Salvage the Bones, a National Book Award winner, is the featured title for this year’s Memphis Reads program, and author Jesmyn Ward will be in Memphis to discuss the novel, which is narrated by a pregnant fifteen-year-old whose destitute family faces the arrival of Hurricane Katrina. Ward will speak at Christian Brothers University on September 28 at 7 p.m., and at Rhodes College on September 29 at 6 p.m.
In his novel Robert Walker, Corey Mesler gives readers a glimpse into the mind and heart of a homeless man wandering the streets of Memphis. Mesler will discuss Robert Walker at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on September 29 at 5:30 p.m.
Jacob Bloch, the central character in Jonathan Safran Foer’s new novel, Here I Am, suffers from existential uncertainty. The heart of this ambitious work of fiction depicts Jacob’s attempt to deserve “the privilege of being alive.” Jonathan Safran Foer will discuss Here I Am at the Nashville Public Library on September 15, 2016, at 6:15 p.m. The event, part of the Salon@615 series, is free and open to the public.
In Imagine Me Gone, Adam Haslett uses multiple points of view to limn the collateral consequences of a father’s suicide and a tight-knit family’s history of depression. Haslett will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016. Festival events are free and open to the public.
In The Orphan Mother, Robert Hicks revisits the setting and characters of his debut novel, The Widow of the South, at the dawn of Reconstruction. During the next month, Hicks will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville, Books-a-Million in Mt. Juliet, The Franklin Theatre in Franklin, The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis, and the Southern Festival of Books.
Ann Patchett’s new novel, Commonwealth, asks a question to keep you up at night, a question to trouble your soul under certain moons: What if? Patchett will read from Commonwealth at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville on September 12, 2016, at 6:15 p.m., and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16. Both events are free and open to the public.
