Chapter 16 - Part 540

Chekhov in Memphis

Novelist Richard Bausch adds the Dayton Literary Peace Prize to a shelf full of awards

By Clay Risen | December 23, 2010

December 23, 2010 When novelist Richard Bausch was a child, his father would tell him about his days in the army, many of them spent slogging alongside hundreds of thousands of other Allied soldiers up the Italian Peninsula during World War II. These weren’t bedtime stories: what was supposed to be a quick conquest took nearly two years to complete, and 60,000 Allied soldiers, 50,000 Germans, and 50,000 Italian soldiers and partisans died in the process. It was the bloodiest theater in Western Europe. One of those stories became the basis for Bausch’s latest novel, Peace, which is dedicated to his father and which won the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Connecting the Landscape with the Quiet of the Sky

Amy Greene talks with Chapter 16 about her gorgeous new novel, Bloodroot

By Margaret Renkl | December 22, 2010

December 22, 2010 Amy Greene’s first novel—a multigenerational epic called Bloodroot—is getting the kind of attention that most debut novelists can only dream about, garnering reviews in publications as far-flung as The Boston Gobe and Entertainment Weekly. Greene found time in her eighteen-city tour to answer a few questions from Chapter 16.

Mr. On the Way Up

Chapter 16 talks with Adam Ross about the most talked-about debut novel of the year

By Margaret Renkl | December 21, 2010

December 21, 2010 By the time Knopf announced last winter—in an open letter to booksellers by legendary editor Gary Fisketjon, no less—that it would launch Nashville novelist Adam Ross’s debut book, Mr. Peanut, with a print run of 60,000 copies, and that it would be published in fourteen countries, chatter in the book world had already begun. The book officially hit shelves in June, by which time the chatter had grown to a roar, with Michiko Kakutani calling it “dark, dazzling” and Ross himself “an audacious new writer.” Ross took time to discuss his novel with Chapter 16 before the launch event at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville.

Ties That Bind

Author-physician Abraham Verghese talks with Chapter 16 about his dual career and his latest novel, Cutting For Stone

By Paul V. Griffith | December 20, 2010

December 20, 2010 An accomplished physician and teacher, Abraham Verghese put his life on hold to attend the celebrated Iowa Writers Workshop. Since graduating from the program in 1991, he’s balanced his day job with a writing career, publishing two nonfiction books and contributing to the likes of Esquire and The Atlantic Monthly. In his first novel, Cutting For Stone, Verghese tells the story of Marion Stone, an orphaned twin conceived of an illicit affair between an Indian nun and a dashing but volatile British surgeon. With wise and compelling prose, the epic tale weaves its themes of love, betrayal, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice together with the destinies of a country and a proud yet fractured family. Verghese appears February 26 at noon in 208 Light Hall on the Vanderbilt University campus, and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on February 27 at 2 p.m.

A Medal for NPL

In a White House ceremony today, the Nashville Public Library is awarded a National Medal for Museum and Library Service

By Margaret Renkl | December 17, 2010

December 17, 2010 Today, First Lady Michelle Obama presented the 2010 National Medal for Museum and Library Service to five museums and five libraries during an awards ceremony at the White House. Among the honorees: the Nashville Public Library.

A Banner Year

Tennessee writers shine on best-of lists all over the media

By Serenity Gerbman | December 16, 2010

December 16, 2010 After a year of covering a host of truly remarkable authors who kept Tennessee on the literary map all year long, we at Chapter 16 aren’t surprised to find several Tennesseans (current and former) perched at the top of all kinds of best-of lists for the year in literature. From Amy Greene and Michael Knight in the east state, to Lydia Peelle and Adam Ross in Nashville, to Richard Bausch and Rebecca Skloot in Memphis, Tennesseans have kept people talking, and reading, with a host of great books this year. To read our original coverage of each of these authors and titles, click on their images in the box above.

Tender Headed (National Poetry Series)

By Olatunde Osinaike
Akashic Books
80 pages
17.95

“In Tender Headed, Olatunde Osinaike asks the question, what makes a man, and what makes a man like me? As he interrogates the inner and outer workings of masculinity in all its sharp and tender parts, and the way a Black man meets the world, his poems strut and duck and weave across their pages. These poems unpack the ingredients of being and make a meal of language.”

~ Camille Rankine, author of Incorrect Merciful Impulses