Book Reviews

When Clara Evans, the protagonist of Suggested Reading, shows up for the first day of her senior year in high school, the last thing she expects to do is start a revolution. The book — Chattanooga writer Dave Connis’ second young adult novel — presents readers with a complex and nuanced portrait of the consequences of censorship.

Karen B. Golightly and Jonathan Judaken’s Memphis: 200 Years Together weaves a series of essays on the city’s complex history into an intricate quilt.

In Nothing to See Here, Kevin Wilson once again dazzles with a bizarre, comic, and heartbreaking tale of two children who spontaneously burst into flames and the wayward woman who comes to love them. Kevin Wilson will discuss Nothing to See Here at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 11.

One of Knoxville’s most colorful and controversial characters is remembered in Cas Walker: Stories on His Life and Legend, an oral history edited by Joshua S. Hodge, who died earlier this year. An event to honor the memory of Hodge and celebrate the release of the book will be held at the John C. Hodges Library at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville on November 5.

In Tell Me a Story, Cassandra King Conroy recalls her happy marriage to the late novelist Pat Conroy. The author will appear at Novel in Memphis on November 5, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 7, and at Girls Preparatory School in Chattanooga on December 5.

Paul Fink was an early champion of the Appalachian Trail and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Mountain Days collects his colorful journals and historic photographs of 20 mountain backpacking excursions between 1914 and 1938.