Reading our fortune?

I talked to Vickie from Thompson Station outside the Bellevue Library. She was there with her friend, who was signing up for the Affordable Care Act. Neither of them seemed worried that I was out to sexually harass them.

Vickie has been a lifelong reader, but she says her attention span isn’t what it used to be, so she doesn’t read like she used to. Even so, she had a list of books she wants to get around to soon, including The Devil’s Apprentice by Jan Siegel and Collusion by Luke Harding. The subtitle of the latter is “Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump,” so when our discussion got around to politics, it was no surprise to learn that Vickie is a liberal.

“I really think that our democracy is at risk,” she told me. She brought up a book she’d recently read, Washington’s Farewell, a narrative of George Washington’s farewell address to the nation, in which the Founding Father warned future generations to beware of hyper-partisanship and the autocracy.

Vickie is a fan of histories and biographies. She visits the Franklin library every couple of weeks or so. She grew up reading the classics, and she still has the set of classics her folks bought her when she was eighteen--50 years ago. Her favorite author these days is John Grisham.

Given her love of books, it was also no surprise to hear that she’s writing one--a diet book. Maybe she’ll include a recipe for what ails us.      

East Side Story debuts in 5 Points

Chuck Beard with wife Emily.

There aren’t any Jets or Sharks connected with East Side Story, no rival gangs — just one happy community of writers.

Chuck Beard owns the just-opened East Side Story bookstore, located in the Five Points neighborhood of Nashville’s east side—hence the name. Already, over a hundred local authors are represented in the small, cozy nook on Woodland Street. There are shelves of fiction, non-fiction, kids’ books, poetry, and miscellany, accompanied by paintings and other works of literature-based art, all of it produced by Nashville-area writers and artists.

“We want to be a platform for published and aspiring local writers,” says Beard, who is a published author himself. His novel, “Adventures Inside a Bright-Eyed Sky,” a tall tale told by a boy, has sold several thousand copies, the proceeds from which Beard has donated to Gilda’s Club, in honor of his grandfather, who died of leukemia.

Beard, who grew up in nearby Bowling Green and went to Centre College in Kentucky, started keeping journals while traveling and studying abroad. He wrote his novel while living in Edinburgh, Scotland and attending the university there. He married and settled in Nashville, and began thinking about a bookstore for homegrown writers about a year ago. There wasn’t space in the cluster of shops he had his eye on, so he put the idea on the back shelf.

Then, a couple of months ago, serendipity stepped in. He won a contest sponsored by Proof, a branding company in Nashville, which entitled him to a full package of marketing services, and soon afterwards a shop became vacant in the Idea Hatchery cluster.

“I guess it needed to happen, and it did,” he says. “A lot of people are behind it, and it’s already begun to snowball.”

East Side Story opened August 11, in time for the Tomato Art Festival in east Nashville. It’s already been a topic of conversation in the Tennessean, The Scene, and on the Southern Living blog. The store’s grand opening will be September 15. Beard plans to have regular author readings, trivia nights and other events. He encourages area authors of all stripes to participate, and to bring him their books. He offers a 60-40 split on sales, highly visible shelf exposure, and inclusion on the East Side Story Facebook page.

East Side Story is a bookstore, but like the movie, there’s a love story involved.

“Books are how we all fell in love with reading,” Beard says. (And writing, he might have added.) “And some of the best stories are by unknown authors. I want to help find the voice in everyone.”

East Side Story is at 1108 Woodland Street, in the Idea Hatchery, next to the Arts & Invention Gallery. Hours are 1 p.m.-6 p.m. Tues.-Fri. and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. Call 615-915-1808; email Chuck Beard at chuck@eastsidestorytn.com.

Peach still blossoming in Franklin

Bill Peach had a long and distinguished career in the retail apparel business, but through his years as a writer, he’s never labored to fit his words to the fashion of the day.

Peach, whose fifth book, “The Eye of Reason,” is forthcoming, describes himself as a liberal democrat and a rational Christian, and his books of essays on wide-ranging themes reflect that turn of mind. His abiding interests are best summed up in the title of one of those tomes: “Politics, Preaching & Philosophy.”

One of Peach’s favorite subjects is the Humanist movement of the late Middle Ages, led by Erasmus, Descartes, Pascal and a handful of other thinkers, that helped dispel the darkness of religious superstition. He sees a kindred revolution afoot today, one aimed at rescuing the Bible from the fundamentalists.

“A lot of people, especially young people, want spirituality and moral teaching without necessarily a church affiliation,” he says. “And moral teaching can be retrieved (from the Bible) if we break away from dogma.

“I feel compelled to defend the moral aspect of Christianity.”

Bill Peach dropped out of college halfway through his senior year, but what was past was prelude. He went to night school while working days at a men’s clothing store on the square in Franklin. He finished the 15 hours needed for his undergraduate degree at MTSU night school in 1988. (He bought out the store’s owner in 1981.) He took undergrad courses in philosophy at Lipscomb in 1998, 2008 and 2010. All told, his career as a student spanned seven decades, which he reckons must be some sort of record.

Peach knew early on that he needed to read in order to learn, but it wasn’t until he was nearing 30 that the writing bug bit him. He wrote a Letter to the Editor, in 1964, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Franklin, which won him some fans and convinced him he could write. In 1971, he wrote a one-act play, “To Think as a Pawn,” which got performed locally and received good reviews.

His family urged him to write a memoir, which he did, of sorts. “The South Side of Boston” was a story seen through the eyes of an 8-year-old boy, whose inability to understand Southern culture, including its religion and mythology, “gave it its illogic,” Peach says.

