Like many of the American musicians who helped create rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s, The Everly Brothers were instantly influential, popular almost from the beginning of their careers, and doomed to be misunderstood in the light of 1960s rock. Their country-rock synthesis was partly a product of the technological and songwriting capacities of Nashville,… The post Musical Pioneers first appeared on Chapter 16.| Chapter 16
Nancy Johnson’s second novel, People of Means, like her debut, The Kindest Lie, juggles two narrative voices beautifully to tell the story of two strong women called to action in ways that threaten to upend all of the successes — personal and professional — they worked so hard to achieve. The novel is a story… The post Two Strong Women first appeared on Chapter 16.| Chapter 16
On one level, Bruce Holsinger’s novel Culpability depicts the manifold ways that AI has disrupted our lives. At work, with friends, and even in our homes, smart machines have altered interpersonal dynamics and revolutionized conceptions of authenticity, selfhood, and community. Holsinger’s characters feel detached from the past and from fundamental truths that guided previous generations.… The post A Prison House of Blame first appeared on Chapter 16.| Chapter 16
Michael Farris Smith sets his novels in southern Mississippi, but not the one you’re familiar with from maps and GPS. His world, devoid of place names and temporal markers, exists in close proximity to the demon realm. His new novel Lay Your Armor Down opens with an old woman wandering through darkened trees, her mind… The post Soaked in Dread first appeared on Chapter 16.| Chapter 16
There’s a scene in Amanda Uhle’s new memoir, Destroy This House, where the pre-adolescent narrator is navigating a pile of near-empty shampoo bottles and a moldy loofah in the family’s only shower. They’ve just moved from a house with six and a half baths in another city, and her hoarder mom refuses to toss bottles… The post An Uncommon Childhood first appeared on Chapter 16.| Chapter 16
In his latest novel, Songs for Other People’s Weddings, David Levithan delivers an often funny, sometimes sad, but always entertaining story about what it’…| chapter16.org
Tom Piazza’s poignant book about the late singer-songwriter John Prine is full of colorful anecdotes about the time the two spent together — a painfully short interlude of friendship that ended abruptly with Prine’s death from Covid in the spring of 2020. Recalling one of their many late-night talk and jam sessions, Piazza remembers: The… The post Friendship and Loss first appeared on Chapter 16.| Chapter 16
The jacket copy of Hannah Pittard’s If You Love It, Let It Kill You prepares us for a novel about a novelist whose ex-husband’s debut novel contains an “unflattering” portrait of her. As recursive as that sounds, it undersells the novel’s concentric circles. Her ex-husband’s novel isn’t the first time he has maligned her in… The post “Smug. Narcissistic. Vaguely Unhinged.” first appeared on Chapter 16.| Chapter 16
Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut Universe books are very different from classic masculine-centric science fiction like Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. Instead of a lone male hero, Kowal’s alternative history series embraces women’s perspectives and shows that collective action and cooperation are essential to successful space travel. Kowal’s fourth and latest book in the Lady… The post Confronting Stereotypes first appeared on Chapter 16.| Chapter 16
Narrow the Road, the fourth novel from James Wade, opens in a failing cotton farm in Depression-era East Texas. William Carter, 15, has been left in charge of …| chapter16.org
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: This interview originally appeared on March 24, 2025. *** Almost two years ago, Yolanda Pierce moved to Nashville to become dean…| chapter16.org
In the preface to Ali: A Life, Jonathan Eig creates three snapshots from the night before the February 1964 heavyweight-championship fight between Cassius Clay…| chapter16.org
A reader gets a straight shot of Cheryl McKissack Daniel’s bravado in the title of her memoir, The Black Family Who Built America: The McKissacks, Two Centur…| chapter16.org
Sometimes a debut shouts, insisting: “I’m new, I’m here, and I’m something to behold!” Other debuts enter the scene as if they’ve always been there…| chapter16.org
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: This review originally appeared on June 23, 2o23. *** Nature’s Messenger: Mark Catesby and His Adventures in a New World, the …| chapter16.org
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: This interview originally appeared on May 15, 2023. The post has been updated with new publication and event information. *** It…| chapter16.org
We were never good yard people, learning about tree diseases and insect infestations only when it was too late and the county extension agent explained that th…| chapter16.org
Stephanie Niu’s I Would Define the Sun The poems in Stephanie Niu’s debut collection, I Would Define the Sun, revel in expansive spaces of mystery: the …| chapter16.org
The Promise Land Community in Dickson County, Tennessee, was established after the Civil War by formerly enslaved men and women who sought to establish a new l…| chapter16.org
In Kerry Madden-Lunsford’s middle-grade novel Werewolf Hamlet, something terrible is happening to Angus Gettlefinger’s 17-year-old brother, Liam. He’s tu…| chapter16.org
