Chapter 16 - Part 436

Getting it Right

In the first of a two-part interview, veteran journalists John Egerton and John Seigenthaler talk about books, newspapers, and the single most important historical event of the twentieth century

October 26, 2012

October 26, 2012 On October 30 at 7 p.m., John Seigenthaler will speak on “First Amendment Challenges Posed by New Media Technology” at the Massey Performing Arts Center on Belmont University campus in Nashville. The event is free and open to the public. Click here for ticket details. On November 8 at 11:30 a.m., Seigenthaler will receive the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee’s 2012 Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award. Tickets to that event are $75. Click here for details.

A Brain on Fire

Award-winning author and literacy crusader Mem Fox preaches the importance of reading to children

By Tina LoTufo | October 25, 2012

October 25, 2012 Mem Fox believes passionately that a good book has the power to move a reader “profoundly, one way or another—to laughter or tears, horror or delight, disgust or dismay, fascination or fright. If a book makes children laugh, cry, squeal, shiver, or wriggle and jiggle in some way, it takes up residence in their hearts and stays there.” Inspired by decades of experience as an educator, an award-winning children’s book author, and a parent, Fox considers her most important role to be crusading for the importance of reading aloud to young children, which she believes is an absolutely essential component in a child’s healthy development. On November 5 at 6:15 p.m., Mem Fox will appear at the Nashville Public Library as part of the Salon@615 series. The event is free and open to the public.

Singing What You Mean

Poet Robert Wrigley talks with Chapter 16 about the necessity of stories and music

By Charlotte Pence | October 24, 2012

October 24, 2012 Robert Wrigley, the author of five collections, writes poems that speak to daily concerns about family, aging, and the land we inhabit. Wrigley recently answered questions via email about his life in Idaho and his goals for poetry. As he explains, “poetry exists for three central reasons: to delight, to instruct, and to wound.” Robert Wrigley will give a free public reading on October 25 at 7 p.m. in Buttrick Hall room 101 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Click here for event details.

Imagination and Wit, with a Side of Conscience

A brief look at Margaret Atwood’s remarkable body of work

By Maria Browning | October 23, 2012

October 23, 2012 Since her first novel, The Edible Woman, was published in 1969, Margaret Atwood has always seemed a writer very much of her time and yet prescient, with an almost uncanny ability to show us clearly who we are and where we might be headed. One of a tiny handful of authors who enjoy both critical respect and wide popular appeal, Atwood has used her prominence to advocate for the environmental causes that are her passionate concern. As the Nashville Public Library Foundation prepares to honor Atwood with the 2012 Nashville Public Library Literary Award, Chapter 16 surveys her body of work. Atwood will give a free public reading on October 27 at 10 a.m. in the auditorium of the Nashville Public Library downtown.

Love and Death in Venice

Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily looks to the past to solve a mystery in nineteenth-century Italy

By Faye Jones | October 22, 2012

October 22, 2012 When Lady Emily Hargreaves heads to Italy, it’s a fair bet that she isn’t on vacation. In fact, Emily—the heroine of Death in the Floating City, Tasha Alexander’s seventh Victorian mystery—arrives in Venice to solve a murder. To find the killer, she must investigate not only those around her but also the lives of star-crossed lovers who lived centuries before. Fans of Alexander, a former Franklin resident, know Emily will manage it all with charm, intelligence, and ladylike decorum. Tasha Alexander will discuss Death in the Floating City at Parnassus Books on October 24 at 6:30 p.m.

More at Peace than Ever Before

Kingsport native Lisa Alther talks with Chapter 16 about her career-retrospective story collection

By Tina LoTufo | October 19, 2012

October 19, 2012 In Stormy Weather & Other Stories, bestselling author and Kingsport native Lisa Alther has put together a collection of short stories written throughout her decades-long career. The selections are lively and varied, and together they represent a body of work that reaches all the way back to the publication of her first novel, Kinflicks, in 1976. Most recently, Alther returned to Appalachia as she researched Blood Feud, an accounting of the famous feud between the Hatfield and McCoy families. On October 25, Lisa Alther will be inducted into the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame and also receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from Knoxville’s Friends of Literacy.

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