Memphis Flyer: Books

Island Style

letters@memphisflyer.com (Leonard Gill) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0600

Michael Connors: back in the Caribbean. by Leonard Gill First, he was calling from his home on Deer Island, Maine, to let me know of his latest book. Then he was headed for the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany to publicize that book, and it wasn't such a great time to talk. Then he was in transit again — on his way to Havana, where he has a house too (in addition to homes in New York and on St. Croix). But on his way to Cuba, I finally…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Blues Brother

letters@memphisflyer.com (Leonard Gill) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0600

William Ferris: in the field, a leader in his field. by Leonard Gill A college professor once told William Ferris that Ferris had "more degrees than a thermometer." And to prove the point, consider Ferris' schooling at Davidson College, Northwestern University, Trinity College (Dublin), and the University of Pennsylvania. Now factor in Ferris' teaching career — at Jackson State University, Yale University, the University of Mississippi, and the University of North Carolina, where he's today a professor of history and senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South.…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Bailey's Stand

letters@memphisflyer.com (Leonard Gill) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

The making of a Memphis radical. by Leonard Gill You're a leader. You've always been a leader," Will Ella Bailey recently said to her son D'Army. "You were chosen, and there was nothing you could've done about it." Bailey, a lawyer and recently retired Circuit Court judge in Memphis, has a slightly different take on the matter. "As I look back on my life," Bailey said in a phone interview with the Flyer, "what I did, the things I've done, did come naturally. But I didn't set out to…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

What ... what?

letters@memphisflyer.com (Leonard Gill) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

C. Bard Cole: the way he sees things. by Leonard Gill [image-1] There is a governing thread to this but it is beyond us ... . — from This Is Where My Life Went Wrong According to writer C. Bard Cole, "I never pictured this book being something that book-review pages would be all aflutter over — like, 'Oh, what a great new voice!' I was thinking in 10 years maybe somebody's gonna look at it and say, 'What the hell is this?' Flip though it. Read it. And say, 'What…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Cross Purposes

letters@memphisflyer.com (Leonard Gill) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

God? He's in the details. by Leonard Gill [image-1] You've heard it before. You're about to hear it again. God works in mysterious ways. Two ways: through the towel dispenser in a restaurant bathroom and through the message inside a Chinese fortune cookie. That's the setup in Memphian Geoffrey Wood's latest novel, The God Cookie (WaterBrook Press), which opens with a heated discussion about the morality of stealing a restaurant saltshaker. The scene is inside Mr. Wu's Imperial Buffet. At the table are Parrish, the owner of a…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]