Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

The Right to Be

With The Book of Aron, Jim Shepard adds another essential volume to the canon of Holocaust fiction

June 24, 2015 “My mother and father named me Aron, but my father said they should have named me What Have You Done,” writes Jim Shepard at the outset of The Book of Aron. Eight year-old Aron’s precocity and daring prove useful when he joins forces with other Warsaw street urchins to smuggle food and supplies to their families after the Nazis overtake Poland. Shepard will appear in conversation with Knopf editor Gary Fisketjon to discuss The Book of Aron at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 26, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.

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The Art of Self Defense

Robert Blagojevich’s new memoir testifies to the injustice of the federal justice system

June 23, 2015 Robert Blagojevich was indicted and tried, along with his brother Rod Blagojevich, former governor of Illinois, for attempting to sell Barack Obama’s former Senate seat. In Fundraiser A: My Fight for Freedom and Justice, Blagojevich describes a journey through the looking-glass world of investigators, prosecutors, judges, juries, and media that left him bitter but emboldened. He will discuss his memoir at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 27, 2015, at 2 p.m.

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Capital Offense

Veteran activist Joseph B. Ingle reveals the systemic racism behind America’s death penalty

June 22, 2015 A Nashville teacher, writer, and anti-death-penalty activist, Joseph B. Ingle has sat at the side of too many condemned men to count. His new book, Slouching Toward Tyranny, indicts not only the death penalty but also the systemic racism behind it.

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Small-Town Secrets

Annie Barrows takes readers to Depression-era West Virginia, where one family’s unresolved history finally unravels

June 19, 2015 Though Annie Barrows is also a successful children’s book writer, she is best known for being the co-author of the 2008 bestseller The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Now Barrows is back with The Truth According to Us, a Southern novel about the Depression-era town of Macedonia, West Virginia. Barrows will discuss her new novel at the Nashville Public Library on June 25, 2015, at 6:15 p.m.

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All the World’s a Stage-Six Pandemic

Emily St. John Mandel talks with Chapter 16 about the role of art in what makes us human

June 18, 2015 While most contemporary writers of post-apocalyptic fiction trace their literary lineage to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Emily St. John Mandel reached back to Shakespeare’s King Lear in writing her own bestselling novel, Station Eleven. Mandel will read from the novel’s paperback release at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 24, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.

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Rhythm and Pop

Lynne Berry talks with Chapter 16 about her newest picture book, Pig and Pug

June 17, 2015 Nashville children’s author Lynne Berry has fun with alliteration in her newest picture book, Pig and Pug. She will speak at Parnassus Books, along with some canine surprises, on June 20, 2015, at 2 p.m.

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