Peach closed his store in 2003, and since then he’s devoted himself to writing and to encouraging other local writers. He’s just reached a milestone (200 posts) on a blog he started over two years ago, “Bill Peach’s Random Thoughts: Politics, Preaching & Philosophy” (Bill Peach's Random Thoughts), from which the essays for his soon-to-be-released “The Eye of Reason” have been culled. (The title is from Ben Franklin: “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”) 

He’s the founder of Authors Circle, a group of local writers that meets to swap ideas and share work. (See Authors Circle) Most any day, he can be found at his unofficial “office,” Merridee’s Breadbasket on the square. (Maybe his table should be called the Peach Basket.)

Authors Circle will be sponsoring a book signing this Saturday, June 30, at The Factory in Franklin, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thirteen local authors will be present. And Authors Circle will have a booth at this year’s Southern Festival of Books. For more info on these and other events and about Authors Circle, contact Bill Peach at billpeach@att.net or 615.306.1731.

           

Dean of readers

   Nashville Mayor Karl Dean was the speaker at the first “Let’s Talk Books” event, held last Tuesday at Parnassus Books in Green Hills. The city’s First Reader chose nine books to talk about to the bookish crowd of 60 or so.

   The Tuesday afternoon, series, hosted by former Nashville Public Library Director Donna Nicely, will feature prominent Nashvillians going on about books. Future speakers will include First Amendment Center founder John Seigenthaler, author and songwriter Alice Randall, and former Governor Phil Bredesen.

   So what’s the Mayor reading? A little of everything. The first book on his syllabus was Nation Maker: Sir John A. McDonald, His Life, Our Times (Vol.2 1867-91), by Richard Gwyn, a bio of the first prime minister of Canada. Volume 2 (Dean said he hasn’t read Vol. 1) covers the ground from the creation of the federation to McDonald’s death. Dean called McDonald a “modern-day Bill Clinton,” for his charisma and his ability to build relationships.

   Dean enthusiastically dove into his next book, Triumph of the City, by Edward Glaesar. Glaesar, a professor at Harvard, argues that cities, far from being outmoded, will actually become more necessary than ever, as places for creative people to live together and inspire one another. Cities, including ours, must strive to offer affordable housing, Dean said, echoing Glaesar, in order to attract artists and entrepreneurs.

   The Spies of Warsaw, a mystery-thriller set in Eastern Europe in the early years of World War II, is one of a series of novels by Alan Furst, all having elaborate plots but nonetheless “feeling real,” Dean said.

   1948: Harry Truman’s Impossible Victory, by David Pietrusza, is as much about the man Truman defeated, Thomas E. Dewey, as it is about Truman. Mayor Dean was fascinated enough to purchase a biography of Dewey, which he’s just begun.

   Dean next talked about Great Expectations, and not just as a nod to the Dickens fever going around on this bicentennial year of his birth. 19^th-century British novels are his preferred species of literature, Dean said, and Dickens and Anthony Trollope, whose Barchester Towers was also on his list, are two of his favorites. Dean said he hasn’t read Great Expectations recently, but he recapped the story expertly, even though he gave away a major secret of the plot.    

   Jack Maggs, by Peter Carey, tells the Dickens tale from the point of view of the escaped convict. The Eyre Affair, his next choice, is an allusive novel as well, which Dean described as a surreal fantasy apropos to the current occasion, as its characters live in a realm called Bookworld. “It’s very funny,” he said.

   But not as funny as P. G. Wodehouse's The Code of the Woosters, the final book to make the grades for Dean’s List. The mayor called it the funniest book he’s ever read and, by way of dispelling the notion that it may be out of date, he noted that his teenage daughter liked it. “And she never listens to me about books,” he said.

   Unlike the rapt audience at Parnassus, most of whom were already planning to attend the next “Let’s Talk Books.”

John Seigenthaler will be the featured speaker at the next event, on Tuesday, May 1 at 1:30 p.m. at Parnassus Books, 3900 Hillsboro Pike.       

Spiritual reading

   I came upon JERRY at Centennial Park, in the shadow of the Parthenon, the replica of that ancient temple of learning, and an appropriate symbol to invoke in kicking off a new blog about books and those that read them.

   Jerry was just on Chapter Two of Spiritual Divorce (2002), by Debbie Ford, a book he’d recently picked up at a used bookstore. He’d highlighted a number of passages already, including some dealing with the “law of acceptance,” which he summarized as having to do with our maddening inability to accept facts instead of fiction.

   “The book caught my eye because in my former occupation I dealt with people struggling with family situations,” Jerry told me. He described himself as an avid and constant reader with a wide range of interests. Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air is the best book he’s ever read, he said, and he loves the novels of Robert Ludlum.    

   His current occupation is aspiring songwriter. He developed his way with words as a motivational speaker for 23 years (“I wrote more speeches than I care to remember,” he said) in Los Angeles and Arizona.  He wasn’t up on any soapbox in the park, just sitting quietly at a picnic table and taking in the beautiful day.

   Whether or not he gets published, Jerry’s already left a legacy—he’s passed his love of reading on to his kids.

   “My 14-year-old daughter reads a ton,” he said. “My 18-year-old son—I worried about him for a while. I bought him the Hardy Boys and all the stuff I’d read as a kid.” (The Hardy Boys? Uh, Jerry…)

   “But then I realized he was reading a lot online. He reads about agriculture—he wants to be a landscaper. It bothered me that he wasn’t reading tangible things, but I’m OK with it now.”