an examination of the cult of celebrity. Stewart, a Vanderbilt graduate, will appear at Novel in Memphis on April 11 and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 13.
In Alternate Side, bestselling novelist Anna Quindlen writes a bittersweet love letter to Manhattan, as well as a meditation on the passage of time. Quindlen will appear at the Nashville Public Library on March 28.
On April 5, 1936, a massive tornado producing winds greater than 300 miles per hour destroyed half the city of Tupelo, Mississippi, in a matter of minutes, a story Tupelo native Minrose Gwin tells in her latest novel, Promise. Gwin will appear at Novel in Memphis on February 27.
