Chapter 16 - Part 498

Ambassador to Hell

David Scheffer gives a firsthand account of bringing war criminals to justice

By Maria Browning | February 6, 2012

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.

Hero Complex

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

By Lyda Phillips | February 3, 2012

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.

An Early Look at a 9-11 Novel Set in Tennessee

Narrative publishes a long excerpt from Richard Bausch’s next novel

By Margaret Renkl | February 3, 2012

February 3, 2012 Richard Bausch’s last novel, Peace was a war story set in Northern Italy during World War II. A spare, gorgeous book hardly longer than a novella, the book was profoundly praised all over the literary world and won for Bausch the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. The Memphis writer’s forthcoming novel opens on September 11, 2001, and promises to be another examination of the human cost of war:

The Bruce Springsteen of American Poetry

Robert Pinsky, America’s preeminent Man of Letters, talks with Chapter 16 prior to his Chattanooga appearance next week

By Pablo Tanguay | February 2, 2012

February 2, 2012 Poet, translator, critic, professor: these are former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky’s day jobs. After hours, he also writes the poetry column for Slate, appears on television shows like The Simpsons and The Colbert Report, performs with jazz bands, and has shared the stage with Bruce Springsteen. If America can claim a Public Man of Letters, Pinsky is it. He will give a free public lecture, “The Value of the Arts and Humanities in Education and Society,” sponsored by the University of Tennessee and the Benwood Foundation in Chattanooga, on February 7 at 7 p.m. in the Roland Hayes Auditorium of the UTC Fine Arts Building. The event is free and open to the public.

Ecstasy and Perversion

Tales of the New World, the new short-story collection by PEN-Faulkner Award winner Sabina Murray, finds the sublime and the beautiful in the legendary ventures of history’s great explorers

By Ed Tarkington | February 1, 2012

February 1, 2012 In her new collection, Tales of the New World, Sabina Murray imagines the minds and hearts of a broad variety of legendary explorers and adventurers, investigating the complex and problematic nature of the urge “to go where no man has gone before.” In prose that is at once fearlessly blunt and stylishly ethereal, Murray recreates the triumphs and tragedies of a cast ranging from Ferdinand Magellan to cult leader Jim Jones. Murray will read from and discuss her work on February 6 at 7 p.m. in the Hodges Library auditorium of the University of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus. The event is free and open to the public.

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

By Paul V. Griffith | January 31, 2012

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.

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