Nonfiction | Chapter 16

Home is a Long Way From Here

Linda Leaming writes a fascinating memoir about finding herself, and a family, in Bhutan

By Liz Garrigan | April 1, 2011

April 1, 2011 Years ago, when Linda Leaming first saw photos of a friend’s trip to the Himalayan country of Bhutan, wanderlust trumped prudence, and she decided to see this overlooked dot on the map for herself. Once there, she stayed for more than a decade. Married to Bhutan: How One Woman Got Lost, Said “I Do” and Found Bliss is equal parts diary, travel guide, and history lesson—Leaming’s tribute to a culture arguably more evolved than our own. Linda Leaming will sign copies of the book from 5 to 8 p.m. on April 7 at Nashville’s Cumberland Gallery. Artwork by Leaming’s husband, Bhutanese artist Phurba Namgay, will be on display.

Seeing in the Dark

John Egerton considers a new memoir by a blind man—and the whole future of book publishing

By John Egerton | March 17, 2011

March 17, 2011 The book business is in serious trouble. In Nashville alone, Zibart’s and Mills are so long-gone that most shoppers in their Hillsboro Village and Green Hills neighborhoods have never heard of them. Now Davis-Kidd is also gone, and OutLoud too, and Borders on West End is tiptoeing under a corporate-bankruptcy cloud. In Knoxville, Carpe Librum is shuttered. In Memphis, BookStar is gone, too, and the only remaining Davis-Kidd outlet in the state is in limbo because its Ohio-based corporate owners have filed for bankruptcy protection. Author John Egerton considers this blighted landscape and finds a ray of hope in the persistence of self-published authors like David Meador, who are helping to keep the literary embers warm in these distressing times. David Meador will discuss and autograph Broken Eyes, Unbroken Spirit at BookMan/BookWoman in Nashville on March 22 at 5 p.m.

A Season of Darkness (Berkley True Crime)

By Margaret Renkl | March 3, 2011

“When nine-year-old Marcia Trimble was murdered n 1975, her parents believed justice would be served. But it would take more than thirty years before the case finally came to its shocking, unexpected, and long-awaited concusion.”

–From the Publisher

Democracy’s Lawyer: Felix Grundy of the Old Southwest

By Margaret Renkl | March 3, 2011

“A central political figure in the first post-Revolutionary generation, Felix Grundy (1775-1840) epitomized the ‘American democrat’ who so famously fascinated Alexis de Tocqueville. Born and reared on the isolated frontier, Grundy rose largely by his own ability to become the Old Southwest’s greatest criminal lawyer and one of the first radical political reformers in the fledgling United States. In Democracy’s Lawyer, the first comprehensive biography of Grundy since 1940, J. Roderick Heller reveals how Grundy’s life typifies the archetypal, post-founding fathers generation that forged America’s culture and institutions.”

–From the Publisher

Dating the Big Bang

David A. Weintraub explains the age of the universe—and the ways scientists have confirmed it

By Michael Ray Taylor | March 3, 2011

March 3, 2011 In How Old is the Universe?, David A. Weintraub, a professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt, gives a very readable history of astronomy, explaining how each milestone discovery—starting with those of the ancient Greeks—placed mankind closer to fixing the moment it all began. Weintraub will discuss How Old is the Universe? at the Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory on March 8 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 each or $10 per family.

First Blood

Holly Tucker talks with Chapter 16 about the macabre history of blood transfusion

By Michael Ray Taylor | March 1, 2011

March 1, 2011 Holly Tucker will discuss and sign copies of Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution on March 2 at 11:30 a.m. in the main Nashville Public Library. The event is part of the Thinking Out of the (Lunch) Box series, a joint venture of Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Public Library. At 11:30 a.m., lunch is served. At noon, the program begins. The event is free and open to the public.

Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past

By Tore C. Olsson
St. Martin's Press
288 pages
$30

“I recommend Red Dead’s History unreservedly not only to fans of the iconic video game, but also to anyone who wants to understand the riotousness — from Wild West gunslingers to Jim Crow to lynching — that darkened our past, and which continues to influence our culture. Olsson’s prose is graceful, his analysis profound. This is history at its most accessible and exciting.”

~Peter Cozzens, award-winning author of A Brutal Reckoning