Margaret Renkl

August 13, 2010 In 1951, a medical researcher at Johns Hopkins took cells from the cervix of Henrietta Lacks, an impoverished Baltimore woman who subsequently died of cancer. It was an age that predated any notion of informed consent, and neither Henrietta nor any member of her family gave permission for doctors to perform research on her tissue sample, which ultimately yielded the first immortal cell line in human history and became the basis for a multibillion-dollar research industry.

August 12, 2010 When a debut novel gets this much media attention and inspires this kind of intense, high-level conversation among reviewers like Slate’s Hanna Rosin and The New Yorker’s Margaret Talbot, it was bound to happen: Adam Ross’s Mr. Peanut has made the short list for The Center for Fiction’s 2010 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize.

August 5, 2010 Remember that quaint little rule of etiquette that cautioned people to avoid politics and religion in polite conversation? East Tennessee novelist Amy Greene breaks it today on the op-ed page of The New York Times—but only to make the point that religion has no place in a political campaign. The daughter and granddaughter of ministers who believed fervently in the separation of church and state, Greene takes contemporary preachers to task for failing to understand this basic tenet of American democracy.

July 30, 2010 This bulletin just in: the sky, contrary to earlier reports, is not falling. Books are not dying, beloved authors are not destined for the poorhouse, and neither the Kindle nor the iPad will murder serious literature. That’s what David “Skip” Prichard, CEO of the LaVergne-based Ingram Content Group, believes, at least. And if anyone should know whereof he speaks on this subject, surely it’s the guy in charge of running a company with 2.6 million books for sale.