Chapter 16 - Part 328

A Way to Be Black in America

Alexander Wolff explores the relationship between Barack Obama and basketball

By Aram Goudsouzian | November 13, 2015

November 13, 2015 Basketball has helped to define Barack Obama, both as a person and as a president. In The Audacity of Hoop, veteran sportswriter Alexander Wolff explores the man, the sport, and his era. Wolff will discuss and sign his new book at the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on November 17, 2015, at 6 p.m. The reading will be preceded by a reception at 5:30 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.

God Bless Us, Every One

With The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge Charlie Lovett delivers a clever homage to the Dickens classic

By Ed Tarkington | November 12, 2015

November 12, 2015 Novelist Charlie Lovett has found his niche in writing novels that combine his passion for classic English literature with his gifts as a storyteller. In The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge, Lovett imagines what might have happened after a change of heart experienced by western literature’s most famous Christmas curmudgeon. Lovett will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on November 18, 2015, at 6 p.m.

War on Words

Violent extremists kidnap a newspaper columnist in Grant Park, a new novel by Leonard Pitts Jr.

By Peggy Burch | November 11, 2015

November 11, 2015 In Leonard Pitts Jr.’s new novel, Grant Park, a newspaper columnist in Chicago who crusades for racial justice is kidnapped by white supremacists on the morning of President Barack Obama’s first election. Pitts, a syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald, will appear in Memphis, where many of the novel’s historic scenes are set, at 6 p.m. on November 19, 2015, at Crosstown Arts.

In The Wake of History

In Golden Age, the culmination of Jane Smiley’s Last Hundred Years Trilogy, America’s past catches up to the present

By Sean Kinch | November 10, 2015

November 10, 2015 The first two volumes of Jane Smiley’s Last One Hundred Years trilogy cover 1920-1986, as reflected through the lives of an Iowa family. In Golden Age, the final installment of the series, Smiley takes readers through the heady ‘90s, the shaky aughts, and the present decade, finally offering a disturbing glimpse into the near future. Smiley will discuss her new novel at the Nashville Public Library on November 18, 2015, at 6:15 p.m.

All the Lost Things

Rock legend Patti Smith returns to the page with an elegiac new memoir, M Train

By Ed Tarkington | November 9, 2015

November 9, 2015 In 2010, rock icon Patti Smith won a National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids, a chronicle of her early years in New York City and her relationship with fine-art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Now Smith returns with M Train, a haunting, elegiac meditation on the challenges of translating memory into art. Smith will appear at OZ Arts Nashville on November 13, 2015, at 7 p.m.

Followed by Evil

Dana Chamblee Carpenter’s debut novel is a dark tale of thirteenth-century Bohemia

By Faye Jones | November 6, 2015

November 6, 2015 Winner of Killer Nashville’s 2014 Claymore Award, Dana Chamblee Carpenter’s debut novel is a tale of medieval Bohemia that contains familiar themes of love, death, and religion combined in unfamiliar ways. Carpenter will discuss Bohemian Gospel at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 15, 2015, at 2 p.m. and at Star Line Books in Chattanooga on November 21 at 2 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