Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Georgia Gothic

In the new historical thriller from Matthew Guinn, a disgraced detective returns to Atlanta to hunt a vicious serial killer

September 25, 2015 Matthew Guinn has created a rich, realistic portrait of Atlanta in 1881 for his new thriller, The Scribe, which features detective Thomas Canby, the target of a Reconstruction-era corruption charge, who must return to his native Atlanta to track down a serial killer. Guinn will discuss The Scribe at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on September 29, 2015, at 6:30 p.m., and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015.

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A Kind of Meditation

Ruth Reichl talks with Chapter 16 about the healing powers of the kitchen

September 24, 2015 Ruth Reichl was devastated when the magazine she edited, Gourmet, shut down. Where does a food writer go when there’s nowhere to go? The kitchen, of course. Reichl’s first cookbook, My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes that Saved My Life, chronicles her rediscovery of the pleasures of cooking. Reichl will discuss the book at the Nashville Public Library on October 1, 2015, at 6:15 p.m.

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Presumed Guilty

Sallie Bissell’s latest Mary Crow mystery revisits a cold case with a ten-year-old victim

September 23, 2015 Every so often, the Pisgah County Police Department reopens the cold case that is colder than any other: the 1989 murder of ten-year-old Teresa Ewing. And when they do, it turns the lives of the people who were once her friends into a nightmare. Sallie Bissell will discuss the latest book in her Mary Crow series, A Judgment of Whispers, at BookManBookWoman in Nashville on October 3, 2015, at 3 p.m.

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Heartbreak at the Core

Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies is the story of a complicated marriage

September 22, 2015 Lauren Groff’s third novel, Fates and Furies, is part love story, part tragedy, and part black comedy. It surveys the long marriage of a golden boy to a mystery girl and leaves the reader to ponder the possibility that a couple can love profoundly without ever really knowing each other at all. Groff will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015.

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You Will Be OK Again

Jenny Lawson, the Bloggess, talks with Chapter 16 about koalas, “voodoo vaginas,” and mental illness

September 21, 2015 Fans of Jenny Lawson’s blog—and her first book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened—know to expect an offbeat and raucous view of the world. Lawson doesn’t disappoint in Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, which addresses the author’s lifelong struggle with depression. Lawson will appear at the Nashville Public Library on September 30, 2015, at 6:15 p.m.

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Clear Cut

In Honey from the Lion Matthew Neill Null paints a vivid portrait of a dying world

September 18, 2015 Set in early 1900s West Virginia, Matthew Neill Null’s debut novel, Honey from the Lion, is a gritty tale of an era when timber barons ripped a swath of destruction across the virgin forests to fuel an industrial revolution. Null will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015.

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