Alan Lightman revisits eternal questions in Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine
In a new collection of essays, Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, Memphis native and acclaimed novelist Alan Lightman seeks to reconcile the material and the mystical.
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Ann Fisher-Wirth and Maude Schuyler Clay explore a state’s compelling character in Mississippi
In Mississippi, poet Ann Fisher-Wirth and photographer Maude Schuyler Clay create a nuanced portrait that transcends the usual Southern stereotypes. Both authors will appear at Burke’s Books in Memphis on March 29 at 5:30 p.m.
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Joel Harrington considers the medieval life of New Age favorite, Meister Eckhart
In Dangerous Mystic, Vanderbilt historian Joel Harrington explores the life of Meister Eckhart, a medieval theologian whose path to God has been embraced by New Age gurus and contemporary self-help writers. Harrington will discuss Dangerous Mystic at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 20 at 6:30 p.m
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There’s a profound sense of mystery running through the stories in Allen Wier’s Late Night, Early Morning
The twenty-two stories in Allen Wier’s Late Night, Early Morning explore an uncertain territory where love, beauty, grief, and ugliness mingle, and meaning lies just out of reach. Wier will give a free public reading at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on February 19.
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Two men’s lives are forever changed in Steve Yarbrough’s The Unmade World
The paths of two very different men intersect in Steve Yarbrough’s The Unmade World, and both lives are changed forever. This tale of entwined fates becomes a meditation on guilt, innocence, and ordinary injustice, as well as a story about how we seek meaning even in the face of life’s most baffling cruelties.
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In a polarized political world, a holiday meal is unexpectedly universal
My mother has dementia, but her old friends in no way shunned or ignored her. She was clearly happy to be there among them, and she said over and over again what wonderful people they are. There was no talk of politics, race, or religion within my hearing.
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