July 11, 2014 In his debut collection, Ghost Gear, poet Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum excavates and explores memories of his Nashville boyhood, revisiting the past with a rough mix of tender feeling and strong, sometimes violent imagery. He will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 19, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.
July 9, 2014 In Delta Dogs, Maude Schuyler Clay captures the beauty, nobility, and sadness of rural Mississippi’s canine denizens. The book also features an introduction by fiction writer Brad Watson and an essay by poet Beth Ann Fennelly. Clay will discuss the collection at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on July 17, 2014, at 5:30 p.m.
June 18, 2014 Without violating the spirit of the folktale, Tracy Barrett reinvents the Cinderella story with a sensibility that is distinctly modern. In The Stepsister’s Tale, female independence and solidarity matter far more than male gallantry, but the romance and hopeful essence of the original remain. Barrett will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 24, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.
June 2, 2014 Barbara Herman calls vintage perfume a “liquid language” that reveals something about the tastes and dreams of a bygone era, even as it offers us a portal to our own deep desires. In Scent & Subversion: Decoding a Century of Provocative Perfume, Herman describes hundreds of classic twentieth-century perfumes and considers their rich, sensual appeal. She will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 5, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.
May 19, 2014 The publisher of Zig Zag Wanderer, Madison Smartt Bell’s third short-story collection, is the innovative Concord Free Press, which gives away all its books with the understanding that readers will “pay it forward” by making a donation to a charity or a person in need. Bell answers questions from Chapter 16 about the stories and CFP’s unique approach to publishing.
April 8, 2014 With MaddAddam, the final book in Margaret Atwood’s trilogy about a bioengineered apocalypse, the story takes a turn toward the comic, transforming a dystopian vision into a darkly funny fairy tale for grown-ups. Atwood will discuss MaddAddam at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville on April 11, 2014, at 8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
