December 22, 2010 Amy Greene’s first novel—a multigenerational epic called Bloodroot—is getting the kind of attention that most debut novelists can only dream about, garnering reviews in publications as far-flung as The Boston Gobe and Entertainment Weekly. Greene found time in her eighteen-city tour to answer a few questions from Chapter 16.
December 21, 2010 By the time Knopf announced last winter—in an open letter to booksellers by legendary editor Gary Fisketjon, no less—that it would launch Nashville novelist Adam Ross’s debut book, Mr. Peanut, with a print run of 60,000 copies, and that it would be published in fourteen countries, chatter in the book world had already begun. The book officially hit shelves in June, by which time the chatter had grown to a roar, with Michiko Kakutani calling it “dark, dazzling” and Ross himself “an audacious new writer.” Ross took time to discuss his novel with Chapter 16 before the launch event at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville.
December 17, 2010 Today, First Lady Michelle Obama presented the 2010 National Medal for Museum and Library Service to five museums and five libraries during an awards ceremony at the White House. Among the honorees: the Nashville Public Library.
December 15, 2010 Vadis Turner and Matthew Parker have found a national audience for their children’s book, Nashville Counts!: The Huffington Post has named the pair “the greatest people of the day” for their clever fundraising efforts on behalf of Middle Tennessee’s flood victims. A silent auction of original artwork from the book brought in $10,000, and stores are selling out of the book all over the region. “Nashville to me is a sense of home,” Parker told HuffPo.
December 8, 2010 Nashville-based science writer Amanda Little has made a career of writing about environmental issues—as a regular contributor to Grist and as the author of Power Trip: From Oil Wells to Solar Cells—A Ride to Our Renewable Future—but she recently scooped book reviewers all over the country by engaging Jonathan Franzen, this year’s most celebrated novelist, in an interview about the little-recognized environmental themes in Freedom. A sample bit of dialog:
November 29, 2010 In Great Britain, people take their writers seriously: across the country, bookies lay odds on shortlist favorites for both the Booker Prize and the Nobel with the kind of fervor reserved in the U.S. for March Madness or the Super Bowl. But even in England, the Literary Review’s annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award inspires a different kind of excitement. Mr. Peanut, by Nashville’s own Adam Ross, is a nominee for the 2010 award, which will be announced tonight in London, and Ross has a few words for Chapter 16 on the subject.
