Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone is headed to the big screen
February 9, 2012 Abraham Verghese’s sprawling epic, Cutting for Stone, just passed the two-year mark on The New York Times bestseller list (that’s 104 weeks, if you’re counting), has sold more than a million copies, and has been published in twenty-five different languages.
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In Once Upon a River, Bonnie Jo Campbell introduces a fearless young heroine whose escape on the water brings her close to both danger and desperation, but also to courage
February 8, 2012 At age fourteen, Margo Crane, a quiet and beautiful girl, learns to shoot a rifle. A natural with the weapon, she feels “the guidance of the gun itself,” writes Bonnie Jo Campbell in Once Upon a River. “It held her steady, and then sadness perfected her aim.” Absorbing, exotic, and relentlessly heartbreaking, this second novel from the National Book Award finalist is a transcendent example of a journey narrative, centered on a singular, complex protagonist who refuses to be contained or forgotten. Campbell will read from her work February 9 at 7 p.m. in Buttrick Hall, Room 101, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The event is free and open to the public.
Read moreKhaled Mattawa has won Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for literature in translationeld by The Society of Authors
February 8, 2012 The Society of Authors has awarded Khaled Mattawa the £3,000 Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize at a London event to celebrate literature in translation. The prizewinning collection is Selected Poems by Syrian poet Adonis. Poetry doesn’t often yield riches of the monetary kind, but Mattawa is on something of a roll where lucrative literary prizes are concerned.
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Eddie and Taj George needed a ghostwriter; Rob Simbeck was their man
February 7, 2012 When Eddie and Tamara George wanted to write a book about the keys to a happy marriage, their publisher matched them with longtime ghostwriter Rob Simbeck. The Georges will discuss Married for Real: Building a Loving, Powerful Life Together at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Brentwood on February 7 at 7 p.m., and at the Kroger in Hermitage on February 8 at 6 p.m. In an essay for Chapter 16, Simbeck tells the story behind their story.
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David Scheffer gives a firsthand account of bringing war criminals to justice
February 6, 2012 David Scheffer served as the first-ever U.S. ambassador-at-large for war-crimes issues, an office sometimes referred to by his colleagues as “Ambassador to Hell.” In All the Missing Souls, Scheffer gives a firsthand account of the political and diplomatic struggle to form international courts of justice for what he calls “atrocity crimes,” and provides vivid accounts of his own encounters with the survivors of unimaginable brutality. David Scheffer will discuss All the Missing Souls in Nashville at noon on February 7 in the Flynn Auditorium of the Vanderbilt University Law School. The event is free and open to the public.
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Jaden Terrell talks with Chapter 16 about her debut thriller, Racing the Devil, her protagonist—a sweetheart of a disgraced ex-cop—and her plans for a ten-book series
February 3, 2012 As a member of two writers’ groups—the venerable Quill and Dagger, and Sisters in Crime—and as an organizer of the Killer Nashville conference, Jaden Terrell is a major player in the crime-novelist scene in Nashville. Her debut novel, Racing the Devil, is the first in a planned series of ten novels featuring Jared McKean, an ex-cop turned private investigator. He is burdened by both a Galahad complex and a tendency toward violence, but still hasn’t lost his essential sweetness. Terrell answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to her reading at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 11 at 1 p.m.
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