June 12, 2013 Early in his new memoir, Nashville author J.M. Blaine responds with humor when asked about his job as a late-night crisis counselor: “I’ve made tens of dollars in mental health,” he says, pointing to his battered Saturn. But the truth is more complex, and Midnight, Jesus & Me is a powerful work of creative nonfiction that describes Blaine’s own unusual spiritual journey.
June 11, 2013 Run, Brother, Run traces the split arcs of two brothers’ lives: one a celebrated trial attorney, the other murdered in 1968 by a hired assassin. David Berg will discuss his memoir at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 15, 2013, at 2 p.m.
June 7, 2013 In a wide-ranging interview with Exclaim!’s Jason Schneider, musician Steve Earle has announced his plans to write a memoir in addition to the novel he already has in progress. “It’s the book I swore I would never write,” he said, explaining that the motivation for changing his mind was clear: “There were a lot of reasons that mainly had to do with money. My little boy has autism, and the school that he just started in last week, finally, is really expensive, and I don’t have that much money,” Earle explained.
June 6, 2013 When it first appeared in 1986, The Secrets of the Hopewell Box by James D. Squires was a Tennessee sensation, dealing with the seldom-exposed underbelly of ward politics in a Southern city on the cusp of social change. The book got good regional and national exposure for a couple of years, but inexplicably the publisher let it go out of print. Now, Vanderbilt University Press has reissued it in paperback, giving readers a second chance to be entertained by and instructed about a period of local history that had national implications in politics, civil rights, reapportionment, and the sensational federal trial of labor boss Jimmy Hoffa.
June 5, 2013 Before her memoir, Full Body Burden, hit shelves, Kristen Iversen got some advice from Helen Caldicott, one of her heroes: “Buckle your seatbelt and take your vitamins,” Caldicott said. “Your life is about to change.” In an essay for Chapter 16, Iversen explains just how prescient those words turned out to be.
May 30, 2013 Humorist David Sedaris is currently on an author tour for his new book, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls. He spoke with Chapter 16 by phone about his upcoming appearance at Parnassus Books in Nashville, the difference between his lecture and bookstore tours, and the true meaning of Christmas. [This interview is also available as a podcast.] Sedaris will discuss and sign copies of Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 31, 2013, at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public but requires book purchase through the Parnassus website. Click here for details.
