Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Secret Lives

Mania meets narcissism—and murder—in R.J. Jacobs’s debut thriller

In And Then You Were Gone, Nashville debut novelist R.J. Jacobs creates an unlikely heroine in a child psychologist with an unstable past. Jacobs, a practicing psychologist, will appear at Star Line Books in Chattanooga on April 27.

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When Science Was Bipartisan

Nathaniel Rich looks back at a decade when addressing climate change seemed well within our grasp

“Nearly everything we understand about global warming was understood in 1979,” writes Nathaniel Rich in Losing Earth. “The conditions for success were so favorable that they have the quality of a fable.” Rich will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 17.

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Intimate Strangers

A new essay collection edited by Samia Serageldin and Lee Smith explores the mother-child relationship

Mothers and Strangers, edited by Samia Serageldin and Lee Smith, features explorations of what Serageldin calls the “most intimate of strangers, the women who raised us.” Serageldin and Smith will discuss the essay collection at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 12. Smith will also appear with Jill McCorkle, Marshall Chapman, and Matraca Berg in a performance of Good Ol’ Girls at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville on April 11.

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It’s 1968 All Over Again

A new book by Memphis historian Aram Goudsouzian explains the rise of partisan politics

As Aram Goudsouzian makes clear in The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America, the tensions that animated the 1968 election still dominate public discourse today. Goudsouzian will discuss his new book at Novel in Memphis on April 10.

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The Lens is Not the Landscape

Barbara Brown Taylor’s latest Christian memoir encompasses other world religions

Barbara Brown Taylor’s Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others, a brief survey of world religions, is the next logical step in her own spiritual journey. Taylor will appear at First Presbyterian Church in Knoxville on April 8, at Novel in Memphis on April 9, and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 16.

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Math as Muse

Rationality and creativity converge in Stephen Ornes’s Math Art

In Math Art: Truth, Beauty, and Equations, Nashville science writer Stephen Ornes sets out to survey the remarkable breadth of contemporary art that’s fueled by a fascination with math. Ornes will appear at Star Line Books in Chattanooga on April 4.

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