Book Reviews

In Richard Bausch’s latest novel, Playhouse, a Memphis theater company stages a performance of King Lear to celebrate a high-profile relaunch. As rehearsals begin, celebrities sign on, and the characters struggle to find harmony, let alone pull off the play.

Western Edge: The Roots and Reverberations of Los Angeles Country-Rock is a fitting companion to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum exhibition of the same name, its pages fairly bursting with song.

Reckoning by V (formerly Eve Ensler) asks readers to understand what violence does to women and anyone who is marginalized. She’ll appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 6.

In America’s Hardscrabble General: Ulysses S. Grant from Farm Boy to Shiloh, Jack Hurst shows how Grant’s upbringing and life’s struggles perfectly prepared him for achieving greatness as a leader in America’s bloodiest war.

Going Up the Country revisits fieldwork expeditions to Mississippi and Louisiana at the height of the blues revival by two young scholars from UCLA.

The pain of dysfunctional relationships is the unifying theme among the 10 stories showcased in Lisa Cupolo’s debut collection, Have Mercy on Us. Set around the globe from Africa to Greece, Canada to Catalina Island, the vignettes Cupolo crafts sharply illustrate often decades-old family dynamics.