Al Green with Davin Seay
A Cappella Books
352 pages
$14.95
“Reveals the small-town gospel-choir member’s incredible journey to become one of the greatest soul singers of all time. Green’s memoir is as touching and piercing as his voice is silky-smooth.”
Essence
Text by Donna Dorian, Photographs by Anne Hall
Louisiana State University Press
224 pages
$49.95
“The rooms shown in this volume are glimpses into the past. They reflect the aspirations of their owners to present a public face and to care for their most precious treasures — their families. In several ways, these historical families are just like ours today. Our homes are an extension of ourselves, of who we believe we are or who we wish others to think us to be.”
Mark Brown, director of Belmont Mansion
In Memphis and the Paradox of Place, Wanda Rushing explores the cultural, geographic, and economic influences of a city that holds a unique place in Tennessee and the world. Rushing’s nuanced investigation has real-world implications for Memphis’s future — and for cities such as New Orleans, which seem in a perpetual state of limbo.
On the topic of grief, Becca Stevens is wise, ruthless, mystified, and tender. Story after story supports the arc of her impossibly simple message: we are never alone. Love beats death every time.
David Dark—a schoolteacher, scholar and evangelical gadfly—urges his readers to question everything, including the whole of orthodox religion and even their belief in God. Consequently, although his new book was clearly conceived with a Christian audience in mind, Dark’s thoughtful iconoclasm invites anyone to, as he puts it, “submit everything we’re up to, at work and at play, to the discipline of sacred questioning.”
On a trip to Maine, my wife and I saw more dead animals than live ones. I became morbidly fascinated by them. That smudge on the road was amphibian, I would think, his cold humor drawn to the stone warmth of highway on a passionate night. Overturned, an ottoman would aim its wooden legs like this dead possum. The immigrant coyote? A wild rug flung on the carpeted ditch. And all those raccoons, their comic bandit role forgotten in these deathbed scenes.
