Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

The Depths

Playground brings Richard Powers’ inimitable storytelling to the world of Earth’s oceans

In his recent novels, Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers invites us to set down the blinkered limitations of human perspectives and connect to the natural world in deeper, more urgent ways. Now, with Playground, Powers brings his inimitable storytelling to Earth’s subterranean depths, illuminating the abundant riches of our oceans and the critical dangers they face.

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Letters to a Younger Sister

Doan Phuong Nguyen’s A Two-Placed Heart conveys her family’s story in verse

When Doan Phuong Nguyen was in elementary school, her family immigrated to Nashville from Vietnam. This complicated transition inspired Nguyen’s new book, A Two-Placed Heart, a lightly embellished autobiographical, epistolary story told in verse. Nguyen will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 24 and the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 26-27.

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Protecting What We Love

This Is How a Robin Drinks makes the case for urban nature

In This Is How a Robin Drinks, Joanna Brichetto makes the case that urban landscapes can be perfect places to fall in love with the wonders of nature. Brichetto will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 23 and the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 26-27.

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Memory and Forgetting

Wright Thompson’s The Barn reckons anew with the infamous murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till

Wright Thompson’s latest book, The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi, revisits what is often considered the most galvanizing event of the civil rights era: the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in rural Sunflower County, Mississippi. Thompson will discuss the book at Novel in Memphis on October 3 and Barnes & Noble in Brentwood on October 4.

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A Magical Mountain Fairy Tale

Natalie Lloyd demonstrates the power of friendship against a backdrop of legend and loss

Chattanooga author Natalie Lloyd’s latest tale of heartbreak and hope for middle school readers is The Witching Wind. Roxie Darling and Grayson Patch become friends as incoming sixth graders at Camelot Middle School in fictional Silas County, Tennessee. And, as is always the case in a Natalie Lloyd book, fantastical adventures are soon afoot.

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Quietly Determined

A young woman finds her way in Margot Livesey’s The Road from Belhaven

Margot Livesey’s The Road from Belhaven follows a gifted girl’s passage from child to adult. Livesey will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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