Chapter 16 - Part 429

Under the Guns

Sixty-six years after its composition, Christopher S. Donner’s WWII memoir has finally made it into print

By Ralph Bowden | December 14, 2012

December 14, 2012 In 1946, soon after returning from World War II, Marine lieutenant Christopher S. Donner wrote a memoir that chronicled his experiences as an artillery officer in the Pacific. Lt. Donner served as a Forward Observer in Okinawa, literally under the guns, spotting where the shells hit and calling in adjustments to the battery behind. More than sixty years later, Jack H. McCall, an attorney in Knoxville and a former Army officer, has edited and annotated Donner’s manuscript. Pacific Time on Target is a thoughtful portrait of the Pacific war from the point of view of a junior officer in the thick of things.

Renovating the Fairy Tale

Mother-daughter duo Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williams talk with Chapter 16 about fairy tales, writing across generational lines, and their new children’s novel, The Diary of B.B. Bright, Possible Princess

By Emily Choate | December 13, 2012

December 13, 2012 The New York Times bestselling author Alice Randall and her daughter, Caroline Randall Williams, have joined forces to create the fairy-tale world of their first children’s novel, The Diary of B.B. Bright, Possible Princess. As a thirteen-year-old orphaned princess in hiding on fantastical Bee Isle, B.B. Bright faces a gamut of challenges: earning her godmommies’ good opinion, starting her own beeswax candle business, winning her way off the island by finding eight elusive princesses who hold the keys to her identity, and withstanding Bee Isle’s ultimate pass-fail: The Official Princess Test.

A Small Toot of Our Horn

Chapter 16 wins national humanities prize

By Serenity Gerbman | December 12, 2012

December 12, 2012 Humanities Tennessee’s literary website, Chapter 16, has won the Helen and Martin Schwartz Prize from the Federation of State Humanities Councils. The prize is awarded for innovative programs that have had a significant impact on citizens, organizations, or communities in their states. Chapter 16 is the leading provider of book-related content in Tennessee.

God as an Interesting Character

Alan Lightman talks about science, faith, and the writing of Mr g: A Novel About the Creation

By Maria Browning | December 12, 2012

December 12, 2012 In his most recent book, Mr g: A Novel About the Creation, Memphis native Alan Lightman takes on the ultimate questions of mind and spirit, writing a twenty-first-century creation story which features a God who works within the laws of physics. He answers questions from Chapter 16 about the genesis of the book, and he shares his thoughts on the troubling cultural rift between science and religion.

A Massive Whitewash

In a new book, historian Benjamin Houston corrects the misperception that racial integration in Nashville was a model of civility for the rest of the South

By Robert Cheatham | December 11, 2012

December 11, 2012 “The Nashville Way” is a phrase coined in the 1960s to describe the more civilized manner in which the white establishment of Nashville behaved when confronted with demands of equality from the black people of Nashville than did, say, the white establishment of Birmingham. But in his new book, The Nashville Way: Racial Etiquette and the Struggle for Social Justice in a Southern City, historian Benjamin Houston concludes that the slogan was nothing more than “a massive whitewash on multiple levels,” and he tells why in narratives from the perspective of both the white establishment and the leadership of the black community. On the whole, he writes, “it is the story of a society wrestling with yet willfully ignoring its racial reality. More fundamentally it is the story of how a racial status quo, after decades of upheaval, was both changed and yet preserved.”

The Magazine at the Corner of Second and Church

Talking shop with Roy Burkhead, founder of Tennessee’s newest literary quarterly

By Tina LoTufo | December 10, 2012

December 10, 2012 In May 2011, Roy Burkhead was hit by a car at the intersection of Church Street and 2nd Avenue in downtown Nashville. (He was not seriously injured.) In many people, such an experience might spark musings on mortality, but for Burkhead it sparked the idea for a literary journal. “This event forced me to pause and look around,” he says. “I was interested to realize just how many different aspects of Nashville were represented from this particular spot of town. Maybe it was the impact of the bumper, but I started to ponder that this specific spot could work as a great metaphor, a virtual location in this actual city.” One year later, he published the first issue of 2nd & Church.

Isabel and the Invisible World

By Alan Lightman, illustrated by Ramona Kaulitzki
MIT Kids Press
40 pages
$18.99

“In simple, engaging language, complemented by luminous artwork from best-selling illustrator Ramona Kaulitzki, author and physicist Alan Lightman unveils the hidden world of light waves—the ones you can see and the ones you can’t.”

~ the publisher