Chapter 16 - Part 6

The Hidden Heartbeat of Music City

In Shake Your Hips, Randy Fox tells the story of Nashville’s Excello Records

By Ed Tarkington | January 22, 2019

Nashville’s reputation as the capital of the country-music industry belies the fact that some of the city’s deepest, richest musical veins trace back to Nashville’s African-American community. In Shake Your Hips, Randy Fox describes the canny conversion of art and commerce that led Ernie Young to found Excello Records, tapping into the hidden heartbeat of Music City and broadcasting it to the world.

The Weight of Mountains

Mesha Maren’s debut novel, Sugar Run, is a tale of suspense and gritty social realism

By Ed Tarkington | January 16, 2019

In Sugar Run, her debut novel, Mesha Maren explores the complications of addiction, obsession, and rural poverty through the lens of an ex-convict’s love affairs with two captivating and self-destructive women. Maren will discuss Sugar Run at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 22.

Double Album, Double World

In That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound, Daryl Sanders documents the making of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde

By Ed Tarkington | January 14, 2019

In That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound, Nashville music journalist Daryl Sanders painstakingly and reverently narrates the making of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, offering a window into the creative process of a genius and the crucial influence of Dylan’s Nashville collaborators in producing a singular work of art.

Our Future is Airborne

In Virgil Wander, Leif Enger celebrates the heart of Middle America

By Ed Tarkington | November 7, 2018

Leif Enger’s new novel, Virgil Wander, is a paean to the small triumphs and tragedies of the forgotten Midwest. Enger will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 13.

An Idea No One Considered Making an Argument Against

Kevin Powers, author of the acclaimed Iraq War novel The Yellow Birds, returns with A Shout in the Ruins

By Ed Tarkington | October 11, 2018

“The truth has a funny way of making its way in the world,” writes Kevin Powers in his new novel, A Shout in the Ruins, which explores painful truths about the human impulse toward violence and empire. Powers will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14. Festival events are free and open to the public.

How Close to Hell We’ll Have to Come

In Beautiful Country Burn Again, Ben Fountain dissects the election of 2016

By Ed Tarkington | September 20, 2018

With righteous fury and scathing wit, Ben Fountain’s Beautiful Country Burn Again dissects the monster of American politics in the age of Donald Trump, providing what may stand as the definitive account of the 2016 election. Fountain will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

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