Book Reviews | Chapter 16

Unspoken Prayers

Ashleigh Bryant Phillips weaves a transcendent tapestry of stories in Sleepovers

By Lauren Turner | September 4, 2020

Ashleigh Bryant Phillips’ debut story collection, Sleepovers, is set in the rural northeast corner of North Carolina where she was born and raised. Steeped in the specificities of place, her characters display plainspoken charm and a desperate sense of longing. Phillips will discuss Sleepovers with George Singleton at a virtual event hosted by Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on September 28; will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11; and will participate in the Mirror House Reading Series, a virtual event hosted by The Porch in Nashville, on November 11.

The Past Rising Up

Randall Kenan’s If I Had Two Wings returns to Tims Creek

By Susannah Felts | September 2, 2020

In Randall Kenan’s new story collection, If I Had Two Wings, the residents of Tims Creek, North Carolina, often find themselves in bewildering circumstances, caught up in twists of fate that demand an unrehearsed response.

Rejoice in the Complexity

In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald explores the interconnectedness of humans and wildlife

By Emily Choate | August 31, 2020

In her new essay collection, Vesper Flights, English naturalist Helen Macdonald reveals that the interconnectivity between humans and wildlife is constant, often fraught, and — on occasion — sublime. Macdonald will discuss Vesper Flights with Margaret Renkl in a ticketed online event benefiting Humanities Tennessee, hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 15.

American Crow to Great White Shark

The Southern Wildlife Watcher surveys the region’s creatures

By Lyda Phillips | August 26, 2020

Rob Simbeck takes a close look at 36 creatures in The Southern Wildlife Watcher: Notes of a Naturalist, offering readers glimpses of the mundane and the miraculous. Simbeck will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 31 and at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

More than a Dream

Jon Meacham delivers a rich account of a life built on protest and hope

By Michael Ray Taylor | August 24, 2020

In His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham, a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt, has written a moving, rigorously researched account of the late congressman’s life, with an afterword written by Lewis himself. Meacham will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 25.

Queen’s Rules

Late R&B legend Denise LaSalle always called her own shots

By Jacqueline Zeisloft | August 20, 2020

Always the Queen: The Denise LaSalle Story offers a candid account of the life of the late R&B icon. This posthumous memoir, written with blues historian David Whiteis, also serves as an entertaining and boldly rendered look into the history of the musical genre LaSalle loved.

I Gotta Sing!

By Alice Faye Duncan
WaterBrook
40 pages
$14.99

“A whole barnyard makes noise ‘in the Spirit of joy’ throughout this raucous picture book, a sweetly heartwarming sing-along by Duncan. Kellam conveys comfort and happiness as the loved ones reflect sunny enthusiasm in this gladdening rendition of the Black American religious folk song ‘I’m Goin’a Sing When the Spirit Says Sing.’”

~Publishers Weekly