Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Welcome, Novel!

Tennessee’s newest independent bookstore opens its doors in Memphis

Novel, the long-awaited bookstore planned for the space formerly occupied by The Booksellers at Laurelwood, opens tomorrow at 387 Perkins Extension in Memphis. Chapter 16‘s Stephen Usery took these preview photos.

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Small and Immense

In a new collection, poet Jeff Hardin explores greatness in artists and in nature

Jeff Hardin’s latest poetry collection, No Other Kind of World, which won the 2016 X.J. Kennedy Award, examines artists’ capacity for greatness and nature’s talent for humbling us all. Hardin will read from the book at the Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville on August 24; at Landmark Booksellers in Franklin on August 29; and at the 2017 Southern Festival Books, which will be held in Nashville October 13-15.

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Finding Roots in Rubble

Preparing for the birth of her first child, Hannah Palmer tries to find her own childhood

When Hannah Palmer returns to her home town, she finds that Atlanta has been forever changed by the “world’s busiest airport.” Part personal memoir, part investigative journalism, Flight Path is a compelling read for anyone who lives in a rapidly-growing city. Palmer will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15.

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Dreams of Happiness

Two generations struggle for love and success in Stephanie Powell Watts’s No One Is Coming to Save Us

In No One Is Coming to Save Us, Stephanie Powell Watts takes up themes from The Great Gatsby—wealth, social position, the search for love—and explores them through a twenty-first-century African-American family in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Watts will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15.

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“Ugly Love”

Book Excerpt: Ugly Love (Notes from the Negro Side of the Moon)

Earl S. Braggs is the Herman H. Battle Professor of African American Studies at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. He is the author of ten collections of poetry. Braggs is the recipient of the Anhinga Prize, the Jack Kerouac Prize, the Gloucester College Prize, and the Cleveland State Prize. He will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15.

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Booty, Booty, Booty, Booty, Rockin’ Everywhere

Ann Powers examines popular music’s propensity for sexual healing

In her new book, Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music, Ann Powers details the history of erotic power in American popular music. Powers will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 17 at 6:30 p.m.

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