Why Cormac McCarthy should have won the Nobel Prize
October 7, 2010 Since 1993, the Swedish Academy has spurned writers from the U.S. as “too insular and ignorant to challenge Europe as the center of the literary world.” But just yesterday, British bookies were giving better than three-to-one odds that this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature would go to Tennessee native Cormac McCarthy. We know why.
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The protagonist of Laura Lippman’s new thriller hasn’t moved as far beyond the past as she believes
October 6, 2010 Laura Lippman’s new crime novel, I’d Know You Anywhere, begins where most mysteries end. The killer has been caught and incarcerated; apparently, justice has been served. Twenty years after he raped and murdered a series of young women in suburban Washington, D.C., Walter Bowman sits on Death Row awaiting execution, his appeals finally exhausted. His last request is to make contact with the one girl he kidnapped but, unlike the unfortunate others, did not kill. Lippman will read from the novel at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on October 7 at 6 p.m.
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Peter Ho Davies talks with Chapter 16 about writing, teaching, and growing up in a Welsh-Chinese home
September 30, 2010 Peter Ho Davies is author of the acclaimed novel The Welsh Girl, as well as two collections of short stories, The Ugliest House in the World and Equal Love. His work has been much anthologized and has appeared in Harpers, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post, among other publications. In 2003, Granta magazine included Davies on its top-twenty list, “Best of Young British Novelists.” He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and, in 2008, was a recipient of the Pen/Malamud Award. He took questions from Chapter 16 prior to his Nashville appearance at 7 p.m. on September 30 in Vanderbilt University’s Buttrick Hall, Room 203.
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Teen Australian author Alexandra Adornetto is poised to take the baton from Twilight’s Stephanie Meyer
September 29, 2010 Vampires, zombies, and now angels: ever since Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight became the twenty-first century’s gold standard by which young adult romances are measured, publishing houses have been trying to hit upon the next soul-mates-and-supernatural YA love story. And thanks to Alexandra Adornetto’s Halo, the angels angle just might stick. Adornetto will read from the novel at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on October 1 at 4 p.m.
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Salvatore Scibona, one of The New Yorker‘s new “20 Under 40” writers, talks with Chapter 16
September 23, 2010 In 2008, Salvatore Scibona’s first novel, The End, was a finalist for the National Book Award—a coup for its author and for its publisher, the tiny, nonprofit Gray Wolf Press. The NBA distinction helped propel sales of the novel, which has become a favorite of book clubs. Scibona’s burgeoning career received another boost in June, when The New Yorker named Scibona to its “20 Under 40” list of young writers who are bringing fresh voices to American fiction. Scibona will read from his work at 7 p.m. on September 23 in Buttrick Hall, Room 102, on the Vanderbilt University campus.
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In his new novel, Rick Bass’s trademark lyricism brings the Nashville Sound to life in language
September 14, 2010 The Browns were trailblazers of the “Nashville Sound,” massively successful crossover artists who, from 1955 to 1967, amassed dozens of hits and a slate of music-industry nominations and awards. At the peak of their popularity, the Browns outsold even their old friend Elvis. Their signature hit, “The Three Bells,” sold over a million copies and has since been covered by a variety of artists, from Ray Charles and Roy Orbison to Alison Krauss & Union Station. But, despite their success, the Browns are all but anonymous today, barely remembered even by music aficionados. Bestselling author Rick Bass tells their story in a new novel called Nashville Chrome.
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