Chapter 16 - Part 484

Not On Miss Julia’s Watch

In her latest madcap adventure, Ann B. Ross’s popular heroine has no intention of letting a cult win the soul of her handyman

By Faye Jones | April 5, 2012

April 5, 2012 While a major home-renovation project would keep most people busy, Miss Julia finds time to run to West Virginia to break a man out of the hospital and crash a snake-handling worship service. But in this thirteenth outing for Ann B. Ross’s popular heroine, things aren’t much quieter back home, where she must battle some New Age cultists for the body and soul of her carpenter. Ann B. Ross will discuss Miss Julia to the Rescue at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on April 9 at 6 p.m., at Books-A-Million in Nashville on April 10 at 7 p.m., and at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on April 14 at 1 p.m.

The Cape Act

In The One, music journalist R.J. Smith makes an impassioned case for the Godfather of Soul as the most important American musician of the twentieth century

By Ed Tarkington | April 4, 2012

April 4, 2012 R.J. Smith can’t be accused of objectivity—his abject adoration of James Brown seeps onto nearly every page—but his acclaimed new bio of the Hardest Working Man in Show Business is exhaustively researched and makes a square accounting of Brown’s triumphs, humiliations, and criminal excesses. R.J. Smith will discuss The One: The Life and Music of James Brown in Nashville at Parnassus Books on April 5 at 6:30 p.m., and at Vanderbilt University’s First Amendment Center on April 6 at 9 a.m. Both events are free and open to the public, but the Vanderbilt event requires a reservation. Email heather.lefkowitz@vanderbilt.edu for admission.

Fifty-Two Killer Bloggers

Now there’s a way to get your Killer Nashville fix year-round

By Margaret Renkl | April 4, 2012

April 4, 2012 Organizers of Killer Nashville, the annual conference for readers and aspiring writers, has launched a new blog, “A Killer Conversation: an online community of readers and writers of mysteries, thrillers, suspense, and true crime.” In addition to the daily posts by Killer Nashville staff, the blog will each Wednesday feature a new post by a bestselling author or forensics expert. The series kicks off with Nashville’s own Jennie Bentley, a New York Times bestselling novelist who writes candidly about her own writer-for-hire experience:

Setting Out for the Promised Land

Marching to the Mountaintop, Ann Bausum’s overview of civil-rights history for young readers, begins in Memphis

By Tina LoTufo | April 3, 2012

April 3, 2012 On February 1, 1968, Echol Cole and Robert Walker were crushed to death when a loose shovel fell into the mechanism of the garbage truck in which they were riding. Eleven days later, nearly one thousand sanitation, sewer, and roadway workers in Memphis began a city-wide strike for safer and more humane working conditions, higher and more consistent wages, and the right to have a voice in their own treatment. Two months after that, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated on a motel balcony. Marching to the Mountaintop, Ann Bausum’s careful and thorough portrayal of this pivotal period, shows young readers how one event can set in motion forces powerful enough to change a city, a state, a nation—and maybe even the history of the world. Bausum will appear in Memphis at The Booksellers at Laurelwood on April 5 at 6 p.m.

Sewing Up Another Mystery in South Carolina

Elizabeth Lynn Casey takes her latest Southern Sewing Circle mystery to the movies

By Faye Jones | April 2, 2012

April 2, 2012 In Reap What You Sew, her sixth Southern Sewing Circle mystery, Elizabeth Lynn Casey returns to Sweet Briar, South Carolina, where Tori Sinclair has her dream job as the director of the town’s library, is engaged to a handsome and kind schoolteacher, and—perhaps most important—is now firmly ensconced in the town’s sewing circle, which has become family to her. But then a murder occurs, and Tori’s new friends are implicated. The result is a classic Casey cozy. To celebrate the fourth anniversary of Mysteries & More in Nashville, Elizabeth Lynn Casey will discuss and sign copies of Reap What You Sew on April 7 at 2 p.m.

Twenty Million and Counting

Karen Kingsbury talks with Chapter 16 about Loving, the concluding novel in her wildly popular Bailey Flanigan series

By Tina LoTufo | March 30, 2012

March 30, 2012 Nashville novelist Karen Kingsbury has more than twenty million books in print and boasts a quarter of a million Facebook fans who look forward to the latest installment in her series fiction, stand-alone titles, and children’s books. Kingsbury’s newest offering, Loving, is the fourth and final book in the Bailey Flanigan series. She recently answered questions from Chapter 16 via email.

Tias and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us

By Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, illustrated by Josie Del Castillo
Seal Press
304 pages
$30

“Within these pages, I found my abuela, my tías and my primas — laughing, crying, and nodding alongside me. This book is a gift of understanding, and loving one’s family, even when our families are complicated and painful. It’s a beautiful reminder of the power of storytelling and the profound connection of kinship.”

~ Paola Mendoza, author, organizer and filmmaker