Chapter 16 - Part 31

Before, When We Were Young

The past is a nightmare in Peter Heller’s terrifying, funny, heart-breaking, and suspenseful debut novel

By Tina LoTufo | September 11, 2012

September 11, 2012 Imagine a decent, ordinary, hard-working guy who just wants to be a good husband and hang out with his dog and go trout fishing once in a while. Then imagine that guy in his 1956 Cessna 182 airplane, flying over the brutal, lawless rubble of civilization’s end. Where would he go? How would he survive? What would he become? That’s the premise of award-winning adventure writer Peter Heller’s wonderful debut novel, The Dog Stars. Heller will discuss the book at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

All Woke Up and Nowhere to Go

The mad world of Padgett Powell’s You & Me can be frustrating, but it’s also playful and funny and oddly moving

By Tina LoTufo | August 24, 2012

August, 24, 2012 One of the characters in Padgett Powell’s new novel, You & Me, points out that some of the objects in the room in which they sit are crooked: “Should we straighten everything?” His friend answers, “I think not. I don’t think us capable, one, but I see no reason to undo the charm of things leaning. Things are finally getting in tune with us.” Readers who enjoy the “charm of things leaning” will find much to ponder in this hilarious, disturbing, poignant, and altogether perplexing volume from the author of recent cult favorite The Interrogative Mood and National Book Award nominee Edisto. Powell will discuss You & Me at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

All of Our Days

Courtney Miller Santo’s debut novel explores the complexities of mother/daughter relationships

By Tina LoTufo | August 15, 2012

August 15, 2012In The Roots of the Olive Tree, Memphis novelist Courtney Miller Santo chronicles the complicated relationships between five generations of mothers and daughters in a California family with a special propensity for long lifespans. Divided into five sections, this debut novel focuses on each of the women in turn—beginning with the feisty Keller family matriarch, 112-year-old Anna—and explores the stories of their lives, the ways in which they both need and resent one another, the memories they carry, and the secrets they hide—even from themselves. Santo will discuss The Roots of the Olive Tree at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on August 21 at 6 p.m. , at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 22 at 6:30 p.m., and at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

Telling Stories in Cowan

Rare book collectors gather for the third annual Tennessee Antiquarian Book Fair

By Tina LoTufo | August 13, 2012

August 13, 2012 On a sunny July day in the tiny town of Cowan, Tennessee (population: 1,700), forty-nine booksellers from twelve states and Canada recently gathered to buy, sell, and trade at the third annual Tennessee Antiquarian Book Fair, sponsored by the Tennessee Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association. Association president Tom McGee, a Cowan resident and local bookstore owner, proudly described the event as “the only major antiquarian book fair in America that takes place in a small town.”

Sacred Harmony

Editors Wendy Reed and Jennifer Horne have collected diverse essays on faith written by Southern women

By Tina LoTufo | July 6, 2012

July 6, 2012 In Circling Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality, editors Wendy Reed and Jennifer Horne weave the voices of seventeen very different women into a complex meditation on spiritual beliefs and practices. Together, the essays examine what it means for a woman to question, reject, seek, find, lose, keep, live, and grow into (and out of) her faith over the course of a lifetime. As Reed and Horne explain, “With this book we are hoping to inspire conversation and encourage vulnerability, to challenge memory, to up the volume.” Three Circling Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality contributors—Marilou Awaikta, Susan Cushman, and Beth Ann Fennelly—will read from their essays and sign copies of the collection at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on July 12 at 5 p.m.

The Cost of Silence

In her new memoir, Full Body Burden, Memphis writer Kristen Iversen recounts a childhood haunted by secrets

By Tina LoTufo | June 25, 2012

June 25, 2012 “My childhood has been shadowed by two enormous fears: my father’s alcoholism and Rocky Flats,” writes Kristen Iversen, director of the M.F.A. program in creative writing at the University of Memphis. With honesty and dignity, Iversen explains how her increasingly troubled father and ineffectual mother created a fragile home life that depended on silence and secrets—an atmosphere not unlike that of the mismanaged and deadly dangerous nuclear-weapons facility at Rocky Flats, located near their suburban Colorado home. In Full Body Burden, Iversen illuminates the beauty of her childhood memories, but she does not flinch from uncovering the damage simultaneously inflicted upon her and her family, upon the land, and ultimately upon us all.

Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones

By Dolly Parton with Holly George-Warren, curated by Rebecca Seaver
Ten Speed Press
336 pages
$50

“Featuring behind-the-scenes stories from Dolly Parton’s life and career, and the largest reveal of her private costume archive, this gorgeously photographed book spotlights her most unforgettable looks from the 1960s to now.”

~ the publisher