Book Reviews | Chapter 16

Intimate Strangers

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

By Susannah Felts | April 8, 2019

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.

It’s 1968 All Over Again

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

By Clay Risen | April 4, 2019

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.

The Lens is Not the Landscape

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

By Tina Chambers | April 2, 2019

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.

Math as Muse

Rationality and creativity converge in Stephen Ornes’s Math Art

By Maria Browning | April 1, 2019

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.

False Impressions and True Selves

Michael Knight’s At Briarwood School for Girls is haunted—and haunting

By Ed Tarkington | March 29, 2019

Michael Knight’s new novel, At Briarwood School for Girls, juxtaposes teen pregnancy, boarding- school intrigue, an ill-fated attempt to build a Disney theme park next to a Civil War battlefield, and a visitation of spirits. Knight will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on April 4.

The Wolf at the Door—and Inside It

In Brute, poet Emily Skaja invokes the savage ironies of love

By Hamilton Cain | March 28, 2019

Memphis poet Emily Skaja brings an inventive imagination and fearless pursuit of craft to her debut collection, Brute, winner of the Academy of American Poets’ Walt Whitman Award. Skaja will discuss the book at Novel in Memphis on April 2.

Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past

By Tore C. Olsson
St. Martin's Press
288 pages
$30

“I recommend Red Dead’s History unreservedly not only to fans of the iconic video game, but also to anyone who wants to understand the riotousness — from Wild West gunslingers to Jim Crow to lynching — that darkened our past, and which continues to influence our culture. Olsson’s prose is graceful, his analysis profound. This is history at its most accessible and exciting.”

~Peter Cozzens, award-winning author of A Brutal Reckoning