Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Highway to Hell

Sallie Bissell is back with another Mary Crow thriller in which death and disappearance are frequent travelers on an infamous North Carolina roadway

April 9, 2014 Two gay men near Asheville, North Carolina, are brutally murdered, possibly in connection with a backwater preacher’s shocking anti-gay bombast on YouTube, and North Carolina Governor Ann Chandler is worried. Clearly, this is a case for special prosecutor Mary Crow. Sallie Bissell will discuss Deadliest of Sins, her sixth Mary Crow mystery, on April 12, 2014, at Mysteries & More in Nashville at 2 p.m.

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A Darkly Funny Dystopia

Margaret Atwood brings her apocalyptic trilogy to a close with MaddAddam

April 8, 2014 With MaddAddam, the final book in Margaret Atwood’s trilogy about a bioengineered apocalypse, the story takes a turn toward the comic, transforming a dystopian vision into a darkly funny fairy tale for grown-ups. Atwood will discuss MaddAddam at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville on April 11, 2014, at 8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

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Making Over Miss Julia

Ann B. Ross contemplates the joys and challenges of a literary franchise that’s going strong after fifteen installments

April 4, 2014 Ann B. Ross, already beloved for her Miss Julia cozy mysteries, will surely keep fans happy with the fifteenth installment of the series, Miss Julia’s Marvelous Makeover. Ross will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on April 9, 2014, at 6 p.m.

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Vista to Somewhere Else

In Tova Mirvis’s Visible City, entangled neighbors catch startling glimpses into each other’s lives

March 28, 2013 The characters in Tova Mirvis’s novel Visible City dwell in the glittering flux of New York, constantly exposed to moments of potential clash and change. They play their official roles—stay-at-home mother, lawyer, therapist, art historian—as seamlessly as they can manage, but inside they seek routes of escape. Mirvis, a Memphis native, will discuss Visible City at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on April 2, 2014, at 6 p.m.

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Finding a Bigger Mirror

Karen Joy Fowler talks about We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, the Nashville Reads book selection for 2014

March 26, 2013 Hilarious and heartbreaking, poignant and absurd, Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is the Nashville Reads book selection for 2014. The novel asks readers to consider the ways in which all creatures are connected and responsible to one another. Fowler answered questions from Chapter 16 in advance of her appearance at the Nashville Public Library on April 1, 2014, at 6:15 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

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A Voice of Exile

In Patrick O’Keeffe’s The Visitors, an Irish immigrant finds that home is inescapable

March 25, 2014 In his debut novel, The Visitors, Patrick O’Keeffe tells the story of a modern-day Irish immigrant who finds that the secrets and conflicts of his home village follow him to America, haunting his thoughts and pulling him toward a troubling encounter with a boyhood nemesis. Patrick O’Keeffe will discuss The Visitors at the University of Tennessee’s Hodges Library in Knoxville on March 31, 2014, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

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