An Island of Rich Girls
August 22, 2013 In her debut novel, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, Anton DiSclafani offers an elegantly written, reflective journey of a protagonist who begins to confront her own fearlessness and desire, both of which put her at odds with the cultural expectations for women of her time. DiSclafani will discuss The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. All festival events are free and open to the public.
August 19, 2013 James McBride earned universal praise and worldwide recognition for The Color of Water, his classic memoir of growing up black with a white mother in 1960s New York. His subsequent books—including Miracle at St. Anna, a novel adapted into the 2008 film by Spike Lee—have grappled with the problem of race and the legacy of slavery. In The Good Lord Bird, McBride returns to these themes but with a starkly different approach. He will appear at the twenty-fifth annual 
August 15, 2013 By day, the hero of No Regrets, Coyote, a thriller by award-winning novelist John Dufresne, is a divorced therapist and amateur actor carrying on a platonic affair with his high-school sweetheart, whose husband thinks Coyote is gay. By night, he is a volunteer forensic consultant for the Everglades County Police Department, whose latest case involves the Christmas Eve massacre of a mother and three children and the subsequent suicide of their father. Or what looks like suicide. Dufresne will discuss No Regrets, Coyote at 
August 8, 2013 The Body Farm, a two-acre plot of land in Knoxville, was founded by University of Tennessee anthropologist Bill Bass over a quarter century ago. It is now renowned as the hub of some of the most important forensic science ever done. Since 2003, Bass and writer Jon Jefferson have collaborated on two nonfiction books about Bass’s work, as well as a series of mystery novels featuring Bass’s alter-ego, Bill Brockton, which they write under the pseudonym Jefferson Bass. Jon Jefferson and Bill Bass will discuss the newest Body Farm novel at the twenty-fifth annual 
August 6, 2013 Jill McCorkle’s novel Life After Life focuses on old age and death as way of seeing into the human heart. In this multi-layered narrative, death and loss are ever-present, and so is love. Jill McCorkle will read from and sign Life After Life at the twenty-fifth annual 