In The Songs of Trees, David George Haskell writes with a poet’s ear and a biologist’s precision
In his 2012 book, The Forest Unseen, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, David George Haskell revealed the web of life hidden within a small circle of old-growth Tennessee forest. His second book, The Songs of Trees, expands that web to the globe itself. Haskell will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 30 at 2 p.m.
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Adrienne Berard’s Water Tossing Boulders looks at the American civil-rights movement through a new lens
Adrienne Berard will discuss Water Tossing Boulders: How a Family of Chinese Immigrants Led the First Fight to Desegregate Schools in the Jim Crow South at Bookstock, a celebration held at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library in Memphis on April 29. Bookstock is held annually and this year will feature appearances by forty area authors, food trucks, live music, and a host of children’s activities, including face painting, arts and crafts, and story time. All events are free and open to the public.
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Jim Dickinson’s memoir is a powerful journey through Memphis music
Jim Dickinson’s memoir, I’m Just Dead, I’m Not Gone, works its way through the musical landscape of rock’n’roll, soul, and the blues—Memphis-style. Mary Lindsay Dickinson will read from her late husband’s book at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on April 27 at 1 p.m. A musical performance by Some Sons of Mudboy will follow the reading.
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Otis Sanford traces the twists and turns in Memphis politics
Otis Sanford tells a lively history of power and race in From Boss Crump to King Willie, a political history of twentieth-century Memphis, bookended by two towering figures: E.H. Crump and W.W. Herenton.
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In Move Fast and Break Things, dystopia is now, but it didn’t have to be
Jonathan Taplin visits City Winery in Nashville to discuss his new book, Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, which deconstructs the libertarian ideological underpinnings of Silicon Valley tech culture. Taplin will also discuss his work on the rock documentary The Last Waltz, which he executive produced.
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Anne Lamott offers her signature musings on mercy
In her new book, Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy, Anne Lamott is on the same page as Shakespeare when it comes to mercy, believing that it “blesseth him that gives and him that takes” and, frankly, that we all need a lot more of it. Lamott will discuss her new book, Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy, at First Presbyterian Church in Knoxville on April 9 at 7 p.m.
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