Chapter 16 - Part 286

The Thing’s the Plays

Shakespeare’s First Folio comes to Nashville, signifying everything

By Steve Haruch | November 7, 2016

first-folio “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare,” a new exhibit at the Nashville Parthenon, brings a four-centuries-old copy of the Bard’s first collection to Tennessee, and it is not to be missed. The rare book—on loan from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death—will be on display from November 10, 2016, to January 8, 2017

Maternal Longing

Mothers—absent and otherwise—are the dynamic force at the center of Brit Bennett’s debut

By Kathryn Justice Leache | November 4, 2016

In Brit Bennett’s debut novel, The Mothers, a teenage girl’s casual fling in the wake of her mother’s suicide profoundly recalibrates her life and the lives of those closest to her. Bennett will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 10 at 6:30 p.m.

On Freedom and Love and Changing the World

Sarah Bakewell breathes new life into the great existential thinkers

By Aram Goudsouzian | November 3, 2016

bakewell_attheexistentialistcafe_final Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus—in her enchanting group biography, At the Existentialist Café, Sarah Bakewell shines a light on these great existential writers and the world they made. Bakewell will discuss the book on November 9 at Rhodes College in Memphis.

Where the Characters Quicken to Life

Bret Anthony Johnston shares the details of his writing process

By Emily Choate | November 2, 2016

remember “Family life seems given to a kind of emotional suspense, which in no way feels less tense or compelling than other kinds of suspense.” Prior to his November 7 reading at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Bret Anthony Johnston talks about creativity, collusion with imaginary characters, and his acclaimed novel, Remember Me Like This.

An Appetite for Imaginative Living

Appalachian writer Wilma Dykeman explores her mountain childhood in a newly-recovered memoir

By Emily Choate | November 1, 2016

Found after Wilma Dykeman’s death in 2006, Family of Earth details the writer and civil-rights activist’s childhood in the mountains around Asheville, North Carolina. This poignant memoir extends the reach of Dykeman’s renowned writing about southern Appalachian places and people.

A World Apart

Barry Wolverton’s back with a second tale from The Chronicles of the Black Tulip series

By Stephen Usery | October 31, 2016

Bren Owen has an unusual gift: he can create exact reproductions of maps from memory. Bren’s creator, Memphis-based author Barry Wolverton, has a similar gift for creating worlds, though he didn’t come to recognize his own talent until much later. Wolverton will read from The Dragon’s Gate at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on November 3 at 6:30 p.m.

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