November 13, 2015 Basketball has helped to define Barack Obama, both as a person and as a president. In The Audacity of Hoop, veteran sportswriter Alexander Wolff explores the man, the sport, and his era. Wolff will discuss and sign his new book at the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on November 17, 2015, at 6 p.m. The reading will be preceded by a reception at 5:30 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
November 9, 2015 In 2010, rock icon Patti Smith won a National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids, a chronicle of her early years in New York City and her relationship with fine-art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Now Smith returns with M Train, a haunting, elegiac meditation on the challenges of translating memory into art. Smith will appear at OZ Arts Nashville on November 13, 2015, at 7 p.m.
November 5, 2015 Peter Guralnick’s Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll not only recounts the musical titans who passed through Sun Records but also explores the ideas and experiences of its iconoclastic hero. Guralnick will discuss the book at the Brooks Museum in Memphis on November 11, 2015, at 7 p.m. and at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville on November 14, 2015, at 1:30 p.m.
October 29, 2015 Jay Williams explores the life, times, and legacy of artist John Baeder in John Baeder’s Road Well Taken. Baeder will discuss and sign copies at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 4, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
October 27, 2015 Archaeologist Eric H. Cline tackles one of ancient history’s great questions in 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Cline delivers the Sesquicentennial Lecture in History at the University Center Theater at the University of Memphis on Nov. 5, 2015, at 6 p.m.
October 22, 2015 Prior to Margaret Lazarus Dean’s reading at Parnassus Books in Nashville on October 23, 2015, Chapter 16 surveys the critical reception of Dean’s Graywolf Nonfiction Award-winning book, Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight.
