Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Holy War, Popular War

In a comprehensive history of the First Crusade, Jay Rubenstein weighs in on Apocalyptic fever, the advent of chivalric warfare, and the power of popular religion

January 31, 2012 Of all the sayings about history––it’s one damned thing after another; it’s written by the winners, it’s doomed to repeat itself––none is more incriminating than the one attributed to Lenin: A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth. Knoxville historian Jay Rubenstein takes this phenomenon into account in Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse.

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Professor Peelle

Fiction writer Lydia Peelle joins the faculty of Southern New Hampshire University

January 31, 2012 Lydia Peelle–a Nashville fiction writer and former speechwriter for Governor Phil Bredesen–has joined the faculty of Southern New Hampshire University’s low-residency M.F.A. program in creative writing.

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A Complex Creation

In his new novel, Alan Lightman takes on the beginning of everything

January 30, 2012 Science and faith seem to be continually at war in American culture, with both sides claiming exclusive hold on the truth. In Mr g: A Novel About the Creation, Memphis native Alan Lightman seeks to reconcile the two, respecting both reasoned inquiry and spiritual mystery.

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Tracing the Origins of Empathy for the Natural World

In a new essay for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Michael Sims recalls the books that first led him to nature

January 30, 2012 When Michael Sims walked into a used bookstore in his hometown of Crossville, he discovered a set of children’s encyclopedias from the 1950s and ’60s—books which first spoke to him in the hybrid language of knowledge, curiosity, and wonder—that made him want to be a writer:

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A Radical Act of Love

When his grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, memoirist Robert Leleux unexpectedly found his chance to have, at last, a happy family

January 27, 2012 The Living End: A Memoir of Forgetting and Forgiving is the story of the way Robert Leleux navigates the labyrinth of hospitals and specialists he is cast into when his beloved grandmother is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. To anyone unfamiliar with Leleux’s sense of humor and unerring ability to locate and memorialize absurdity in all its guises, this will no doubt sound like a dreary tale best avoided until life offers no way around it. In fact it is an absolute pleasure to read this gentle, funny, deeply wise memoir of how an encounter with incurable illness turns a boy into a man, and angry people into a family again. Leleux answered questions from Chapter 16 via email prior to his appearance at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 30 at 6 p.m.

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Beginning with a Voice

It’s been a long road to publication for Thomas P. Balázs, but his new story collection is well worth the wait

January 26, 2012 Despite the science-fiction origin of its title, the nine stories in Thomas P. Balázs’s debut collection, Omicron Ceti III, offer journeys into dark and quite disparate corners of this very real world. Wide-ranging in subject, the stories are linked by their characters’ fumbling, consuming desire for connection, and by the comic qualities that Balázs deftly draws out of their lonely and sometimes painful circumstances. Balázs will read from Omicron Ceti III in Chattanooga on January 29, 3 p.m., at Winder Binder Books, and on February 20, 7 p.m., at the Jewish Community Federation.

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