Nonfiction

June 2, 2014 Barbara Herman calls vintage perfume a “liquid language” that reveals something about the tastes and dreams of a bygone era, even as it offers us a portal to our own deep desires. In Scent & Subversion: Decoding a Century of Provocative Perfume, Herman describes hundreds of classic twentieth-century perfumes and considers their rich, sensual appeal. She will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 5, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.

May 28, 2014 Marty Stuart has spent his career both making musical history and capturing it on film. American Ballads: The Photographs of Marty Stuart is a new collection of Stuart’s photography that accompanies the exhibit currently showing at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. Marty Stuart and his mother, Hilda Stuart, will discuss the exhibit and their shared passion for photography at the Frist on June 4, 2014, at noon. Admission is free.

May 14, 2014 Uganda Be Kidding Me is the fourth memoir by Chelsea Handler, comedian and (until recently) host of the late-night talk show, Chelsea Lately. The new book offers exuberant accounts of Handler’s exotic travels, along with a healthy dose of Handler’s First World problems (like feeling fat in Botswana), and is rife with the comedian’s trademark R-rated humor. Chelsea Handler will appear at Peter Nappi in Nashville on May 17, 2014, at 2 p.m.

May 12, 2014 Southern Sin: True Stories of the Sultry South and Women Behaving Badly, an essay collection edited by Lee Gutkind and Beth Ann Fennelly, is about blowing it, betraying loved ones, sleeping with the wrong people, breaking the law, and, most importantly, having the nerve to fess up. In the South, this is not as easy as it may seem.