“I was afraid. Of pretty much everything. There were a hundred ways to die at Pearl Harbor,” admits 13-year-old Frank, the main character and narrator of Heroes: A Novel of Pearl Harbor, the latest in Alan Gratz’s series of action-packed historical novels for young readers. Gratz will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on February 25.
In The Way from Me to Us, Mike Coleman recounts his challenges and personal growth as a gay man, both in his early life and through more than 40 years with his husband.
In Kiley Reid’s Come and Get It, a visiting writing professor at the University of Arkansas entangles herself in the tumultuous lives of college students. Reid will discuss her novel at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 3.
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Julia Watts’ latest novel, Lovesick Blossoms, nestles the reader in the 1953 university culture of Kentucky and the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals trying to juggle public and private personas. Watts will appear at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.
In the introduction to his essay collection, Asides, George Singleton writes, “There happen to be some great essayists. I don’t count myself in this group.” Readers who dive into this lovely slim book full of dogs, writing advice, and summer jobs will disagree.
Throughout East Tennessee poet Jane Hicks’ stunning new collection, The Safety of Small Things, the unseen elements of our lives reveal themselves in vibrant, insistent ways. With masterful discernment, Hicks enables us to sense the many-layered truths contained in each moment and to marvel at their resonance.
