Chapter 16 - Part 219

What’s Wrong with Me?

Young men stumble on the path to adulthood in J.M. Holmes’s How Are You Going To Save Yourself

By Sean Kinch | September 14, 2018

J.M. Holmes’s debut story collection, How Are You Going To Save Yourself, tracks four friends who form a posse in their teens but drift apart in their twenties. The book addresses twenty-first-century issues, particularly those facing young African-Americans, without sugar-coating. Holmes will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

Confessions of a Fangirl

With Dead Girls, Alice Bolin navigates fantasy and reality in pop culture and beyond

By Erica Ciccarone | September 13, 2018

Alice Bolin’s essay collection, Dead Girls, is a savvy mix of cultural critique, coming-of-age diary, and confessions of a pop-culture fangirl. Bolin will read at Novel in Memphis on September 20, at The Bookshop in Nashville on September 23, and at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

The Scourge of War and the Perils of Peace

In The Thin Light of Freedom, Edward L. Ayers reconsiders the Civil War through two communities on opposite sides

By Ed Tarkington | September 12, 2018

With The Thin Light of Freedom, Edward L. Ayers casts new light on the Civil War through the experience of two communities—one Northern, one Southern—occupied by enemy armies made up of their former countrymen. Ayers will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

A Lavish Mural of 1970s Indulgence

I Will Be Complete is Glen David Gold’s unsparing account of growing up in the care of the Me Generation

By Hamilton Cain | September 11, 2018

Glen David Gold’s vibrant memoir, I Will Be Complete, tracks the 1970s, from fashion trends to punk bands, while probing psychic scars inflicted by his mother, a ravishing “Linda Evans”-like Englishwoman transplanted to the West Coast. Gold will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

Where Reading is the Coolest Thing

Allison Varnes writes a cautionary tale about censorship for young readers

By Tina Chambers | September 10, 2018

In Allison Varnes’s new middle-grade novel, Property of the Rebel Librarian, an unlikely hero defies her parents and her school to champion the right to read freely. Varnes will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on September 18.

Chandeliers and Self-Discovery

Claire Fullerton’s new protagonist comes of age in 1970s Memphis

By Sarah Carter | September 7, 2018

Set in 1970s Memphis, Claire Fullerton’s latest novel, Mourning Dove, captures its characters’ failing efforts to maintain Southern decorum in a swiftly changing world. Fullerton will appear at Novel in Memphis on September 11.

I Gotta Sing!

By Alice Faye Duncan
WaterBrook
40 pages
$14.99

“A whole barnyard makes noise ‘in the Spirit of joy’ throughout this raucous picture book, a sweetly heartwarming sing-along by Duncan. Kellam conveys comfort and happiness as the loved ones reflect sunny enthusiasm in this gladdening rendition of the Black American religious folk song ‘I’m Goin’a Sing When the Spirit Says Sing.’”

~Publishers Weekly