Chapter 16
A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Nonfiction

Drop Dead Funny

By Fernanda Moore

August 9, 2012 A.J. Jacobs is “okay looking ridiculous as long as there’s a chance it will lead to something interesting or insightful.” In fact he’s the kind of writer for whom virtually every experience leads to something interesting—and very, very funny. Jacobs is the author of The Know-It-All, for which he read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica, and The Year of Living Biblically, in which he spent a year living by the literal prohibitions of the Bible, including stoning adulterers (with pebbles). His newest book is Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection, which he will discuss at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. In advance of his visit, he took Chapter 16’s Fernanda Moore to a Manhattan health-food restaurant for lunch.

Drop Dead Funny

A Bottomless Well of Inspiration

By Clay Risen

In his book 1861: The Civil War Awakening, historian and journalist Adam Goodheart presents what he calls a “pointillist” picture of a country on the brink of self-destruction. Through a series of profiles and stories, Goodheart demonstrates how America was both gearing up for an epic conflict and coming to grips with the horror that lay before it—and all the while slowly realizing that whatever happened, it would change the nation forever. He spoke with Chapter 16 by phone prior to his forthcoming appearance at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville.

A Bottomless Well of Inspiration

Carriers, War Birds, and Pilots

By Ralph Bowden

August 6, 2012 In Intrepid Aviators, Memphis attorney Gregory G. Fletcher focuses on the Pacific during World War II, providing background details about ships, planes, commanders, and battles. His particular interest, however, is the story of the carrier Intrepid, including a detailed treatment of the torpedo bombers in Squadron 18 and a very personal look at the experiences of his father, Willard Fletcher, one of Squadron 18’s pilots. Will Fletcher launched one of the torpedoes that doomed the huge Musashi battleship. His plane was shot down, and his two crew members were lost, but he managed to survive a harrowing adventure.

Night-Riders Redux

By Clay Risen

August 3, 2012 During the nineteenth century, the Ku Klux Klan (founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, after the Civil War) had quickly been suppressed, only to reappear and spread with surprising virulence in 1915. How, asks Kelly J. Baker, a lecturer in religious and American studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and author of Gospel According to the Klan, did an organization we find so reprehensible today come to occupy a place so close to the center of the American mainstream?

The Impoverishment of Truth

By Ralph Bowden

August 2, 2012, 2012 Deep East Texas in the 1940s and ’50s was a tough environment for a bookish kid. As Gerald Duff describes in his memoir, Home Truths, growing up there required creative and spontaneous lying to survive. As it turns out, being a skillful liar proved useful throughout his life, as well—personally, professionally, and literarily. Duff will discuss Home Truths 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.

Upon a Hill in Tennessee

By Michael Ray Taylor

July 26, 2012 David George Haskell, professor of biology at the University of the South in Sewanee, spent a year carefully observing a small patch of Tennessee forest. His book about the experience, The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, is a scientist’s meditation that rises to the philosophical level of Annie Dillard’s A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Thoreau’s Walden. David Haskell will discuss The Forest Unseen 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.

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