October 20, 2010 Novelist and anthologist Sonny Brewer may have hit upon the best-ever idea for an essay collection. Don’t Quit Your Day Job: Acclaimed Authors and the Day Jobs They Quit contains accounts by Pat Conroy, John Grisham, Winston Groom, and a score of other Southern writers on the sorts of work they did on their way to becoming professional writers.
October 14, 2010 In Memphis and the Superflood of 1937: High Water Blues, librarian Patrick O’Daniel has created a compact volume detailing of one of the worst floods in American history. In early 1937, the Ohio and Mississippi valleys were deluged with rain and snow, creating a disaster so far beyond anyone’s experience that the rules of flood control and disaster response had to be rewritten in the aftermath. Thanks to cooperation among federal, state, and local officials and volunteers from every walk of life, one of Memphis’s worst moments became one of its finest hours. O’Daniel will discuss the story at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on October 16 at 1 p.m.
October 13, 2010 In a culture dominated by texting, tweeting, and emailing—media that have accelerated the decline of spelling, grammar, and word use—it seems unlikely that a pair of twenty-somethings would be the orthographic heroes of our time, bounding across the country, Wite-Out in hand, to fix our collective mistakes. But that’s the story Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson tell in their entertaining memoir, The Great Typo Hunt. Deck and Herson will discuss the book at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on October 15 at 7 p.m.
October 12, 2010 Few American politicians are as well versed in the health-care debate as Tennessee Gov. Philip Bredesen. A former health-care executive, Bredesen came to office in 2002 promising to fix TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, which was driving the state deep into debt, and he has a lot to say about the landmark national health-care bill that passed this spring. In Fresh Medicine: How to Fix Reform and Build a Sustainable Health Care System, Bredesen provides a searing but non-partisan critique of the bill. Recently, Chapter 16 spoke with him about the book, which hits shelves today.
October 11, 2010 For eight years, Meredith Maran mistakenly believed her father had molested her when she was a child. Two decades later, still tormented by the damage her accusation caused her family, she embarked on a search to understand what really happened, and why. The result is My Lie: A True Story of False Memory. Maran answered questions from Chapter 16 in advance of her signing at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on October 11 at 7 p.m.
September 28, 2010 Since 1999, the Southern Foodways Alliance has been spreading the gospel of Southern American cuisine. Under the umbrella of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, the SFA stages symposia, produces documentary films, and, every couple years or so, publishes a collection of essays and poems. The latest of these is Cornbread Nation 5: The Best of Southern Food Writing, edited by aptly named Fred W. Sauceman—author and host of the popular Food with Fred program on Johnson City’s WJHL-TV.
