Benjamin René Jordan describes how the Boy Scouts helped to define modern manhood
In Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of America: Citizenship, Race, and the Environment, 1910-1930, Benjamin René Jordan describes how the Boy Scouts of America adapted older ideals of manhood to fit a modern nation, making adolescent boys better corporate citizens and leaders. Jordan will discuss his research at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on September 24 at 2 p.m.
Johnny Smith talks about the fractured friendship of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X
In Blood Brothers, historians Johnny Smith and Randy Roberts chronicle the friendship of two dynamic figures: Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. Smith will discuss the book at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis on September 22 at 6 p.m.
David Arnold’s latest YA novel follows a gang of oddballs on a mission of mercy
In Kids of Appetite, David Arnold creates a narrator whose capacity for dizzying wordplay brings to life a cast of characters so bizarre and yet so basically decent that readers can’t help but cheer them on in their crazy mission. Arnold will discuss Kids of Appetite at Parnassus Books on September 19 and at the Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16.
In Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am, a Jewish father tries to prove he really exists
Jacob Bloch, the central character in Jonathan Safran Foer’s new novel, Here I Am, suffers from existential uncertainty. The heart of this ambitious work of fiction depicts Jacob’s attempt to deserve “the privilege of being alive.” Jonathan Safran Foer will discuss Here I Am at the Nashville Public Library on September 15, 2016, at 6:15 p.m. The event, part of the Salon@615 series, is free and open to the public.
Adam Haslett’s Imagine Me Gone depicts a family grappling with a legacy of suicide
In Imagine Me Gone, Adam Haslett uses multiple points of view to limn the collateral consequences of a father’s suicide and a tight-knit family’s history of depression. Haslett will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016. Festival events are free and open to the public.
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Jason Ward investigates a series of lynchings in Clarke County, Mississippi
With deep research and vivid writing, Jason Ward tells the story of two lynchings in Clarke County, Mississippi, that explain both black progress and white resistance across the course of the twentieth century. Ward will discuss Hanging Bridge at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016.
