What’s new in Tennessee books—and at Chapter 16—on December 3, 2009
A biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt wins the National Book Award for nonfiction, two Tennessee gentlemen launch a blog, a Nashville native signs a deal to sell his memoir at Waffle House, and Cormac McCarthy puts his writing partner on the auction block.
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Andrew B. Lewis follows the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and its leaders from Nashville’s north side into the heart of Dixie
A group of earnest and thoughtful Nashville students became leaders in one of history’s most impressive—and successful—mass movements, as they threw their bodies, their very lives, on the line to end segregation in the South. The Shadows of Youth: The Remarkable Journey of the Civil Rights Generation, by Andrew B. Lewis,, is a new look at this era, examining it through the lens of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and its leaders—Diane Nash, John Lewis, Bob Moses, Stokely Carmichael, Marion Barry, Bob Zellner, and Julian Bond.
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Bill Brown is a part-time lecturer at Vanderbilt University. He has written four poetry collections, three chapbooks and a textbook. The recipient of many awards and fellowships, Brown lives in the hills of Robertson County with his wife, Suzanne, and a tribe of cats.
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In A Separate Country, Robert Hicks takes a turn around war-scarred New Orleans with the Confederate general who searched for redemption there
Robert Hicks dreams big. In A Separate Country, his new novel, he re-imagines in 400-plus pages the life and last days of the mythic John Bell Hood, former general of the Confederate States of America. This sort of endeavor is only natural for a man whose first novel was The New York Times bestseller The Widow of the South and who is now leader of Franklin’s Charge: A Vision and Campaign for the Preservation of Historic Open Space. Hicks has never shied from the big task, whether fighting the Herculean sprawl of Williamson County or imagining the thoughts of a legendary figure.
Read moreWhat’s new in Tennessee books—and at Chapter 16—on November 19, 2009
Cormac McCarthy gives a rare interview, Amanda Little heads to Copenhagen to cover the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Sam Venable is inducted into the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame, and the Nashville Public Library Foundation rakes in the dough.
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Madison Smartt Bell writes a fictional biography of the deeply flawed Confederate warrior Nathan Bedford Forrest
The subject of Madison Smartt Bell‘s Devil’s Dream is enough to send a lot of readers—even Bell’s fans—running for the exits. A hefty novel on Confederate hero Nathan Bedford Forrest may not be an alluring prospect, unless you happen to belong to the dwindling cohort of folks who go misty-eyed when they hear “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” From its first paragraphs, however, Devil’s Dream defies expectations, combining meticulous research and vivid accounts of warfare with a complex character study of the South’s dubious hero. On November 20 at 7 p.m., Madison Smartt Bell will discuss Devil’s Dream at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville.
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