October 7, 2011 As Bernard Malamud and W.P. Kinsella did before him, in The Art of Fielding Chad Harbach has reinvented baseball within a universe of his own creation, a place that is not quite the world as we know it, but a world as it might exist within the infinite lines stretching outward from home through first and third base. Harbach will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.
September 2, 2011 In his new novel, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Walter Mosley handles themes of family, aging, and death with the confidence and grace of an author who has published thirty-nine books and received the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award. What may be more stunning than the brilliance of this novel, however, is that it was published within six months of both Mosley’s political memoir and the latest installment of his popular Leonid McGill detective series—just one of the several Mosley creations being developed for television, film, and the stage. Mosley recently spoke by phone with Chapter 16 in advance of his appearance at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville. The event is free and open to the public.
August 12, 2011 At barely 200 pages, The Night Train is Clyde Edgerton’s shortest book, and yet in its simple story of two musically inclined teenagers, one white and one black, it may surpass Walking Across Egypt and The Bible Salesman as his best. Edgerton will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.
June 20, 2011 In The Ranger, veteran crime writer Ace Atkins brings disturbingly to life a Mississippi that is a gothic green hell of ignorance and corruption. Set in fictional Tibbehah County (think Yoknapatawpha thrust into the twenty-first century), the novel introduces Quinn Colson, on leave from yet another combat tour in Afghanistan to bury his uncle, the county sheriff. What Colson finds at home just ain’t right, and he intends to set things straight. Ace Atkins will read from The Ranger on June 21 at 6 p.m. at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis.
April 7, 2011 Cities of the future will be built from the airport outward, suggest John D. Karsada, a city planner and business professor, and Greg Lindsay, a journalist, in their new book, Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next. Greg Lindsay recently answered questions from Chapter 16 via email about the book and its vision of the future. He will discuss and sign copies of Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next on April 11 at 6 p.m. at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis.
March 3, 2011 In How Old is the Universe?, David A. Weintraub, a professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt, gives a very readable history of astronomy, explaining how each milestone discovery—starting with those of the ancient Greeks—placed mankind closer to fixing the moment it all began. Weintraub will discuss How Old is the Universe? at the Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory on March 8 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 each or $10 per family.
