Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

The March of Science

In The Songs of Trees, David George Haskell writes with a poet’s ear and a biologist’s precision

In his 2012 book, The Forest Unseen, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, David George Haskell revealed the web of life hidden within a small circle of old-growth Tennessee forest. His second book, The Songs of Trees, expands that web to the globe itself. Haskell will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 30 at 2 p.m.

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We Love Imperfectly

In Anything is Possible, Elizabeth Strout explores the intricacies of human frailty

The subtle elegance and beauty of Anything is Possible, Elizabeth Strout’s new collection of linked stories, will further cement the author as one of her era’s most gifted and compassionate chroniclers of human frailty. Strout will discuss Anything is Possible at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 27 at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are required to join the signing line and are available with purchase of the book from Parnassus.

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What is Left

A dime-store scrapbook preserves priceless seventy-year-old memories

“Stayed here on our wedding night,” is the first entry in the scrapbook. Accompanying her text is a linen-paper postcard of the Hayes Hotel in Jackson, Michigan. My parents spent an entire month driving to California and back, a lengthy journey even today, and a grand expedition in the 1940s, before the wide availability of air conditioning and the franchising of America.

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In the Tense Space Between Two Worlds

Adrienne Berard’s Water Tossing Boulders looks at the American civil-rights movement through a new lens

Adrienne Berard will discuss Water Tossing Boulders: How a Family of Chinese Immigrants Led the First Fight to Desegregate Schools in the Jim Crow South at Bookstock, a celebration held at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library in Memphis on April 29. Bookstock is held annually and this year will feature appearances by forty area authors, food trucks, live music, and a host of children’s activities, including face painting, arts and crafts, and story time. All events are free and open to the public.

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Dixie Fried

Jim Dickinson’s memoir is a powerful journey through Memphis music

Jim Dickinson’s memoir, I’m Just Dead, I’m Not Gone, works its way through the musical landscape of rock’n’roll, soul, and the blues—Memphis-style. Mary Lindsay Dickinson will read from her late husband’s book at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on April 27 at 1 p.m. A musical performance by Some Sons of Mudboy will follow the reading.

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If It Ain’t Broke…

With The Fix David Baldacci cements the success of yet another page-turning series

Suspense master David Baldacci’s The Fix, third installment in the Amos Decker series, joins five other successful novel series developed by the prolific author. Baldacci will discuss The Fix at the Nashville Public Library on April 17 at 6:15 p.m.

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