Chapter 16 - Part 409

Fire and Hurt

Robert Hilburn captures a music icon in his rich new biography of Johnny Cash

By Michael Ray Taylor | December 4, 2013

December 4, 2013 From 1954, when he performed alongside the teenaged Elvis Presley, to his 2003 rendition of “Hurt,” recorded in Nashville months before his death, Johnny Cash held a unique power over audiences and those who knew him. Robert Hilburn, who spent more than thirty years as the chief music critic of The Los Angeles Times, has captured the roots of that power in Johnny Cash: The Life, a rich and thorough new biography.

Authentic Appalachia

In a new historical novel, Karen Spears Zacharias conveys a complex drama set during a supposedly simpler time and place

By Ralph Bowden | December 3, 2013

December 3, 2013 Karen Spears Zacharias is a veteran author of nonfiction, but her new book, Mother of Rain, is a foray into historical fiction. Set during the Depression and World War II in a close-knit community in East Tennessee, the story centers on a troubled young woman, her first baby, and their Appalachian neighbors’ good-hearted efforts to save them both.

Beyond Shock and Awe

Radley Balko rethinks America’s militarized police forces

By Paul V. Griffith | December 2, 2013

December 2, 2013 In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Radley Balko argues that America’s police forces are growing increasingly dependent on military tools and training, even though most suspects are accused of non-violent crimes. “These policies,” he says, “have given us an increasingly paranoid, increasingly aggressive police force in America, and a public shielded from knowing the consequences of it all.”

The Risky Business of Fairy Tales

In Elizabeth Gentry’s Housebound, dark riddles and magical discoveries fuel a gothic novel

By Emily Choate | November 27, 2013

November 27, 2013 Housebound, the debut novel by Knoxville author Elizabeth Gentry, is an adventure in genre, immersed in the strange, dark world of fairy tales and gothic novels. The story centers around Maggie, the eldest of nine children in a family held together by a mysterious collection of unspoken yet airtight rules. When she breaks house rules by announcing her intention to leave home, Maggie embarks on an adventure that will change her life. Elizabeth Gentry will discuss Housebound at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville at 6 p.m. on December 6, 2013.

The Head of the Table

Remembering the late John Egerton, who loved the South as fiercely as he fought its injustices

By Margaret Renkl | November 26, 2013

November 26, 2013 It would not be possible to overstate the cultural and literary influence of Nashville author John Egerton, who died last Thursday of an apparent heart attack at age 78. In books like Speak Now Against the Day and Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History, Egerton’s great project was chronicling and interpreting “this eccentric and enigmatic region in which we live,” as he put it. Here at Chapter 16, we mourn the loss of a great writer—and a great friend.

Painting the Paradise That Used to Be

A new collection showcases the poetry of the late Wilmer Mills

By Tina LoTufo | November 25, 2013

November 25, 2013 Selected Poems by the late Wilmer Mills includes poems about building a house, plowing a field, and crafting a cradle, among others. This poet, who died in 2011 at age forty-one, writes from specific, hands-on experience but also sees beyond the ordinary to touch what is timeless in each act.

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