Book Reviews

Corey Mesler’s The Adventures of Camel Jeremy Eros follows its titular hero from boyhood in “one of the poorer sections of Frayser, a poorer section of Shelby County, north of the perpetually poor Memphis” to San Francisco’s Summer of Love, literary stardom, and beyond.

Greer Macallister’s historical novel The Arctic Fury focuses on an extraordinary woman tasked with an extraordinary mission: to lead a team of women into the Arctic to recover any evidence of the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin and his crew. Greer Macallister will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on January 28.

Simon Han’s appropriately titled debut novel, Nights When Nothing Happened, is a beautifully rendered meditation on what it means to belong — to a family, to a culture, to a particular place and time. Han will appear at a virtual event hosted by The Porch in Nashville on February 15.

Spenser faces an old nemesis in Someone to Watch Over Me, Ace Atkins’ ninth addition to the late Robert B. Parker’s much-loved series. Accompanied by his friend Hawk and new protégé Mattie, the detective chases a billionaire sex trafficker from Boston to the Caribbean, drawing the interest of the strange villain known as the Gray Man.

Hidden History of Music Row by Brian Allison, Elizabeth Elkins, and Vanessa Olivarez is a deep dive into the history one of Nashville’s most magnetic areas. From early fur traders to fringe, this book details the guts, glam, and glory of Nashville’s most iconic neighborhood and the people who made it famous.

In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders relates the insights he has gathered from 20 years of teaching 19th-century Russian short stories to aspiring writers. Saunders will discuss the book at a ticketed virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 19.