Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Seeking Consensus

Steve Inskeep depicts a principled Lincoln who built coalitions out of thin air

Steve Inskeep’s  Differ We Must delivers a brisk yet incisive collection of 16 encounters throughout the course of Abraham Lincoln’s career, revealing valuable lessons for our own time. Inskeep will appear with historian Heather Cox Richardson at the main branch of the Nashville Public Library on October 12.

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The Wonderful Inseparability of Form and Content

Oxford scholar Emma Smith on the cultural history of the book

Emma Smith’s Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers is a critical look at books as objects and the ways they have been bought and sold, used and abused, feared and celebrated, reviled and fetishized, bound, banned, and burned throughout history. Smith will deliver the Pearce Shakespeare Endowment Lecture at Rhodes College in Memphis on October 19.

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Freedom Fighter

A trip through the mind of civil rights icon Julian Bond

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Race Man: Selected Works, 1960-2015 collects a wide array of writings from civil rights leader Julian Bond, whose life provides a model of servant leadership.

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Romance and Revolution

Tan Twan Eng’s The House of Doors creates a world of false facades and alter egos

In Tan Twan Eng’s The House of Doors, celebrated writer W. Somerset Maugham visits friends in the Malay Peninsula during a time of personal crisis and political upheaval. Tan will discuss The House of Doors at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

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Word & Revelation

Poet Terrance Hayes minds and mines language in a pair of new books

In a new poetry collection and a volume of prose and images, poet Terrance Hayes undertakes a multi-faceted exploration of expression. Terrance Hayes will appear at Tennessee State University’s Otis Floyd Campus Center in Nashville on October 18 at 7 p.m. as part of the 2023 Southern Festival of Books.

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Something Between a Letter and a Poem

Lisa Dordal reshapes her late mother’s letters into poetry

Twenty years after her mother’s death, Nashville poet Lisa Dordal unexpectedly found a trove of letters from her. This discovery set Dordal reeling, eventually resulting in Next Time You Come Home, a fascinating experiment in how to honor a loved one’s legacy. Lisa Dordal will discuss Next Time You Come Home at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on Oct. 21-22.

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