Ann Patchett talks with Chapter 16 about her bestselling novel Commonwealth
Ann Patchett talks about the paperback edition of her number-one New York Times-bestselling novel Commonwealth, her desire to study acting, how being a bookseller affects her reading list, the nonfiction book she’s writing about women’s suffrage, and the importance of voting in our current age.
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With The Shark Club, Ann Kidd Taylor delivers the quintessential beach read
As a teenager, Maeve Donnelly was bitten by a shark only moments after her first kiss. Fifteen years later, she returns to Florida to face two dangerous passions—sharks and first love. Ann Kidd Taylor will discuss her new novel, The Shark Club, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 14 at 6:30 p.m.
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Lisa Wingate has created a fictional tale of a family torn apart by Memphis’s notorious black-market baby dealer
In Before We Were Yours, Lisa Wingate imagines the murky family history of a clan ripped apart by Georgia Tann, the real-life director of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, which served as a front for a black-market adoption operation out of Memphis. Wingate will appear at the Arts Building in Chattanooga on June 14, and at the Blount County Library in Maryville on June 15.
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In Maile Meloy’s Do Not Become Alarmed, a family holiday veers into disaster
Cousins Liv and Nora have booked their families on a joint holiday cruise to Central America. But even before their children go missing, the characters seem primed for disaster. Maile Meloy will discuss Do Not Become Alarmed at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 13 at 6:30 p.m.
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An orphaned boy negotiates the legends of his past in Gail Godwin’s Grief Cottage
When eleven-year-old Marcus—the narrator of Gail Godwin’s latest novel—arrives at his new home on an island off the South Carolina coast, the secrets crowding his young life show no signs of letting up. Godwin will discuss Grief Cottage at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 12 at 6:30 p.m.
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With Touch, Courtney Maum sweetly skewers the wired rich
The plot of Touch unfolds in a near future that might actually arrive next week—the perfect backdrop for Courtney Maum’s protagonist, a trend forecaster whose livelihood depends on predicting exactly what consumers will want to buy next. Maum will discuss the novel at Star Line Books in Chattanooga on June 9 at 6 p.m.
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