Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Make a Mess of Things

Daniel Wallace returns with a comic romp through a series of Extraordinary Adventures

Best known for his debut novel, Big Fish, Daniel Wallace is a master of wit and whimsy, gleaning both wonder and absurdity from the commonplace. In Extraordinary Adventures, Wallace delivers a modern variation on the picaresque, replete with madcap hijinks. He will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 7 at 6:30 p.m.

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Redefining the Story of the South

John T. Edge makes a case for food as the Rosetta Stone of Southern history

A cast of visionaries and eccentrics populates The Potlikker Papers, from Fannie Lou Hamer, founder of the Freedom Farm and Pig Bank, to Edna Lewis, who could tell when a cake was done by listening to it.

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Consciousness and Chaos

Madison Smartt Bell takes the reader on a visionary journey in Behind the Moon

In Behind the Moon, Madison Smartt Bell takes readers on a complex, hallucinatory tour of human and animal consciousness in the course of a story about a mother’s search for her lost daughter.

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Thriller City

Holly Tucker talks with Chapter 16 about her new nonfiction book about historical intrigue in Paris

Holly Tucker’s City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris tells a fascinating true tale of murder, torture, and intrigue in seventeenth-century Paris—and explains how the City of Light got a nickname that has persisted for centuries. Tucker will discuss the book at Star Line Books in Chattanooga on June 8 on 4 p.m.

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A Satisfying Journey

Richard Tillinghast seeks communion with diverse places in Journeys into the Mind of the World

In a new collection of essays, Journeys into the Mind of the World: A Book of Places, poet and inveterate traveler Richard Tillinghast revisits some of the locales that have spoken most profoundly to him, recalling his own experiences and exploring the history and culture that make each one unique.

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Gut Reaction

Weike Wang’s Chemistry is a coming-of-age novel set in a science lab

A young scientist navigates the big questions of career, family, and self in the luminous debut novel, Chemistry, by Weike Wang. On June 1 at Parnassus Books in Nashville, Wang will join Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers, in a conversation moderated by Ann Patchett.

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