The Great American Everything received the C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize, given annually to an emerging writer from a Southern state. Despite the expressly regional tag, the stories in Scott Gloden’s debut collection could be called new Americana.
Justin Warren, the protagonist of Lauren Thoman’s debut novel, I’ll Stop the World, finds himself in a bit of a pickle. It seems he’s suddenly time-traveled to the 1985 version of his hometown, where he has a week to solve a mystery and save his grandparents’ lives. Lauren Thoman will discuss her work at a “Birthing the Book” event hosted by The Porch in Nashville on May 11.
In Half-Life of a Secret, Emily Strasser tells the story of her grandfather, a chemist for Oak Ridge’s World War II Manhattan Project, and how family secrets intersect with national ones.
In Tom Piazza’s novel The Auburn Conference, an idealistic scholar arranges a meeting of famous writers in 1883 to debate the meaning of America. Piazza will discuss the book at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on May 11.
Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks has penned a stunning debut novel with a mouthful of a title: The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece. Hanks will discuss the book before a sold-out crowd at Montgomery Bell Academy on May 11.
Abraham Verghese mines the history of Kerala’s St. Thomas Christians — and larger debates about faith and science — in his sprawling second novel, The Covenant of Water. Verghese will discuss the book at a ticketed event at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 18.
