August 25, 2010 Since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1976, Tennessee has executed only six people. That’s far less than most Southern states but far too many for the essayists in Tennessee’s New Abolitionists, which seeks to explode the myth of retributive justice and expose the state’s uneven application of capital-sentencing law. In this collection, editors Amy L. Sayward and Margaret Vandiver present a wide range of articles that tell the story of a passionate minority at odds with a political Goliath backed by a largely unreflective mainstream. Sayward discusses and signs Tennessee’s New Abolitionists at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on August 26 at 7 p.m.

August 24, 2010 Like so many other young men of the Victorian era, Frank Lenz, a clerk from Pittsburgh, wished to make his mark on what was still a largely unexplored world. Lenz was a first-class bicyclist, and in that pre-automobile age, first-class cyclists were celebrities. It didn’t take Lenz long to realize he could trade that celebrity for lasting fame—if he were willing to take a calculated risk. In his new book The Lost Cyclist, bicycle historian David V. Herlihy recounts Lenz’s big gamble and the great adventure that cost him his life. Herlihy will appear at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on August 25 at 7 p.m. and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on September 25 at 1 p.m.