Dolen Perkins-Valdez
The book circuit revives this week, bringing a trio of intriguing writers to Davis-Kidd Booksellers.
Stephen Hunter, the former Washington Post film critic who received a Pulitzer Prize in 2003, arrives at 6 p.m. Jan. 5 with his latest Bob Lee Swagger vehicle, “I, Sniper” (Simon & Schuster, $26).
Swagger, the Vietnam vet and sniper whose nickname is “the Nailer,” was previously featured in Hunter thrillers including “Point of Impact,” “Black Light” and “Time to Hunt.”
Louisville-based music journalist Alanna Nash will be at Davis-Kidd Jan. 7 with “Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him” (HarperCollins, $27.99), an analysis of the singer’s relationships with women.
Nash has written three previous Elvis books, including a biography of his manager, Col. Tom Parker, and an oral history with members of the Memphis Mafia.
Nash’s booksigning, scheduled to start at 6 p.m., is one event in a week of festivities marking what would have been Elvis’ 75th birthday.
Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Memphis native Dolen Perkins-Valdez is receiving extravagant praise for her debut novel “Wench” (Amistad, $24.99). “Cane River” author Lalita Tademy, for instance, calls “Wench” a “finely wrought story that explores the emotional lives of four slave women caught in the web of the peculiar institution.”
Perkins-Valdez, a Harvard graduate who was born and raised in Memphis, and now lives in Seattle and Washington, D.C., will sign “Wench” at Davis-Kidd on Jan. 8 at 6 p.m.
Publisher’s Weekly described “Wench” as “heart-wrenching, intriguing, original, and suspenseful.” Kirkus Reviews called Perkins-Valdez’s book “compelling and unsentimental.” Essence said: “Perkins-Valdez manages to shed a poetic light on one of the ugliest chapters in American history.”
The author is also scheduled to appear at Memphis Botanic Garden at 4 p.m. Jan. 10. (Find a review of “Wench” on this page Jan. 10.)
Davis-Kidd is at 387 Perkins Ext. Call (901) 683-2032 or visit daviskidd.com.
Help Catfish find the missing letter
Memphian Manny “Catfish” Karkowsky will read from and sign his first book, called “Literture,” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Burke’s Book Store in the Cooper-Young neighborhood.
“Literture” (Livingston Press, $15.95, paperback) is a collection of “short shorts” that compose a “celebration of self-imposed dementia, the roles and postures of stories in absurd life, and the peculiar quiddity of a well-told toilet joke.”
Burke’s Book Store is located at 936 S. Cooper. Call (901) 278-7484 or go to burkesbooks.com.
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