Nonfiction | Chapter 16

Great MoonPie Handbook

By Margaret Renkl

February 10, 2011

“This humorous book filled with cartoons describes how the MoonPie affects all aspects of life, such as courtship, childrearing, construction, television, magazines, and movies. It explains MoonPie etiquette and how the treat should be used on social occasions, such as birthdays and anniversaries. Also included are the history, vast folklore, and ‘noble’ traditions associated with this great American institution.”

–From the Publisher

Ghosts & Haunts of Tennessee

By Margaret Renkl

February 10, 2011

“Tennessee is famous for more than just Elvis Presley, Davy Crockett, and Jack Daniel’s. The Volunteer State is also home to enough ghosts, haunts, and spirits to make your skin crawl. Christopher K. Coleman’s Ghosts and Haunts of Tennessee is a new collection of 28 tales of the supernatural. This compilation explores never-before-published legends that span the entire state, from the mysterious mountains of Appalachia to the haunted banks of the Mississippi River. Those familiar with Tennessee’s most famous apparitions will find new thrills in Ghosts and Haunts of Tennessee. Readers may have heard of the Bell Witch, but what of her sister, a vengeful spirit known to the folks on the eastern part of the Highland Rim as the Buckner Witch? This new compilation of authentic folklore offers a fresh look at things that go bump in the night in the Volunteer State.”

–From the Publisher

Elvis Presley's Memphis

By Margaret Renkl

February 10, 2011

“Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. and Memphis award-winning newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, are proud to bring Elvis fans, historians and music lovers around the world an exciting new book, Elvis Presley s Memphis. Both entities have opened their significant archives and discovered photographs, documents and news stories that share Memphis through the eyes of the King of Rock ‘n Roll. This hard-bound, full color, collector’s book contains photos, reproductions of articles and more.”

From the Publisher

Ms. Cheap Talks Love

By Liz Garrigan

February 10, 2011

February 10, 2011 There is probably no other Tennessean columnist—nor any journalist in Nashville, for the that matter—who is more connected to the daily’s readers than Mary Hance, known to the masses as Ms. Cheap. After all, everyone wants to save a buck. Hance, author of several previous books, has now parlayed her popularity into a new title, Love For a Lifetime: Daily Wisdom and Wit for a Long and Happy Marriage, a sort of Life’s Little Instruction Book of wedlock. Hance will discuss the book on February 13 at 2 p.m. at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Cool Springs, at 6 p.m. at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis, and at 5:30 p.m. on March 3 at the Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville.

Chasing Plagues

By Michael Ray Taylor

February 8, 2011

February 8, 2011 When Molly Caldwell Crosby’s first book, The American Plague, appeared in 2006, critics praised the way it wove individual tales of horror and heroism into a broader scientific framework. The book recounted how the population of Memphis, where Crosby lives, was decimated by a yellow fever epidemic in 1878, and told the stories of doctors fighting to identify the disease and halt its spread. In her second book, Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic That Remains one of Medicine’s Greatest Mysteries, published last year and now out in paper, Crosby used a similar mix of memorable characters and scientific detection to follow a chilling epidemic of sleeping sickness in the wake of World War I, a disease that left most of its victims dead or brain-damaged. Prior to her appearance at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on February 8 at 6 p.m., she answered questions from Chapter 16 about the process of combining very human stories and scientific research.

Saint Pioneer Feminist

By Anne Delana Reeves

January 31, 2011

January 31, 2011 Former Nashville Banner reporter Bill Briggs, now a journalist with MSNBC.com, has written a masterful page-turner, a book that serves as a testament to tenacious research, graceful prose, and a true journalist’s skeptical nature. By following the beatification of Mother Théodore, a nineteenth-century American nun, The Third Miracle: An Ordinary Man, a Medical Mystery, and a Trial of Faith uncovers the secret saint-making practices of the Catholic Church. Ultimately, of course, it is a story about the age-old conflict between faith and science. Briggs will discuss the book at the offices of McNeely Piggott & Fox, in Nashville, on February 1 at 5:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

“A searing sci-fi thriller about a woman reckoning with her past to solve a series of sudden and inexplicable deaths in the face of a coming apocalypse — from the Compton Crook Award–winning author of The Space Between Worlds.”

~ the publisher