Nonfiction

October 11, 2012 With Master of the Mountain, acclaimed historian Henry Wiencek offers a timely and troubling account of how Thomas Jefferson—the Founding Father most frequently invoked as the “guiding spirit” of the New World—rationalized keeping human beings enslaved. Wiencek constructs the image of a man who in his young adulthood sensed the atrocity of slavery but went on, nevertheless, to embrace the practice after he discovered the easy profits he could glean from an institution he referred to in an early draft of the Declaration of Independence as “a cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberties.” Wiencek will discuss Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves at Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books on October 12 at 2 p.m. in Legislative Plaza, Room 12. All festival events are free and open to the public.

October 1, 2012 In 1926, two New Orleans roommates—one a writer, the other an artist—decided to put together a little book about their French Quarter circle of friends, most of whom were also writers and artists, and publish a few hundred copies, consisting mainly of caricatures and witty captions. In Dixie Bohemia: A French Quarter Circle in the 1920s, John Shelton Reed uses this little book by artist William Spratling and his roommate—a fellow by the name of William Faulkner—as a snapshot out of time through which to explore the bohemian arts community that thrived in the Vieux Carré of the 1920s. John Shelton Reed will discuss Dixie Bohemia at Nashville’ s Southern Festival of Books on October 14 at 2:30 p.m. in Legislative Plaza Room 12. All festival events are free and open to the public.

September 27, 2012 When Wendy Welch and her Scottish husband, Jack Beck, decided to open a used bookstore in the small town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, they had a whimsical vision of what their lives would be like. Soon enough, they were introduced to the long hours, aching backs, small margins, and myriad problems that make up the life of an independent bookseller. In The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap, Welch describes the evolution of their business, as they are led full-circle to the realization that, despite all the headaches, “Bookshops are magic, and books are the road maps by which misfits find each other.” Wendy Welch will discuss The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on October 6 at 2 p.m., Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 8 at 6:30 p.m., and at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on November 9 at 6 p.m.