Chapter 16 - Part 515

A Great and Challenging Game

Memphis author and bookseller Corey Mesler talks about art and commerce

By Maria Browning | September 14, 2011

September 14, 2011 Corey Mesler has eight books of poetry and fiction to his credit and has received praise from the likes of John Grisham and Robert Olen Butler, but he’s probably best known to his fellow Memphians as the co-owner of Burke’s Books, a venerable store founded in 1875. With two new books this year—Before the Great Troubling, a volume of poetry, and a collection of short fiction, Notes Toward the Story & Other Stories—he talks with Chapter 16 about his art and his business. Mesler will read and sign Before the Great Troubling and Notes Toward the Story & Other Stories at Burke’s Books on September 15 at 6 p.m.

Runaway

In Diana Abu-Jaber’s new novel, a teen leaves home for no reason—and upends her family’s future

By Sarah Norris | September 13, 2011

September 13, 2011 Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber is structured like literary Chinese handcuffs: no character in this book can be free without first moving closer to the others, and no reader can finish it without looping backwards, too, through her own history. Abu-Jaber will discuss and sign copies of Birds of Paradise at the Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on September 21 at 6 p.m.

Spinning Ariadne

Tracy Barrett’s retelling of the Theseus myth subverts ancient tradition—and will delight young readers

By Fernanda Moore | September 12, 2011

September 12, 2011 Tracy Barrett has a way with classical myth. Her last young-adult novel, the brilliant King of Ithaka, is an astonishingly original and surefooted reworking of Homer’s Odyssey, in which she somehow discovered new paths on what must be the Western canon’s most heavily trodden ground. Her newest book, Dark of the Moon, takes another famous Greek legend—the story of Theseus and the Minotaur—and makes it fresh and fascinating, even as it honors the foundations of the original tale.

A Happy Family, Supersized

Acclaimed journalist Melissa Fay Greene delivers a witty account of her exceptional family

By Maria Browning | September 9, 2011

September 9, 2011 For acclaimed journalist Melissa Fay Greene and her husband, the prospect of being home alone after their four children grew up was not a happy one. No Biking in the House Without a Helmet is Greene’s account of how her family adopted five more children—a son from Bulgaria, and three sons and a daughter from Ethiopia—and found all their lives “enlivened and enriched” in the process. Melissa Fay Greene will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.

Juggernaut

Michael Sims snags another two-book deal with Walker/Bloomsbury

By Margaret Renkl | September 9, 2011

September 9, 2011 Michael Sims, a Crossville native, has already written four books of nonfiction and edited (as well as carefully annotated) five collections of short fiction (plus one collection of comic verse), but he shows no signs of slowing his output, much less resting on his laurels. Today Publisher’s Weekly announced another two-book deal for Sims with Walker & Company.

"At the Last Festival"

By George Scarbrough | September 8, 2011

September 8, 2011 Near the end of his writing life George Scarbrough (1915-2008) used an alter ego, writing in the voice of the legendary eighth-century Chinese poet, Han-shan, whose poems were simple, direct, and frank, never failing to call attention to the flaws in society as he saw them. Writing in the voice of Han-shan gave Scarbrough the means to speak directly about the social abuses he saw around him but could not address so clearly in his own first-person voice. “At the Last Festival” appears in Under the Lemon Tree, a new, posthumously published collection of Scarbrough’s Han-shan poems. Robert Cumming, the book’s editor, will discuss George Scarbrough and his work at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.

I Gotta Sing!

By Alice Faye Duncan
WaterBrook
40 pages
$14.99

“A whole barnyard makes noise ‘in the Spirit of joy’ throughout this raucous picture book, a sweetly heartwarming sing-along by Duncan. Kellam conveys comfort and happiness as the loved ones reflect sunny enthusiasm in this gladdening rendition of the Black American religious folk song ‘I’m Goin’a Sing When the Spirit Says Sing.’”

~Publishers Weekly