2023 Southern Festival of Books | Chapter 16

An Unwilling Vessel

In Erica Waters’ All That Consumes Us, something is rotten in elite academia

By Bianca Sass | October 18, 2023

In All That Consumes Us, Erica Waters uses the supernatural to critique prestigious colleges’ very real, often elitist obsession with the past. Waters will discuss the book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on October 18.

A Memphis Story

Steve Stern’s The Frozen Rabbi is an absurd, exuberant, razor-sharp family saga

By Sara Beth West | October 16, 2023

Steve Stern’s 2010 novel The Frozen Rabbi follows the travels and travails of a Jewish family and their extraordinary heirloom. Stern will appear at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

The End of Tennessee as We Know It

David Wesley Williams pens a post-apocalyptic vision of the Volunteer State

By Bradley Sides | October 13, 2023

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: David Wesley Williams takes readers on a post-apocalyptic journey from Nashville to Memphis in his latest novel, the rambunctious and rollicking Everybody Knows. Williams will appear at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

Absurdity and Tenderness

George Singleton’s stories sneak up on you

By Bradley Sides | October 12, 2023

George Singleton’s The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs shows the storyteller in top form. Singleton will appear at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

A Museum of Revelations

Novelist Thrity Umrigar examines themes of home, family relationships, and social class

By Sarah Stewart | October 11, 2023

Thrity Umrigar’s new novel, The Museum of Failures, brings readers to vibrant Bombay through a protagonist reconciling a complicated relationship with home. Umrigar will discuss The Museum of Failures at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

How to Live and at What Cost

Poet Anders Carlson-Wee on his new collection, Disease of Kings

By Maria Browning | October 5, 2023

Anders Carlson-Wee’s second poetry collection, Disease of Kings, explores a story of friendship, loneliness, and survival. Carlson-Wee will appear at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

Radical Volunteers: Dissent, Desegregation, and Student Power in Tennessee

Katherine J. Ballentyne
University of Georgia Press
244 pages
$29.95

“Radical Volunteers tells the largely unknown story of southern student activism in Tennessee between the Brown decision in 1954 and the national backlash against the Kent State University shootings in May 1970. As one of the first statewide studies of student activism—and one of the few examinations of southern student activism—it broadens scholarly understanding of New Left and Black student radicalism from its traditionally defined hotbeds in the Northeast and on the West Coast.”

~the publisher