Nonfiction

September 28, 2012 Kentucky has been primarily known for its folk music: ballads and string bands in Eastern Kentucky, jug bands along the Ohio River, more thumbpickers than you can swing a cat at in the Western Kentucky coal fields, and of course, bluegrass. But the modern sounds emerging from Kentucky are as varied as its landscape, encompassing not only country and folk but also indie-rock, jazz, gospel, blues, and rap. In his new book, A Few Honest Words: The Kentucky Roots of Popular Music, Jason Howard provides intimate profiles of a few Kentucky musicians who draw on their sense of place to inform their art. Among these venerable musicians is the iconic Naomi Judd, who will appear with Howard at Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books on October 12 at 3 p.m. in the Nashville Public Library Auditorium. All festival events are free and open to the public.

Tony Horwitz’s Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War tells the gripping story of John Brown, the abolitionist who in 1859 organized and led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry in an attempt to further the cause of emancipation of the American slave population. Today Horwitz talks with Knoxville novelist Christopher Hebert, author of The Boiling Season, about a man as fascinating as his deeds. Tony Horwitz and Christopher Hebert will appear at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. Hebert will discuss his novel, The Boiling Season, on October 12 at 1 p.m. in Conference Room 1A of the Nashville Public Library. Horwitz will discuss Midnight Rising on October 14 at noon in the Nashville Public Library Auditorium. All festival events are free and open to the public.

September 14, 2012 Rosecrans Baldwin was a budding writer in New York when, in 2007, he moved with his wife to Paris for a job in advertising. Like many Americans, Baldwin had a romantic vision of what his Paris life would be like; what it was actually like, from the bad coffee to the bad fashion to the bad manners—not to mention countless absurdly beautiful, and beautifully absurd, moments in between—forms the basis of his second book, Paris, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down. He will at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.