A good whodunit doesn’t take itself too seriously, and Cherie Priest’s Flight Risk hits a sweet spot between Murder, She Wrote and Gone Girl.
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Come Fly with Me
Flight Risk is about as fun as a murder mystery can be
Traditions Are Elastic
Making Our Future offers visionary folklore of Appalachia
In her book Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia, Emily Hilliard presents what she calls “visionary folklore,” sidestepping nostalgia in favor of a cooperative approach that catalogs traditions while seeking to identify and participate in new cultural practices. Hilliard will appear at Vinyl Tap in Nashville on January 21 and Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on January 22.
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Back to West Texas
Jeannette Brown’s The Illusion of Leaving follows its protagonist home to face her past
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: In Jeannette Brown’s The Illusion of Leaving, Jamie Wright leaves Silver Falls, Texas, gladly kicking the dust from her boots. But when her father’s impending death calls her back, Jamie must face her difficult past to imagine a different future. Jeannette Brown will take part in an author discussion, “Be the Final Writer,” at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on January 17.
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Poetry in Motion
A young girl connects with poetry during difficult times
Caroline Brooks DuBois’ second middle-grade novel tackles the healing power of poetry amid loss and destruction. DuBois will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 21.
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From the Other Side of the Woods
A young woman learns to fight for her adopted hometown in Moonrise Over New Jessup
In Jamila Minnicks’ debut novel, Moonrise Over New Jessup, Alice Young takes on a new life of love and tangled loyalties in an all-Black Alabama town embroiled in the escalating fight over desegregation.
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A Tennessee Memory of Sidney Poitier
The year was 1966, and two icons came to honor Fisk University’s centennial
We had seen Poitier’s most recent movie, A Patch of Blue, and we understood — how could we not? — the cultural relevance of his career. In films like Lilies of the Field, A Raisin in the Sun, and now his latest, Poitier embodied a reality he thought America must see: a Black man of dignity and strength.
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