Chapter 16 - Part 7

A Castle on a Mountaintop

Denise Kiernan tells the story of building the Biltmore

By Hamilton Cain | September 8, 2017

In The Last Castle Denise Kiernan tells the story of George W. Vanderbilt, who hired famed architect Frederick Law Olmsted to build him the largest private residence in the U.S. Kiernan will discuss The Girls of Atomic City at the Grove Theater in Oak Ridge on September 15 at 6 p.m. as part of the city’s seventy-fifth anniversary celebration. She will discuss The Last Castle at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books, which will be held in Nashville October 13-15.

When Literature is a Lifeline

At nineteen, Clay Byars became a writer after a stroke left him unable to talk

By Hamilton Cain | July 11, 2017

In Will & I, Sewanee alum Clay Byars joins the ranks of memorable memoirists facing disability with remarkable courage. He will discuss Will & I at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 22 at 2 p.m.

In the Tense Space Between Two Worlds

Adrienne Berard’s Water Tossing Boulders looks at the American civil-rights movement through a new lens

By Hamilton Cain | April 20, 2017

Adrienne Berard will discuss Water Tossing Boulders: How a Family of Chinese Immigrants Led the First Fight to Desegregate Schools in the Jim Crow South at Bookstock, a celebration held at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library in Memphis on April 29. Bookstock is held annually and this year will feature appearances by forty area authors, food trucks, live music, and a host of children’s activities, including face painting, arts and crafts, and story time. All events are free and open to the public.

Dragging Dixie Outta the Dark?

For Trae Crowder and his co-authors, “liberal redneck” isn’t an oxymoron

By Hamilton Cain | November 11, 2016

In The Liberal Redneck Manifesto, Trae Crowder, Corey Ryan Forrester, and Drew Morgan tackle the stereotypes of poor white Southerners, mostly “fellers,” from drunk-as-skunk-on-Saturday-night to singing-hymns-at-church-on-Sunday-morning, all delivered in a hick accent. The trio will perform at Zanies Comedy Night Club in Nashville on November 13.

The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History

By Allen Boyer and Mark Nicholls
Routledge
340 pages
$180

The book “explores the reasons why treason coalesced around specific offences agreed by both the monarch and the wider political nation, why it became an essential instrument of enforcement in high politics, and why, over the past three hundred years, it has gradually fallen into disuse while remaining on the statute book.”

~the publisher