Jesus Gets Us, But Do We Get Him?
In Jesus for Everyone: Not Just Christians, Vanderbilt professor Amy-Jill Levine helps readers understand Jesus as the Jewish man he was, the traditions he knew, and the messages he truly cared about.
Nonfiction
Explosive Revelations
In Dynamite Nashville, Betsy Phillips plunges into the world of white supremacist violence in Nashville during the civil rights era. Phillips will discuss the book at the Tennessee State Museum on July 13.
Tender and Tragic
Coming to terms with guns or learning to knit a scarf, Andre Dubus III’s contradictions make for compelling reading in Ghost Dogs.
Forging an Autonomous Path
Ann Powers’ Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell weaves research, reportage, and analysis to tell the iconic singer-songwriter’s story in a conversational way. Powers will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 12.
Loving Country
The music scene in Nashville is tricky and hard to describe until you figure out how obsessed the city is with the relationship between conformity and rebellion. Brian Fairbanks provides plenty of detail about the full-cylinder lives of country music iconoclasts Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings in Willie, Waylon, and the Boys: How Nashville Outsiders Changed Country Music Forever.
Perils and Prospects
From Rights to Lives: The Evolution of the Black Freedom Struggle, a new anthology edited by historians Françoise N. Hamlin and Charles W. McKinney Jr., gives academics and lay people alike fresh ways to consider the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter.
