Nonfiction | Chapter 16

Be a Mule

Revered novelist Tim O’Brien talks with Chapter 16 about his forthcoming Nashville appearance with the other Tim O’Brien, a bluegrass legend

By Ed Tarkington | January 12, 2015

January 12, 2015 For more than thirty years, Tim O’Brien has been regarded as one of the definitive voices of the Vietnam War. A literary trailblazer, he melds fact and fiction in texts that are both starkly realistic and surreal. O’Brien will be in Nashville on January 17, 2015, to share the stage with Tim O’Brien, the equally legendary Nashville musician, at a special benefit in support of The Porch Writers’ Collective.

Rock’n’Roll Sunset

In The Next Elvis, Barbara Barnes Sims offers a down-to-earth view of the legendary Sun Records

By Randy Fox | January 9, 2015

January 9, 2015 Barbara Barnes Sims spent three years witnessing rock’n’roll history from the ground level, working at the legendary Sun Records label in the late 1950s. Her fascinating memories of that time are collected in The Next Elvis: Searching for Stardom at Sun Records.

More in Heaven and Earth

In The Deepest Human Life, Scott Samuelson conveys an infectious sense of wonder

By Steve Haruch | January 8, 2015

January 8, 2015 In The Deepest Human Life: An Introduction to Philosophy for Everyone, Scott Samuelson brings together a broad range of philosophical writings, poetry, stories from his students, and the occasional folk song. It is an approachable book full of insight and wonder. Samuelson will appear at Rhodes College in Memphis on January 15, 2015, at 6 p.m.

Dream Big and Work Hard

Oprah’s new book offers an assortment of her distinctive personal philosophies

By Tina LoTufo | December 9, 2014

December 9, 2014 Film critic Gene Siskel once asked Oprah Winfrey what she knew “for sure.” The Tennessee State University alum calls this “the central question of my life,” and her new book takes its title from Siskel’s query. A small, attractively bound volume, perfect for gift-giving, What I Know For Sure will undoubtedly delight Winfrey’s many fans.

Priceless Peer

In a new biography of Ralph Peer, Barry Mazor untangles the roots of American roots music

By Steve Haruch | December 3, 2014

December 3, 2014 Barry Mazor’s Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music traces the life and career of Ralph Peer, who rose from Kansas City phonograph salesman to one of history’s most influential A&R scouts, record producers, and music publishers. From the birth of what came to be known as country music to the popularization of blues, regional, and eventually Latin music, Mazor tracks it all.

Farm to Table—to Bookstore

Chapter 16 talks with celebrated chef Sean Brock about his new cookbook, Heritage

By Nicki Pendleton Wood | December 1, 2014

December 1, 2014 Sean Brock used to swear he’d never write a book. The acclaimed chef and owner of Husk was too busy making food the farm-to-table way, relying on improvisation and in-season ingredients. Nevertheless, Brock has now released a cookbook titled Heritage, and it’s a big book, too: a foot tall and 334 pages long. He will discuss Heritage at POP Nashville on December 3, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.

Tender Headed (National Poetry Series)

By Olatunde Osinaike
Akashic Books
80 pages
17.95

“In Tender Headed, Olatunde Osinaike asks the question, what makes a man, and what makes a man like me? As he interrogates the inner and outer workings of masculinity in all its sharp and tender parts, and the way a Black man meets the world, his poems strut and duck and weave across their pages. These poems unpack the ingredients of being and make a meal of language.”

~ Camille Rankine, author of Incorrect Merciful Impulses