Each month, we check in with the Nashville Public Library and Parnassus Books to find out which books are the most popular with their patrons. It's a neat window into reading, literature and literacy in Nashville, and we call it Music City Word Beat.
A slew of contemporary thrillers and detective novels top the most-borrowed list at the Library — hey, the time of year for things to get a little spooky is upon us — along with autobiographies from Hilary Clinton and Ann Patchett and the latest from the Freakonomics team. At Parnassus, two outstanding works of fiction — Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven and John Darnielle's Wolf in White Van, both of which have been long-listed for the National Book Award — are among the best-sellers. Darnielle appeared at the store on Sept. 24, while St. John Mandel is part of the Southern Festival of Books next weekend; it's a packed series, so be sure to check back here next week for your guide to all the happenings.
Just for fun, I picked up Tony Earley's Mr. Tall last month, and I can't recommend it enough — it's by turns knee-slappingly funny, hackle-raising and painfully sad, and full of characters that step living and breathing into your room in the span of a few lines. Read anything good lately? Tell us in the comments!
But first:
Most Popular Fiction at Nashville Public Library for September 2014
1. James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, Unlucky 13. The latest thriller from one of the most famously prolific mystery authors finds the Women's Murder Club on the hunt for a dangerous killer who they've tangled with before and now has her sights set on them. Before condemning the guy as a human verbiage-mill, consider his recent substantial donations to independent bookstores and book donations to Chicago and New York school kids.
2. David Baldacci, The Target. Baldacci brings back his two highly skilled government assassins, Will Robie and Jessica Reel, in a plot that hits close to home. They've been recruited to take out a dangerous foreign target, but face threats from within the small group of handlers who know they exist.
3. John Sandford, Field of Prey. Sandford's stalwart Minnesota investigator, Lucas Davenport, returns in the 24th installment of the Prey series, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Davenport investigates a corpse stuffed down a cistern; more unsettling is that it's been happening every summer for many, many years without anyone noticing.
4. Nora Roberts, The Collector. Even more prolific than James Patterson is Roberts (also a notable philanthropist), whose latest thriller finds a professional house-sitter drawn into a society of collectors who take antiquing seriously — a little too seriously.
5. Robert Galbraith, The Silkworm. Robert Galbraith's private sleuth Cormoran Strike makes his second appearance. His brief — find Owen Quine, a novelist with a habit of disappearing — turns dangerous when Quine's latest manuscript reveals a long list of people who might want him dead.
*Hillary Rodham Clinton's Hard Choices, Steven Levitt's Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain and Parnassus chief Ann Patchett's This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage were the top non-fiction titles in the Library system this month.
Bestselling Titles at Parnassus Books for September 2014
1. Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven. New York-based author St. John Mandel's novel was Parnassus' First Edition Club pick for September. As explained by Chapter16's Emily Choate, it presents a compelling picture of a global society struggling to rebuild in the wake of an apocalyptic epidemic. The book was recently long-listed for the National Book Award (along with Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See, a popular title at Nashville Public Library this summer, and John Darneille's Wolf in White Van, see below); learn more when St. John Mandel visits the Southern Festival of Books next weekend.
2. Kirsten Gillibrand, Off the Sidelines. When Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State in 2009, Gillibrand took over her vacant U.S. Senate seat, which she's won on her own twice since then. She's also been a tremendous advocate for women taking on active roles in public policy, and she distilled her efforts into an online campaign called Off the Sidelines. The recently-published book of the same name is "the perfect antidote to cynicism" about women becoming active policymakers, says the Scene's former editor-in-chief Liz Garrigan in a Chapter16 review. Parnassus reports that over 250 people came to Gillbrand's Salon@615 appearance at Belmont on Sept. 20, where she spoke with friend and college roommate Connie Britton, aka Rayna James.
3. John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van. You don't have to be a fan of the music project Mountain Goats (often a full band, sometimes a solo act) to appreciate the new novel from frontman and lyricist John Darnielle, but if you like one, you're probably going to love the other. His first novel, Wolf in White Van, is a calculated and lyrical study of how evil takes root in society; spoiler alert, it's not in the records being spun backwards by the televangelists, according to MBA prof Sean Kinch's Chapter16 review. It's also on the long list for the National Book Award. If you weren't one of the 120 or so folks who packed into Parnassus to hear Darnielle read from the novel, take a listen to an excerpt from the audiobook (read by Darnielle) below, originally posted to Canadian culture blog exclaim.ca:
4. Julie Hedlund and Susan Eaddy,
My Love for You Is the Sun. Colorado-based author Hedlund teamed up with local artist Eaddy to create this gorgeous picture book. Hedlund's text and Eaddy's illustrations, rendered in clay, make the book an immersive experience for parents and kids alike. Check in with
recent local best-sellerJulie Danielson,
reporting for Chapter16, for more.
5. Kimberly Cross Teter, Isabella's Libretto. In this recently published YA novel, Franklin author Cross Teter's teenage heroine Isabella must choose whether to study under master composer Antonio Vivaldi or marry a wealthy man and make her entrance into Venetian society. The setting may be 18th-century Venice, but the dilemma is timeless.
