Chapter 16 - Part 369

Untamed Narratives

In Short Stories by Jesus, Amy-Jill Levine revisits the parables with an eye toward their first-century context

By Beth Waltemath | November 24, 2014

November 24, 2014 Short Stories by Jesus, the latest book by Vanderbilt professor Amy-Jill Levine, analyzes a misunderstood and nearly forgotten literary form: the parable. Levine, a professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt, argues that Jesus’s parables have been domesticated into easy lessons, robbed of their power to surprise, subvert, and indict.

Literature and Encyclopedism in Enlightenment Britain: The Pursuit of Complete Knowledge

November 23, 2014

Appalachian Christmas

Sharyn McCrumb brings back fans’ favorite characters in her new Ballad novella

By Faye Jones | November 21, 2014

November 21, 2014 Sharyn McCrumb gives fans of her Ballad series an early Christmas present with her new novella, Nora Bonesteel’s Christmas Past, which is told in alternating vignettes featuring Sheriff Spencer Arrowood and Nora Bonesteel, two popular characters from the series.

Much More than Tea and Sympathy

In The Way of Tea and Justice, Becca Stevens tells the story behind Nashville’s Thistle Stop Café, a cottage industry for former prostitutes

By Tina LoTufo | November 20, 2014

November 20, 2014 “A Story in Every Cup”—that’s the motto of Nashville’s Thistle Stop Café. In The Way of Tea and Justice, Becca Stevens, Episcopal priest and founder of Thistle Farms, tells the story of the Thistle Stop Café, where, in Stevens’ words, “we recognize the dignity of each person” while providing additional employment opportunities for former prostitutes in recovery.

Sophisticated Tales, Hardscrabble Lives

The stories in David Madden’s The Last Bizarre Tale reveal hidden hopes in the South’s dark corners

By Sean Kinch | November 19, 2014

November 19, 2014 The stories in The Last Bizarre Tale, a new collection by Knoxville native David Madden, exhibit the protean nature of Madden’s gifts: his masterful tales run the gamut of literary styles and genres, each entry marked with the stamp of its author’s ingenuity. Madden will appear at Knox Heritage in Knoxville on November 21, 2014, at 11:30 a.m.

A Lover’s Quest

Brandy Wilson’s The Palace Blues tells a story of a Prohibition-era lesbian romance

By Maria Browning | November 18, 2014

November 18, 2014 Frankie, the young heroine of Brandy Wilson’s Prohibition-era novel, The Palace Blues, comes from respectable folks who expect her to marry a nice boy, but she has no interest in respectability, and she’d rather pass for a boy than marry one. When she falls in love with Jean Bailey, a beautiful blues singer, she begins a journey that leaves her family and respectability far behind.

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