April 3, 2014 Visitations by John Bensko, a professor of English at the University of Memphis, has been awarded the Anita Claire Scharf Award from the University of Tampa Press. Bensko will read from the newly released collection at the Jackson Madison County Library on April 3, 2014, at noon. The event is free and open to the public.
Robin Layton’s photographs capture the origins of basketball dreams
April 2, 2014 Robin Layton’s new book of photography, hoop: the american dream, captures the romance of basketball through images of lone baskets around the country. Ranging from urban playgrounds to suburban parks to backboards nailed to the sides of Iowa barns, Layton’s subjects are as various as the people who play the game. Robin Layton will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 4 at 6:30 p.m.
Tornadoes and hurricanes inspire physicist Alan Lightman to consider our connection to the natural world
April 2, 2014 Alan Lightman is the highly acclaimed author of plays, poems, novels, and essays—and he’s working on a memoir about his Memphis childhood—so it is not surprising that the recent run of calamitous weather would inspire him to write a literary meditation on the relationship between human beings and the natural world.
Amy Greene’s second novel, Long Man, is getting serious reviews
March 31, 2014 When Amy Greene saw the cover design for Long Man, her new novel, her first thought was “My publisher takes me seriously as a writer.” And it’s true: this novel, unlike Bloodroot Greene’s critically acclaimed and New York Times-bestselling first novel, is not illustrated with a delicate watercolor image of a beautiful woman in a romantic dress. It’s illustrated with bold lines, block colors, imposing type—a designer’s signifier of literary heft and consequence.
Ruta Sepetys and R.A. Dickey are headed to the movies
March 28, 2014 Coming soon to a theater near you: Ruta Sepetys’s bestselling (and acclaimed) YA novel, Between Shades of Gray and R.A. Dickey’s bestselling (and acclaimed) baseball memoir, Wherever I Wind Up.
In Tova Mirvis’s Visible City, entangled neighbors catch startling glimpses into each other’s lives
March 28, 2013 The characters in Tova Mirvis’s novel Visible City dwell in the glittering flux of New York, constantly exposed to moments of potential clash and change. They play their official roles—stay-at-home mother, lawyer, therapist, art historian—as seamlessly as they can manage, but inside they seek routes of escape. Mirvis, a Memphis native, will discuss Visible City at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on April 2, 2014, at 6 p.m.
