Nonfiction

May 23, 2012 Colin Powell has spent over a half century as a leader. Now he wants to share the lessons he learned in all those years of working to inspire and manage people. In his latest book, It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership, Powell passes along words of wisdom that would normally be handed down in private conversations between mentor and protégé. In providing examples both small and large, including those involving the controversies surrounding the war with Iraq, Powell has created a hybrid that is part memoir and part how-to book. Powell will appear in an onstage conversation with former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham on May 30 at 7 p.m. at Belmont University’s Massey Concert Hall. The event is part of the Salon@615 series.

May 17, 2012 In a book that is part scientific history (in the mode of Holly Tucker’s Blood Work) and part international quest (a la National Treasure or The DaVinci Code), Andrea Wulf circumnavigates the globe with a story of Enlightenment-era derring-do. Wulf will read from and discuss Chasing Venus at the Nashville Public Library on May 24, as part of the Salon@615 series. The event will begin with a reception at 6:15 p.m., followed by a reading at 6:45. Both are free and open to the public.

May 9, 2012 Loretta Lynn’s rise to fame epitomizes the quintessential American dream, but with a uniquely Appalachian slant. A coal miner’s daughter who was, as her number-one hit explains, “born in a cabin on a hill in Butcher Hollow,” Lynn married at thirteen and had four children by eighteen. Despite this far-from-glamorous beginning, she has recorded sixteen number-one hits and sent seventy songs up the country charts. And at age seventy-seven, she continues to write and record crafted, heartfelt songs. It’s only fitting that Loretta Lynn’s newest memoir tells the story of her life through the medium that made her famous: her songs. In Honky Tonk Girl: My Life in Lyrics, Lynn collects 300 of her lyrics, glossing many of them with anecdotes that explain their genesis. Loretta Lynn will appear at the Ryman Auditorium on May 10 at as part of Opry Country Classics.

May 8, 2012 Sissy Spacek may be a Hollywood legend—she’s best known for her Academy Award-winning portrayal of Loretta Lynn in the 1980 film Coal Miner’s Daughter—but her stories are refreshingly devoid of unwanted pregnancies, drug and alcohol addiction, marital abuse, family dysfunction, or devastating divorce. Spacek’s new memoir contains no shocking bombshells, no reprisals, not even the faintest hint of relationship retaliation. The book is quite simply the account of a charmed and happy life, of family love and loyalty, of cherished children and pets, of gardens watered in pajamas. On May 13, as part of the Salon@615 series, Spacek will discuss My Extraordinary Ordinary Life at the Nashville Public Library at 3 p.m.

April 23, 2012 If any singer/songwriter nailed the deep pain and loneliness in the American heart, it’s Hank Williams. He also personified another American artistic tradition: live hard and die young. In Hank Hung the Moon … and Warmed Our Cold, Cold Hearts, former Memphis writer Rheta Grimsley Johnson pays tribute to the artist who wrote the soundtrack of her life.