Chapter 16 - Part 360

“I'd Rather Be There than Any Place I Know”

In Beale Street Dynasty, Preston Lauterbach chronicles the tumultuous history of Memphis

By Randy Fox | March 12, 2015

March 12, 2015 Preston Lauterbach’s Beale Street Dynasty: Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis paints a beguiling portrait of American ambition, ingenuity, tragedy, and the birth of the blues. Lauterbach will discuss the book at Rhodes College in Memphis on March 19, 2015, at 6 p.m. in the McCallum Ballroom of the Bryan Campus Life Center. The event, part of the three-day Beale Street Symposium, is free and open to the public.

What Makes Us Who We Are?

In her debut novel, Memphis native Moriah McStay explores the way our experiences shape us

By Tracy Barrett | March 11, 2015

March 11, 2015 Fiona Doyle’s face was horribly scarred when she was a little girl. But what if the accident had never happened? Moriah McStay’s Everything That Makes You follows Fiona and an alternative, unscarred version of herself, exploring how much (and how little) would change if we could turn back the clock and “fix” what we think is wrong with our lives. McStay will read from her debut novel at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on March 17, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.

Crazy in Mississippi

Jamie Kornegay’s Soil introduces a Faulknerian character stuck in a world of Internet conspiracies and noisy four-wheelers

By Michael Ray Taylor | March 10, 2015

March 10, 2015 What would happen if the grandson of a Snopes studied sustainable agriculture and Internet-fueled apocalypse scenarios? Nothing good, as Jamie Kornegay suggests in Soil, his beautifully written debut novel. Kornegay will read at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 17, 2015, and at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on March 18, 2015. Both events will take place at 6:30 p.m.

Fiction as Autobiography

Claire Vaye Watkins talks with novelist Adam Ross about her celebrated debut story collection, Battleborn

By Adam Ross | March 9, 2015

March 9, 2015 Claire Vaye Watkins, writes novelist Adam Ross, has “known the worst kind of loss. She’s also transformed it into startling, original fiction.” Watkins will appear at Vanderbilt University on March 12, 2015, at 7 p.m. This event, part of the Vanderbilt Visiting Writers Series, is free and open to the public.

Show Business

In The Tennessee Theatre journalist Jack Neely celebrates Knoxville’s landmark movie palace

By Tristan Charles | March 6, 2015

March 6, 2015 What really matters to a city’s identity are the places that maintain a singular character over decades of change and still find a way to coexist with their contemporary neighbors. In Knoxville, as journalist Jack Neely points out in The Tennessee Theatre, that distinctive personality is formed by its surviving movie palace.

Where the Half-Truths Live

In Monday’s Lie by Jamie Mason, a secret agent’s daughter finally confronts her past

By Kathryn Justice Leache | March 5, 2015

March 5, 2015 Dee Aldrich, protagonist of Jamie Mason’s new thriller, Monday’s Lie, struggles to decrypt her late mother’s mysterious past and connect it with a present-day crisis. Jamie Mason will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 12, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.

Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past

By Tore C. Olsson
St. Martin's Press
288 pages
$30

“I recommend Red Dead’s History unreservedly not only to fans of the iconic video game, but also to anyone who wants to understand the riotousness — from Wild West gunslingers to Jim Crow to lynching — that darkened our past, and which continues to influence our culture. Olsson’s prose is graceful, his analysis profound. This is history at its most accessible and exciting.”

~Peter Cozzens, award-winning author of A Brutal Reckoning