Chapter 16 - Part 5

Growing Up in Silence and Shame

Tayari Jones talks with Chapter 16 about the bigamous marriages at the heart of her acclaimed novel, Silver Sparrow

By Susannah Felts | January 10, 2017

In Silver Sparrow, the third novel by Tayari Jones, two girls born four months apart share a father who is secretly married to both of their mothers. Jones will read Silver Sparrow at the Camp House in Chattanooga on January 19 at 6 p.m. The event, part of Chattanooga State Community College’s Writers@Work initiative, is free and open to the public.

Brand-New Bookstores

In East Nashville, Her Bookshop and Atomic Nashville offer two new buy-local options

By Susannah Felts | January 9, 2017

Quietly bucking the Online Behemoth That Shall Not Be Named, two new bookstores in East Nashville offer a quirky and beautiful array of books. Plus a shopping experience that’s personal, human, and as far from an algorithm as it can be.

Beautiful and Haunting Worlds

William Ferris’s latest collection articulates complex feelings about the rural South

By Susannah Felts | October 4, 2016

The South in Color: A Visual Journal completes a collection of William Ferris’s visual documentary work about his home state and its complicated racial and cultural history. The esteemed scholar of Southern culture will discuss The South in Color at the Cotton Museum in Memphis on October 8 at 6 p.m., and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16. Festival events are free and open to the public.

Yes, Please

Robert G. Netherland serves up a generous helping of Appalachian farm cooking

By Susannah Felts | June 30, 2016

June 30, 2016 In his memoir and cookbook, Southern Appalachian Farm Cooking, native East Tennessean Robert G. Netherland reveals the textures and tastes of a bygone time and place, one where White Lily flour reigned supreme, butter was churned, tobacco crops provided extra cash for Christmas presents, and beans and cornbread were the basis of daily meals.

All the Things We Hide

Lee Clay Johnson’s desolate debut novel, Nitro Mountain, exerts a powerful magnetic pull

By Susannah Felts | May 17, 2016

May 17, 2016 Nitro Mountain, the debut novel from Nashville native Lee Clay Johnson, reveals a strikingly evoked world of depravity, degradation, and bad romance in a remote crevice of Appalachia. Johnson will read from the book at Brown’s Diner in Nashville on May 20, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.

Giving Recognizable Shape to the Chaos of our Lives

Novelist Lee Smith’s new memoir is a must-read for aspiring writers—and everyone else

By Susannah Felts | May 4, 2016

May 4, 2016 With thirteen novels and four short-story collections to her credit, Lee Smith is virtually synonymous with Appalachian fiction. In her new memoir-in-essays, Dimestore, she takes readers with her on a tour of the places, people, and experiences that have shaped her life and her writing. Smith will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 11, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.

Isabel and the Invisible World

By Alan Lightman, illustrated by Ramona Kaulitzki
MIT Kids Press
40 pages
$18.99

“In simple, engaging language, complemented by luminous artwork from best-selling illustrator Ramona Kaulitzki, author and physicist Alan Lightman unveils the hidden world of light waves—the ones you can see and the ones you can’t.”

~ the publisher