Chapter 16 - Part 522

The Wonder of Her Smile

In his first novel, Carson Morton sends readers to the Louvre in the company of thieves

By Chris Scott | August 16, 2011

August 16, 2011 In Stealing Mona Lisa, first-time novelist Carson Morton takes readers to the heart of Belle-Époque Paris to participate in a notorious art heist with a cast of lovable rogues. Morton will read from the book at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Brentwood on August 18 at 7 p.m. He will also appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.

Anniversary Accolade

Oprah can’t get enough of Michael Knight’s The Typist

By Tristan Hickey | August 15, 2011

August 15, 2011 Novelist Michael Knight, a professor of English at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, published his elegant novel The Typist last August to great acclaim. A week after the first anniversary of its publication, the praise keeps on coming: Oprah.com made The Typist its Book of the Week last Tuesday. Calling it a “quiet, heartbreaking sleeper novel,” the editors also included a link to the site’s full review. Read it here.

Maternal Instincts

Kay West documents an adoptive mother’s love for a tragically abused child

By Liz Garrigan | August 15, 2011

August 15, 2011 Six years ago, Florida authorities investigated a child neglect case so vile and gut-wrenching that even an experienced social worker and a cop found themselves vomiting at the scene. In a small house full of filth, barely clothed and confined to a foul closet, was a profoundly neglected six-year-old girl named Dani. Now Nashville author Kay West has written a book about how Diane and Bernie Lierow came to welcome Dani into their family. She recently spoke with Chapter 16 by phone about Dani’s Story.

The Beat Goes Down

Clyde Edgerton brilliantly captures the complex dance of music and race in a small Southern town in 1963

By Michael Ray Taylor | August 12, 2011

August 12, 2011 At barely 200 pages, The Night Train is Clyde Edgerton’s shortest book, and yet in its simple story of two musically inclined teenagers, one white and one black, it may surpass Walking Across Egypt and The Bible Salesman as his best. Edgerton will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.

Sparks from My Hand

James Dickey’s legacy continues

By Tristan Hickey | August 12, 2011

August 12, 2011 It’s been almost fifteen years since American poetry lost one of its greatest luminaries, Vanderbilt graduate James Dickey. Dickey’s influence on Southern poetry—and fiction (we won’t soon forget Deliverance)—endures in countless archives, journals, and anthologies.

No Quitter

Shania Twain’s new memoir is a tale of passion and perseverance

By Anne Delana Reeves | August 11, 2011

Secrets are safe with Shania Twain. The five-time Grammy winner has sold seventy-five million albums, but she has also lived much of her life in silence, fiercely protecting her family’s “painful” and “embarrassing” past from public scrutiny. The decision to divulge some of those secrets in the hope that it might “be of help to others” is what gives her new autobiography, From this Moment On, its remarkable heart.

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