In her new memoir, Whit Hill remembers the pre-icon Madonna
September 15, 2011 In her new memoir, Not About Madonna, Nashville songwriter remembers her skinny, wise-cracking, indefatigable college roommate—before she became an international icon. Hill will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.
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Acclaimed journalist Melissa Fay Greene delivers a witty account of her exceptional family
September 9, 2011 For acclaimed journalist Melissa Fay Greene and her husband, the prospect of being home alone after their four children grew up was not a happy one. No Biking in the House Without a Helmet is Greene’s account of how her family adopted five more children—a son from Bulgaria, and three sons and a daughter from Ethiopia—and found all their lives “enlivened and enriched” in the process. Melissa Fay Greene will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.
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In a new memoir, David Frizzell writes about the life of his brother, country legend Lefty Frizzell
August 31, 2011 There are echoes of his voice on the radio today. When Tim McGraw sings—or Willie Nelson, or Merle Haggard—what you’re hearing is the influence of Lefty Frizzell, front and center stage. Little known today, Lefty’s music was simply everywhere in the early 1950s. And his life was filled with as many ups and downs as his loose, turbulent voice. In his new memoir, I Love You A Thousand Ways: The Lefty Frizzell Story, Lefty’s brother David tells the story as he knew it.
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Preston Lauterbach links an informal network of black-owned “joy businesses” to the birth of rock and roll
August 29, 2011 In The Chitlin’ Circuit: And the Road to Rock and Roll, Memphis music writer Preston Lauterbach takes us back before the days when black music had its way with white teenagers; back to a time when Southern black musicians like B. B. King, Little Richard, and Ray Charles depended for their livelihood on the informal yet influential association of rural nightclubs, big city “strolls,” and gangsters-cum-entrepreneurs known as the chitlin’ circuit. Lauterbach will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.
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Kay West documents an adoptive mother’s love for a tragically abused child
August 15, 2011 Six years ago, Florida authorities investigated a child neglect case so vile and gut-wrenching that even an experienced social worker and a cop found themselves vomiting at the scene. In a small house full of filth, barely clothed and confined to a foul closet, was a profoundly neglected six-year-old girl named Dani. Now Nashville author Kay West has written a book about how Diane and Bernie Lierow came to welcome Dani into their family. She recently spoke with Chapter 16 by phone about Dani’s Story.
Read more“Barsky has managed to pull together the strands of a complex life with warmth, humor, and archival research of unusual depth. Harris emerges in this book not only as one of the giants of a golden age for linguistics in the United States, but also as a political activist and thinker of great subtlety. Barsky lucidly explicates Harris’s fearfully complex ideas on language as well as recreates the lively debates and utopian brio of the Zionist organization, Avukah. With this book a new member joins the pantheon of American originals.”
Michael Holquist , Professor of Comparative and Slavic Literature Emeritus, Yale University
