Walking the Good Path
September 29, 2014 In A Field Guide to Happiness: What I Learned in Bhutan about Living, Loving, and Waking Up, Linda Leaming combines fascinating descriptions of a mystical country with funny, touching, and sometimes harrowing stories about her life there. It’s enough to make even the most travel-phobic reader dream about buying a plane ticket for this hard-to-reach land. Leaming will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on October 1, 2014, and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 10-12, 2014.
September 25, 2014 In his memoir, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, New York Times op-ed columnist Charles M. Blow tells the story of a small-town Southern childhood marked by poverty and sexual abuse. Blow will speak at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 10-12, 2014. All festival events are free and open to the public.
September 22, 2014 New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, have followed their worldwide bestseller, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women, with a sequel of sorts. A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity looks at innovative ways to make a difference in the world. Prior to his appearance at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 10-12, 2014, Kristof sat down with Chapter 16 to discuss poverty, opportunity, and what everyday donors can do to change another person’s life.
September 17, 2014 Kirsten Gillibrand is only the sixth—the sixth—woman in history to give birth while serving in Congress, and though she has unfortunately few peers, she gets the challenges facing contemporary women. Her new book, Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World, is a call to arms urging women to get involved and change the outcome on issues important to them. Gillibrand will discuss her book at a 
September 12, 2014 Carol Bradley’s meticulously researched new book, Last Chain on Billie: How One Extraordinary Elephant Escaped the Big Top, is a heartrending biography of an Asian elephant brutalized for decades. But it is also a history of the perverse form of entertainment known as the circus. Carol Bradley will discuss Last Chain on Billie at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on September 19, 2014, at 6 p.m., at I Love Books in Kingsport on September 20, 2014, at 1 p.m., and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 10-12, 2014.
September 9, 2014 Tavis Smiley, host of eponymous talk shows on both PBS and public radio, has collaborated with biographer David Ritz to create a human, novelistic portrait of Martin Luther King in his final year: Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Year. Prior to his appearance at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on September 19, Smiley spoke with Chapter 16 about King’s “darkest hours,” the way the civil-rights leader influenced Smiley’s own life, and what he thinks King would make of the present American landscape.
