Chapter 16 - Part 418

Smart, Sad, Funny

Poet Mary Jo Salter’s new collection, Nothing by Design, is heavy and light by turns

By Maria Browning | September 11, 2013

September 11, 2013 The poems in Mary Jo Salter’s Nothing by Design display her characteristic wit, erudition, and formal grace, along with real depth of feeling. They are entertaining in the truest sense, speaking to the reader’s mind and heart with equal urgency, and they have a bit of silliness thrown in for good measure. Salter will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13, 2013. All festival events are free and open to the public.

Walking to Justice

In a moving work of graphic nonfiction, Congressman John Lewis recalls his path from Nashville lunch counters to the National Mall during the American civil-rights movement

By Michael Ray Taylor | September 9, 2013

September 9, 2013 Like the acclaimed graphic novels Maus and Persepolis, the new graphic memoir March is a coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of violent, historical confrontation. A collaboration between Representative John Lewis, Democratic congressman from Georgia, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, the book tells the story of Lewis’s involvement in the American civil-rights movement. Congressman Lewis and his collaborators will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13, 2013. All festival events are free and open to the public.

The Nature of the Harm

In Tara Conklin’s The House Girl, lives interconnect across time to unravel a mystery of art and legacy

By Emily Choate | September 6, 2013

September 6, 2013 Tara Conklin’s debut novel, The House Girl, revolves around the legacy of Josephine Bell, a long-dead artist who lived as a house slave on a Virginia tobacco farm. By interweaving Josephine’s story with the path of the researcher trying to uncover that buried history, the novel confronts the question of whether it’s ever truly possible to restore what’s been ruptured by time and injustice. Conklin will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13, 2013. All festival events are free and open to the public.

Flickering Images of Truth and Lies

The ambiguous nature of cinema lies at the dark heart of Marisha Pessl’s second novel

By Chris Scott | September 5, 2013

September 5, 2013 In Night Film, Marisha Pessl convincingly imagines the duplicitous world of a movie director named Stanislas Cordova, whose infamous films terrorize viewers. In this novel loaded with deception, misperception, and outright terror, the mysterious death of Cordova’s daughter propels a journalist into the dark corners of movies and the human mind. Pessl will appear at the Nashville Public Library at 6:15 p.m. on September 12, 2013, as part of the Salon@615 series.

A Writing Conference to Sink Your Teeth Into

A new conference at MTSU will feature writers of many genres and a keynote speech by Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang

By Sarah Norris | September 4, 2013

September 4, 2013 On September 28, 2013, The Writer’s Loft at MTSU in Murfreesboro will sponsor a new opportunity for aspiring writers in the mid-state: the first annual Middle Tennessee Writers’ Conference. Celebrated novelist Kevin Wilson will give the keynote address, and other speakers booked for the day-long event include nonfiction writer Holly Tucker, poet Bill Brown, fiction writer Linda Busby Parker, and playwright Claudia Barnett. Registration is open to the public through September 10.

A Town Defined By Violence

In Daniel Woodrell’s The Maid’s Version, the Ozarks are beset by mayhem

By Sean Kinch | September 3, 2013

September 3, 2013 Daniel Woodrell’s characters live in a dangerous world. In Woodrell’s new novel, The Maid’s Version, scenes of casual cruelty follow passages of sexual abuse and bloody bar fights. Woodrell will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13, 2013. All festival events are free and open to the public.

The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History

By Allen Boyer and Mark Nicholls
Routledge
340 pages
$180

The book “explores the reasons why treason coalesced around specific offences agreed by both the monarch and the wider political nation, why it became an essential instrument of enforcement in high politics, and why, over the past three hundred years, it has gradually fallen into disuse while remaining on the statute book.”

~the publisher