Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Against the Odds

The World According to Fannie Davis is full of history, luck, and love

In The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life in the Detroit Numbers, Bridgett M. Davis tells the story of her mother, a woman who “made a way out of no way” as a banker in the underground lottery. Davis will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 13.

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Leaving Elegy Behind

In a new anthology, Appalachian writers address J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy

In Appalachian Reckoning editors Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll have assembled a bold collective response to the cultural phenomenon created by J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. Several contributors will discuss Appalachian Reckoning at the Knoxville Museum of Art on March 12 and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 25.

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The Past Matters

A small-town murder in Greg Iles’s Cemetery Road exhumes long-buried secrets

In Greg Iles’s Cemetery Road, the suspicious death of an archaeologist throws a Mississippi town into chaos, jeopardizing the region’s economic future. Iles will appear at Christian Brothers University in Memphis on March 8 and at the Nashville Public Library on March 11.

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To Take Feet to Ground

Afoot and Lighthearted by Bonnie Smith Whitehouse is a delightful guide to walking, writing, and well-being

Afoot and Lighthearted: A Journal for Mindful Walking, a beautiful new book by Nashville nonfiction author Bonnie Smith Whitehouse, is clearly a labor of love. Whitehouse will discuss her new guide to meditative meandering at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 7.

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The Shocking Fulfillment of Beauty

Erin McGraw pulls no punches in her new collection of microstories

Don’t be fooled by the title or the sunny yellow cover of Erin McGraw’s new collection, Joy: And 52 Other Very Short Stories. In these snapshots of lives under extreme pressure, each narrator claims the spotlight to tell a powerful, often dark story. McGraw, who lives in Sewanee, will appear at Star Line Books in Chattanooga on March 6.

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A Good Nose

Jay McInerney’s Wine Reads gathers a fine cellar of literary pleasures

In Wine Reads: A Literary Anthology of Wine Writing, noted novelist and wine writer Jay McInerney, a former Nashville resident, collects twenty-seven of his favorite reflections on the grape—in both fiction and nonfiction.

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