April 27, 2015 When Anna—the ex-pat heroine of Jill Alexander Essbaum’s debut novel, Hausfrau—falls into an extramarital tangle with a fellow foreigner, the affair seems contrary to her entire nature as a person and threatens the passive surface of her life. Jill Alexander Essbaum will discuss Hausfrau at The Skillery in Nashville on May 1, 2015, at 7 p.m. The event, sponsored by The Porch Writers’ Collective and Parnassus Books, is free and open to the public.
Leslie Lytle
Hedgehog and Fox
288 pages
$16.95
“A stunning muckraker for our times, this brilliant novel delivers to us rural America’s struggle against corporate agriculture through the eyes of one woman, a wife and young mother catapulted unwillingly to the front lines by her husband’s dying words: “Promise me, Berta, promise me you’ll keep the farm going.” Locked in a David and Goliath conflict with powers well beyond her control, a fatherless child to provide for, and their own survival dependent upon the fragile lives of thousands of baby chicks, Berta must find a path forward where her son can know and love the farm the way his father had.”
–From the publisher
Hampton Sides
Anchor
480 pages
$16.95
“For all their human weaknesses, the book’s larger-than-life characters…pull the reader into the story, and the grandeur of the polar landscape—as well as the terrible struggle for survival—keeps them there… In the Kingdom of Ice is a book to make readers nostalgic for the late-nineteenth century’s golden age of arctic exploration, even as it makes reviewers nostalgic for the late-twentieth century’s great magazine adventure writing. Hampton Sides has captured the best of both, turning history into nail-biting suspense.”
–Michael Ray Taylor’s review for Chapter 16
Karen Kingsbury
Howard Books
336 pages
$22.99
“From #1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury comes the second novel in a brand-new series about divine intervention and the trials and triumphs of life—the dramatic story of a woman desperate to find deeper meaning in her life.”
–From the publisher
April 21, 2015 An almost-washed-up movie director returns to his hometown to make an indie film that just might salvage his career. That’s the premise of Memphis Movie, Corey Mesler’s wild ride of a novel, which combines Hollywood cynicism with Memphis soul to create a comic tale with a sweet afterglow. Mesler will read from his novel at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on April 30, 2015, at 5:30 p.m.
April 16, 2015 In Dear Hank Williams, National Book Award-winning children’s author Kimberly Willis Holt tells the story of an eleven-year-old in 1940s Louisiana through letters the girl writes to Hank Williams. Holt will appear at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on April 22 at 6:30 p.m.
