A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Nonfiction

Book Excerpt: Kingfisher Days

By Michael Sims

August 23, 2010 Michael Sims is a nonfiction writer, the author of several books about nature, including In the Womb: Animals (a companion to a National Geographic Channel series, National Geographic Books, 2009); Apollo’s Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination (Viking, 2007); Adam’s Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form (Viking, 2003); and Darwin’s Orchestra: An Almanac of Nature in History and the Arts (Henry Holt, 1997). Kingfisher Days is a work-in-progress, Sims’s first effort to write personally about his life and his own experience of nature. His blog of the same name is, he writes, an online “journal about one man’s response—half scientific, half aesthetic, mostly affectionate—to the natural world behind ordinary urban life. Some days I don’t know if I’d rather write a field guide or a poem.”

The Neglected Survivors

By Maria Browning

August 12, 2010The relentless news coverage of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina obscured the fact that the Mississippi Gulf coast was just as devastated by the storm. In Rising from Katrina, former CNN reporter Kathleen Koch, a one-time resident of the Mississippi coastal town of Bay St. Louis, writes about the destruction there and the residents’ heroic struggle to rebuild. Koch will discuss her book at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on August 12 at 6 p.m.

Dooced No More

By Margaret Renkl

August 10, 2010 Memphis native Heather Armstrong didn’t invent the personal weblog any more than Al Gore invented the Internet, but she is definitely one reason the word blog has entered the English language. In fact, the very name of her own blog, Dooce, is cited in the Urban Dictionary as an intransitive verb: to be dooced is to lose your job because of something you wrote on your blog. But getting fired is not something Armstrong worries about any more: Dooce now gets more than six million page views a month, and last year Forbes magazine named Armstrong one of the thirty most influential women in media. She talks with Chapter 16 about her life, her enemies, and her bestselling book.

Dooced No More

Honky Tonk Devil

By Paul McCoy

August 5, 2010 A tenant farmer’s son; an influential musician with more than thirty top-ten and fifteen number-one singles; a cornball, overall-wearing bumpkin who hosted a popular country-music television show; a cutthroat, razor-sharp business tycoon obsessed with dollars, sex, and power: this isn’t the latest cast description of Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice. According to a new book by Eileen Sisk, all of these descriptions apply to one man: Buck Owens. On August 7, Eileen Sisk will sign copies of Buck Owens at Davis-Kidd Booksellers at 2 p.m., and at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop at 9 p.m. Both venues are in Nashville.

Honky Tonk Devil

A Special Relationship

By Maria Browning

August 3, 2010 Adria Bernardi grew up in an Italian-American family, surrounded by a community that spoke a rich mix of English, Italian, and regional dialects. She has put that unique heritage to work in both her writing and her work as a translator. In a far-ranging interview with Chapter 16, she discusses her multi-faceted relationship with language.

A Special Relationship

Forgotten Treasures

By Faye Jones

August 2, 2010 For newcomers and original descendants alike, there is much to find fascinating in Nashville: Yesterday & Today. Nicki Pendleton Wood presents an overview of the city’s history, including its economy, architecture, education, and race relations. Breaking down Nashville into its geographic components, she provides a sense of how the various parts of the city developed and inspires readers to make a visit to both well and lesser-known sites. Wood will sign copies of the book at the Metro Archives in Nashville at 5:30 on Aug. 3. Proceeds will benefit St. Luke’s Community House.

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