2018 Southern Festival of Books | Chapter 16

Normal is Boring

Escaping from Houdini, Kerri Maniscalco’s new YA mystery, combines science, magic, and murder

By Tina Chambers | September 19, 2018

In Kerri Maniscalco’s Escaping from Houdini, magic and mayhem abound as teenager and forensic scientist Audrey Rose Wadsworth investigates a series of grisly murders onboard an ocean liner filled with carnival performers. Maniscalco will appear at Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Vanderbilt on September 22, at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on September 24, and at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

What’s Wrong with Me?

Young men stumble on the path to adulthood in J.M. Holmes’s How Are You Going To Save Yourself

By Sean Kinch | September 14, 2018

J.M. Holmes’s debut story collection, How Are You Going To Save Yourself, tracks four friends who form a posse in their teens but drift apart in their twenties. The book addresses twenty-first-century issues, particularly those facing young African-Americans, without sugar-coating. Holmes will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

Confessions of a Fangirl

With Dead Girls, Alice Bolin navigates fantasy and reality in pop culture and beyond

By Erica Ciccarone | September 13, 2018

Alice Bolin’s essay collection, Dead Girls, is a savvy mix of cultural critique, coming-of-age diary, and confessions of a pop-culture fangirl. Bolin will read at Novel in Memphis on September 20, at The Bookshop in Nashville on September 23, and at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

The Scourge of War and the Perils of Peace

In The Thin Light of Freedom, Edward L. Ayers reconsiders the Civil War through two communities on opposite sides

By Ed Tarkington | September 12, 2018

With The Thin Light of Freedom, Edward L. Ayers casts new light on the Civil War through the experience of two communities—one Northern, one Southern—occupied by enemy armies made up of their former countrymen. Ayers will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

A Lavish Mural of 1970s Indulgence

I Will Be Complete is Glen David Gold’s unsparing account of growing up in the care of the Me Generation

By Hamilton Cain | September 11, 2018

Glen David Gold’s vibrant memoir, I Will Be Complete, tracks the 1970s, from fashion trends to punk bands, while probing psychic scars inflicted by his mother, a ravishing “Linda Evans”-like Englishwoman transplanted to the West Coast. Gold will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

An Occupational Hazard

In Depth of Winter, Craig Johnson puts Sheriff Walt Longmire in a different cold place

By Chris Scott | September 6, 2018

In the latest Walt Longmire mystery, Craig Johnson sends his protagonist south of the border, where Walt must confront his greatest challenge: a hot landscape with a cold heart. Johnson will discuss Depth of Winter at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

Disunion Among Ourselves: The Perilous Politics of the American Revolution

By Eli Merritt
University of Missouri Press
456 pages
$39.95

“Disunion Among Ourselves is a most timely book. With detective-like research and deft storytelling, Eli Merritt rescues important conflicts and compromises occurring in the earliest years of the nation’s history from both the shadow of later sectional crises and the glare of founding generation worship.”

~ Daniel H. Usner, author of Native American Women and the Burdens of Southern History