Chapter 16 - Part 484

Charlotte, Sixty Years Later

In an essay for The New York Times Book Review, Michael Sims describes the barn where Charlotte hung her web

By Margaret Renkl | April 23, 2012

April 23, 2012 Michael Sims is a curious—but not a nosy—biographer, as Chapter 16‘s Serenity Gerbman pointed out in her review of Sims’s bestselling 2011 book, The Story of Charlotte’s Web: “White was famously reclusive and—strange as it may seem for a biographer—Sims understands and respects that need for privacy. Allowing White’s words and experiences to speak for themselves, he offers readers a deeper understanding not only of the life and mind that created Charlotte’s Web, but of the creative process that led to the book and of the sheer work it entailed. The Story of Charlotte’s Web is quite literally that: a biography of the book itself. How did it come to be? What forces and experiences throughout White’s life shaped him and converged to bring his timeless classic into being?”

What E-Books Really Cost

If no one’s paying for paper and ink—or binding and shipping and storing—why should a download cost more than a buck? Chapter 16 counts the reasons

By Margaret Renkl | April 20, 2012

April 20, 2012 The Justice Department rode in on a white charger last week to defend the American consumer from predatory pricing in the e-book market. The hitch? Justice wasn’t aiming for Amazon, the online goliath that’s selling e-books at a loss to drive sales of its Kindle e-reader (and, not coincidentally, create a de facto monopoly of the e-book market). Instead, the target is Apple and five U.S. publishers destined for extinction if Amazon realizes what increasingly looks like its ultimate goal: to become an entirely self-contained, in-house publishing industry—Amazon the agent, publisher, distributor, and bookstore. It’s not entirely unreasonable to wonder if, somewhere deep in the bowels of its corporate megalopolis, Amazon is preparing to beta-test an e-author, too.

“The Law is Skinny with Hunger for Us”

Why novelist Kevin Wilson waited for more than a decade to use a single line

By Kevin Wilson | April 19, 2012

April 19, 2012 In my book The Family Fang, one of the main characters listens to a tape recording of his father saying this line: “We live on the edge…a shantytown filled with gold-seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.” It serves as inspiration for the character, Buster, a writer, to begin a new novel. It’s a weird line, a wonderful line, and it’s a line I did not write.

Ann Patchett Is On Another Roll

Ann Pachett lands on the Orange Prize shortlist, publishes an op-ed piece in The New York Times, makes Time magazine’s list of the most influential people in the world, and appears on the PBS NewsHour—and that’s just this week

By Margaret Renkl | April 19, 2012

April 19, 2012 Since last May, when she published a bestselling novel (State of Wonder) and simultaneously announced that she and Karen Hayes were opening a bookstore in Nashville (Parnassus Books, now the most famous independent bookstore in the country), Ann Patchett has been having what she calls “a media-heavy moment.” In fact it’s been a media-heavy year, and the spotlight shows no sign of dimming. Patchett has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize, written an op-ed piece for The New York Times, made Time magazine’s list of the hundred most influential people in the world, and appeared on the PBS NewsHour—all in less than thirty-six hours.

"That Uncertain Country Where Faith and Science Collide"

A Chapter 16 contributing writer is one step closer to publishing a novel

By Margaret Renkl | April 19, 2012

April 18, 2012 Chris Scott, who has written book reviews and conducted author interviews for Chapter 16 since the site was launched in 2009, and who reviewed books for the Nashville Scene for years before that, is also both a geologist by day and an aspiring novelist by night (and by weekends, and by vacation days). The book Scott has recently finished revising, Written in Stone, is a novel of suspense that combines the science he conducts by day and the writing he does by night. It is also a quarterfinalist for the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Roar Trip

Delia Ephron’s new novel includes a very screen-ready lion; Ephron tells Chapter 16 why she put him in a novel instead of a movie

By Susannah Felts | April 18, 2012

April 18, 2012 Seeing the name Ephron attached to a book, movie, or theatrical production is a pretty safe bet that said entertainment product will bring the funny; after all, sisters Delia and Nora Ephron are two of the reigning American comedy writers, both independently and as a duo. This spring, Delia Ephron’s latest novel, The Lion Is In, is sure to make critics’ summer-reading recommendations for witty, tender-hearted beach reads. Ephron will appear at the Regal Green Hills Cinemas on April 24 at 5:30 p.m. as part of the Nashville Film Festival.

Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past

By Tore C. Olsson
St. Martin's Press
288 pages
$30

“I recommend Red Dead’s History unreservedly not only to fans of the iconic video game, but also to anyone who wants to understand the riotousness — from Wild West gunslingers to Jim Crow to lynching — that darkened our past, and which continues to influence our culture. Olsson’s prose is graceful, his analysis profound. This is history at its most accessible and exciting.”

~Peter Cozzens, award-winning author of A Brutal Reckoning