Nonfiction

April 27, 2010 Like certain songs and film plots, there are some stories in history—George Washington’s life, D-Day—that can be taken up again and again, stories so captivating that all it takes is a good writer to give them new life. Martin Luther King’s murder is one of them, and Hampton Sides is the writer to tell it. He will give a free public reading from the book at Memphis University School on April 27 at 7 p.m.

April 21, 2010 Celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley, famous for her tell-all books on icons like Frank Sinatra, takes on what may be her greatest challenge: the life story of daytime talk queen—and former Nashvillian—Oprah Winfrey. The queen is not amused. Kelley will appear at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on April 23 at 7 p.m.

No one with any sense of history can doubt the human capacity for violence, hate, destruction, and killing. In The Pacific, Hugh Ambrose (son of the late historian Stephen Ambrose) provides an intimate picture of that capacity. The book chronicles the war experiences of four Marines and a Navy pilot in the Pacific war against Japan. Ambrose appears at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on April 12 at 7 p.m.

Mark Twain‘s influence on American culture has not been in doubt since his death a hundred years ago, and Chattanooga writer Roy Morris, Jr. does not propose any revision of that position in his new book. What Morris does in Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain is explore the influence of America itself on a young man named Samuel Clemens. Morris explains how the great adventure that was the winning of the West changed Clemens, molding him into not just a teller of humorous tales but also a worldwide literary phenomenon. Morris will appear at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on April 8 at 7 p.m.