Emily Bernard’s new essay collection is set on the fault lines between north and south, black and white
With Black Is the Body, Nashville native Emily Bernard leads readers into her inner landscape with candor. Beneath her still surfaces, a rage roils. Bernard will read from the collection at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 7 at 6:30 p.m.
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James Forman Jr. discusses his Pulitzer-winning book on mass incarceration, Locking Up Our Own
In Locking Up Our Own, James Forman Jr. intertwines policy and personal experience in a powerful account of crime and race in Washington D.C. Forman will discuss the book upon accepting the annual book award from the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis on January 31.
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A routine DNA test upends Dani Shapiro’s sense of identity
Dani Shapiro was unprepared for a routine DNA test’s stunning revelation: that her beloved father was not a biological relative. Her new memoir, Inheritance, tracks the fallout of these results, one surprising revelation after another. Shapiro will discuss Inheritance at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 30.
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Eli Saslow’s Rising Out of Hatred recounts one man’s confrontation with his own racism
In Rising Out of Hatred, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Eli Saslow tells the story of Derek Black, a former white nationalist who now speaks out against racism. Saslow will give a free public lecture at the University of Memphis on January 23.
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In That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound, Daryl Sanders documents the making of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde
In That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound, Nashville music journalist Daryl Sanders painstakingly and reverently narrates the making of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, offering a window into the creative process of a genius and the crucial influence of Dylan’s Nashville collaborators in producing a singular work of art.
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Preston Lauterbach’s Bluff City looks at the strange legacy of a civil-rights figure who worked as an FBI spy
Preston Lauterbach considers both the bravery and seeming treachery of a civil-rights photojournalist and FBI informant in Bluff City: The Secret Life of Photographer Ernest Withers. Lauterbach will appear at Novel in Memphis on January 14.
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