Margaret Renkl

September 5, 2011 Every bookstore owner in this country can tell the same story: a customer comes in to look around, studies a table display of nonfiction releases on the anniversary of some historical event, thumbs through a cookbook or three, reads the backs of a few new mysteries. Maybe she asks the bookseller if her favorite writer has a new novel coming out any time soon, or what book she could buy for a kid who loved Eragon but shrugged at The Hunger Games. Then, when it’s time to leave, she thanks the bookseller graciously, whips out her smart phone and, right there in the store, places an order at Amazon, before she forgets the names of the books she’s picked out. She has spent an hour in her local bookstore—and not a single dime.

August 29, 2011 Poets are the literary artists who live and die by the use metaphor, but in an op-ed piece for The New York Times yesterday, novelist Ann Patchett manages to find some startling connections, too. It’s not every writer who can make a convincing case for the links between bookstores and a) periodic cicadas, b) platform shoes, c) Newt Gingrich, and d) Pete Seeger songs, but Patchett pulls it off, and all as part of an argument that bookstores are making a comeback, too:

August 26, 2011 Chattanooga novelist Susan Gregg Gilmore, a Nashville native, spent her childhood summers in Ringgold, Georgia, visiting her paternal grandparents. The tiny town and its indomitable residents made such an impression on Gilmore that she set her first novel, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen, there. When a tornado savaged Ringgold on April 27, Gilmore looked for ways to help.

August 23, 2011 In the ongoing duel between digital pirates and digital entrepreneurs, a publishing startup called Booktrack will soon introduce ebooks with sound effects–ambient background music that reinforces the tone of the scene and adjusts according to the speed of the reader. The company is based in New York, but Tennesseans, take note: “Solace,” a short story by former Nashville resident Jay McInerney will be the company’s October release.

August 17, 2011 Former Random House rep Karen Hayes and bestselling Nashville author Ann Patchett have announced the location of their long-awaited bookstore: Greenbriar Village, at the intersection of Abbott-Martin Road and Hillsboro Pike in Green Hills. More news: Ingram veteran Mary Grey James, who knows the book industry inside and out, will be joining the Parnassus team as general manager. The store’s formal launch date has not been set, but look for doors to open in October. For additional details as they are announced, “like” the store on Facebook, here, or follow it on Twitter at @ParnassusBooks1. In the meantime, the full press release follows: