Tag: Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library

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Music Music Blog

A Talk with Don Nix, Memphis Music Maverick

Packy Axton, Don Nix, and Steve Cropper, ca. 1960 (Credit: Don Nix)

Take heart, juvenile delinquents everywhere: there walks among us one of your kind who parlayed his street savvy into nothing less than crafting a new Memphis Sound. You can learn all about that and more this Monday, October 16th at 7 p.m., when author Robert Gordon sits down to chat with Nix about his life in music. It’s part of Gordon’s ongoing series of listening parties at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, in which he curates playlists of songs by the likes of Steve Cropper, Al Kapone, IMAKEMADBEATS, Boo Mitchell, and others with the artists themselves, using the music as a jumping-off point for discussions of their craft.

Nix’s name may not be as familiar as those others to some, but he’s played a pivotal role in Memphis music ever since he was a student at Tech High School, “where the delinquents were transferred and taught a trade before they flunked out completely,” as Gordon writes in It Came from Memphis. That was when he played sax with a group that included Cropper, Duck Dunn, Charlie Freeman, and Packy Axton: The Royal Spades. Axton’s mother Estelle was busy starting up a new business called Satellite Records, and when she facilitated a recording session for the group, she prevailed upon them to change their name to the Mar-Keys.

That session would yield the instrumental track “Last Night,” which was a shot across the bow of pop music, an R&B smash hit by a bunch of white kids that would presage the integration championed by Satellite, as it soon morphed into Stax Records.

Packy Axton and Don Nix in their delinquent daze (Credit: Don Nix)

But Nix was destined to be more of a behind-the-scenes player. As he told Gordon in It Came from Memphis, “I didn’t play on any sessions after a certain point. Not after they got good musicians to play … Eventually, I was producing, and that’s all I ever wanted to do. I wanted to write and to put records together in the studio.”

He embraced that role with aplomb, eventually working as a producer, arranger, and musician for artists as diverse as Furry Lewis, Albert King, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Jeff Beck, Brian May, Eric Clapton, and many others. His song, “Going Down,” originally recorded by the band Moloch in 1969, has become a rock standard covered by Freddie King, Jeff Beck, Deep Purple, JJ Cale, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Who, Led Zeppelin, and others. The Rolling Stones performed “Goin’ Down” as recently as 2012 on a televised live concert with John Mayer and Gary Clark, Jr.

Now 82, Nix has decades of stories to share. He was the one member of the Mar-Keys “who could draw the crowds because he was so completely entertaining to watch,” writes Gordon. That instinct for entertaining, and a story well-told, hasn’t left him.

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We Recommend We Recommend

UrbanArt Commission’s “Revisiting” Series Returns

Delicate Tension, on view at U of M (Photo: UrbanArt Commission)

Put a pin in it, hold on to that thought, we’ll circle back, let’s revisit another time — some phrases are too often used for empty, soon-to-be-forgotten promises. But sometimes, if we just have a bit of faith, people can come through. Take for instance the UrbanArt Commission (UAC), now celebrating its 25th anniversary. After launching its “Revisiting” series back in mid-2019, only to have to put the project on pause before completing its second installment in spring of 2020, UAC is ready to bring back the series this summer.

“‘Revisiting,’” explains Gabrielle Brooks, UAC’s communications and development manager, “is a series of temporary site-specific responses to existing public art projects created by UAC.” These responses that are works of art themselves can go beyond visual art forms and can incorporate performance art, dance, and music.

For the series’ first installation since 2019 and second installation ever, artist Brittney Boyd Bullock will respond to the colorful storybook trees of Nancy Cheairs’ Summer at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library by transforming the work into an immersive forest of fabric and textiles. “Her project is centered around rememory,” Brooks says. “So the concept of thinking things through texture and color and remembering her childhood and past. She will be having a choral performance in addition to her installation. The chorus is called the Freedom Singers.”

Boyd, whose work is featured in the airport’s Concourse B, is also one of eight New Public Artist Fellows with UAC, which opened its first New Public Artists exhibition this May. The exhibition, which will remain on view until the fall at the University of Memphis, consists of sculptures by Boyd and other fellows, and is also worth a visit, Brooks urges.

In addition to adding to its roster of more than 130 public art projects, UAC plans to begin a “Responding” series, an additive to the “Revisiting” series, but these responses will be on a smaller scale, Brooks says, and with fewer rules and guidelines for the artist.

Overall, Brooks looks forward to redeeming losses incurred over the last two years. “It’s been kind of hard to hold on to some of these great ideas and put them on pause,” she says, “so we’re really glad to be able to start this again and work with more artists to showcase some of the [public art] projects we take for granted around the city.”

A reception with refreshments will follow Boyd’s “Revisiting,” along with the opportunity to speak with the artist about her work.

“Revisiting Series: Brittney Boyd Bullock,” Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, Thursday, May 26th, 6 p.m., free.

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Art Art Feature

The Hooks Brothers on Display at Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library

A women’s social group, as photographed by the Hooks Brothers (Courtesy of Flow Museum of Art & Culture)

In 1906, the Hooks Brothers, Robert and Henry, started their family-run photography business, which documented the rich and complex history of Black Memphis and Memphians. For 76 years, they captured images of notable profiles like Booker T. Washington, W.C. Handy, and Robert R. Church, but perhaps more importantly, they captured ordinary life and the events that accompany it, from graduations to weddings and birthday parties to neighborhood gatherings. A select number of these photos from the archives of the Flow Museum of Art & Culture will be on display at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library for the month of January.

Of the importance of these photos, Jay Etkin, artist, gallery owner, and founder of the Flow Museum, says, “I know people look for the [photos] that have this wonderful dollar-value — a great portrait of a famous person has a lot of value. A portrait of somebody’s graduation from high school is a bit of history. People don’t attach monetary value to it, but it has community value, cultural value.” 

Etkin started collecting photos and photo albums as a hobby in the 1960s. “I owned photo albums of other people’s families, and I kept thinking what an odd thing this is, that somehow all these families lost track of their family history,” he says. “It made me very much aware of the preciousness of tapping into other people’s histories and lives.” In dissecting the albums, he found notes, stamps, and signatures, clues to the stories behind the photos. “I was delving into these lives of people I had no personal connection to.”

But a lack of personal connection does not equate to a lack of relevance, Etkin says, so when he got his hands on the Hooks Brothers archives, he knew he had to share them with the public and engage people in the collective memories. “What value is there of historical photographs if they are hidden away?” he ponders. 

“I had heard about the Hooks Brothers a number of years ago,” Etkin says, “and to this day, I ask people from all walks of life, ‘Are you aware of the Hooks brothers archive?’ And a vast number of folks have said to me, I don’t know anything about that. They know about Ernest Withers, but the Hooks Brothers were here longer than anyone else photographically speaking.” 

The 1926 Booker T. Washington football team, as photographed by the Hooks Brothers (Courtesy of Flow Museum of Art & Culture)

While at his gallery one day, Etkin showed a visitor a Hooks photo of the 1926 Booker T. Washington football team. The photo stirred up memories of her father who was on the team in the 1940s, he says, and she started tearing up. “The photo was way before [her father’s] time and it still elicited an emotional response,” Etkin says. “That’s a beautiful thing to me. An old picture can have just as much impact if you find ways to connect the general public with its history.” The subjects in the Hooks photos might not be glamorous celebrities or recognizable historical figures, but they shaped the fabric of the city and the families within it. Their significance cannot be diminished, and the Hooks Brothers honored that and preserved their memory in each beautifully captured photograph. 

 After digitizing the glass negatives, Etkin says, “I had so many wow moments. I’ve looked at the negatives and they didn’t have much impact, and [once digitized] now you see these figures and clothing and the faces and all of a sudden you go, ‘This is unbelievable.’ The purest of pure gold is in front of you. … They’re just exquisite.”

After their stint at the Benjamin L. Hooks library, the photos will move to other satellite locations as a part of the Flow Museum’s initiative. “It’s a history museum, a research museum, and an educational facility,” Etkin says. “But people can be intimidated by the idea of museums, so we’re bringing the museum to the communities.

 “I tell people this all the time,” he continues, “I love dusty old artifacts, and I could live with them and I actually do, but the museum can’t exist on its collections alone. It’s what you do with the collections, making it relevant to today, making it community-oriented, moving it into the 21st century.” And by engaging the community and stimulating discussion, Etkin hopes that his selection of Hooks Brothers photos can do just that.

Captured at a Cotton Jubilee, as photographed by the Hooks Brothers (Courtesy of Flow Museum of Art & Culture)
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Music Record Reviews

In Dolemite Is My Name Score, Scott Bomar Puts His Weight On It

“You’ve been blessed by Moses.” Those were the words uttered by none other than Isaac Hayes when he visited tracking sessions for the soundtrack to Hustle and Flow.  While that Craig Brewer film led to Three 6 Mafia winning an Oscar in 2006, much of the picture’s music marked the breakout of local producer, composer, and bassist Scott Bomar, and it was during his sessions that Moses descended.

Now, with Bomar’s soundtrack to Brewer’s latest, Dolemite Is My Name, that blessing has come to fruition. As Bomar recently told Variety, “I would say any Memphis influence that’s in the music is through the influence of the film scores that Isaac Hayes did. Isaac…was a very big influence and mentor to Craig and I both. I feel like that blessing has continued into this project, because he would have really loved this. We use three of the musicians on the score who were in his group who played on the scores to Shaft, Tough Guys and Truck Turner: Willie Hall (on drums), Lester Snell (on keys) and Michael Toles (on guitar).”
Courtesy Memphis Music Hall of Fame

Scott Bomar & Don Bryant

Bomar has always had impeccable instincts in choosing his players, as with the globe-trotting Bo-Keys, who purvey classic soul with front men like Percy Wiggins and Don Bryant. Some of those players overlap in this project, though there are some other cameos as well: actor Craig Robinson, regional blues lifer Bobby Rush, Beale Street royalty Blind Mississippi Morris, and trombonist Fred Wesley, who played with James Brown for many years, also make appearances.

Needless to say, this is one funky, soulful soundtrack, a veritable encyclopedia of 70s motifs and riffs. Wah-wah guitar, clavinet, organ, and punchy horns abound, all grounded by the rock-solid rhythms of Bomar and drummer Willie Hall. Having said that, many imaginative flourishes abound. “Pur Your Weight On It,” for example, employs some period-authentic synthesizer and unorthodox, high register bass notes to disarming effect. The campy “Ballad of a Boy and Girl,” sung by Eddie Murphy and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, makes for perhaps the most powerful use of kazoo in any major motion picture soundtrack.  And, as with so many classic Isaac Hayes tracks, the heavy funk is decorated with some gorgeous orchestral embellishments.

Beyond Isaac Hayes, amidst all the pitch-perfect funkisms, there are some unexpected influences on this music. As Brewer told Variety, “I told Scott Bomar that I wanted him to treat the score for Dolemite Is My Name as if it were a little bit of like a superhero movie. I wanted there to be a “Rudy theme,” just like there would be a Luke Skywalker or Captain America theme.”

Scott Bomar

Bomar adds, “The theme to Superman was definitely a reference for this film. With the melody that we call the Rudy theme, the first time we hear it is in the beginning of the film where he’s creating the character and experimenting with the comedy routine; by the end of it, with the music building, he’s pulling a wig out of a box in the closet, and when the wig is revealed, that’s where we first hear this theme. It’s used a few times throughout the film, and then the last time we hear it is at the end when they’re going to the premiere; when Rudy steps out of the limo, that’s where the Rudy theme is fully developed. And, definitely, the reference there was the theme from Superman.”

Aside from the two tracks sung by Robinson, the track by Bobby Rush perfectly captures the gritty roadhouse blues vibe, fired by his uncanny delivery, and Blind Mississippi Morris, accompanied by Jason Freeman, brings things down to earth as the album’s closer. All in all, it’s a grand survey of the sounds that make this place burn with musical passions, expertly curated and assembled by one of the city’s greatest contemporary producers.

Hear Scott Bomar speak with author Robert Gordon about this and other music he’s created, tonight at the Memphis Music Listening Party, Thursday, January 30, 7 pm, at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. Free.

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News The Fly-By

Central Library opens Cloud901 Space for Memphis Teens

CREDIT: Toby Sells

Doors will open this week on Cloud901, a new space at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, designed for teens to develop creative, “21st century skills” and to push Memphis toward the “future of libraries.”

Cloud901 sits on two floors of the library, taking over roughly 9,000 square feet of stack space where the library’s collection of audiobooks, DVDs, and music were formerly located (those have found new homes in the library).

Cloud901 has a video production lab, complete with cameras, editing software, and even a green screen. It has a lounge that can be converted into a performance space. Cloud901’s sound-mixing lab is “the closest thing we could get to a recording studio inside the public library,” said Janae Pitts-Murdock, the library system’s coordinator of teen services.

Up a set of stairs, teens can learn traditional (read: non-digital) art forms with paper, watercolors, pastels, charcoal, and more. Downstairs, they can show off their work in a gallery facing the high-traffic first floor of the library, which sees nearly 850,000 visitors a year.

Back upstairs close to the art studio, teens can learn graphic design in a space that features the latest computers, software, and tablets. Close by, there’s a performance stage that will host music, poetry, and the like. But it’s also a place for career and college fairs, business pitches, and where teens can simply present their ideas to their peers.

Beyond that is a gaming zone. Yes, teens can (and are encouraged to) play video games in the library, replete with special furniture to help gamers get comfortable. But the space also has equipment and software for teens to create their own video games. It’s certainly not the library’s first foray into gaming; games have been the focus of its Teen Tech Camp for the past 11 years.

Cloud901 also has a space for makers, do-it-yourself crafters, and tinkerers. That space has 3D printers, laser cutters, wood cutters, and vinyl cutters. While most of Cloud901 is for teens only, officials said they plan to open the maker space to the general public.

The creativity from all of these different areas of Cloud901 can come together in a collaboration area. It has a coffee-house feel with several small tables, but a big white board on one wall can transform it quickly into a conference room. This, library staff said, is the place where ideas from across the creative and administrative spectrum and teens from all areas of Memphis can come together, turn those ideas into projects, and maybe turn those projects into products.

Toby Sells

Keenon McCloy and Janae Pitts-Murdock

“All of this is about developing 21st century skills — creativity, innovation, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving,” Pitts-Murdock said. “We want to stimulate that kind of creative energy in youth. We want to give them an opportunity to have a place that they can call their own; where their fingerprint is part of the culture.”

Cloud901 has been in the works for about three years, said Keenon McCloy, director of the Memphis Library and Information Center. Other spaces like it have popped up in Nashville, San Francisco, and New York City.

The idea that formed these spaces comes from a study funded by the MacArthur Foundation that said teens learn differently than children and adults. They learn best when they are hanging out, messing around, and geeking out — sometimes referred to by the acronym HOMAGO in tech circles.

“The belief behind learning labs is that youth are best engaged when they are at the center of their learning — following their passions, collaborating with peers, going beyond the role of consumers to become active creators and producers,” the study said.

McCloy said people should get used to seeing these labs.

“You’re going to see this happen [across the country],” McCloy said. “This is the future of libraries.”

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News The Fly-By

Teen Learning Lab to Open in Benjamin Hooks Library

CREDIT: Stephanie White

Young, aspiring entertainers, business moguls, and video game designers may benefit from a forthcoming 8,300-square-foot teen learning lab at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library.

The state-of-the-art lab will offer teens everything from video production equipment and video game creation software to a performance space and an art studio.

The construction phase for the facility, which is coined Cloud901, broke ground last Wednesday. A room on the library’s first floor, which will be used for a portion of the learning lab, was packed with city and county officials, library representatives, and local youth.

Stephanie White

Mayor A C Wharton and a teen at the learning lab announcement

Thea Wilkens-Reed, a home-schooled 11th grader, was there. An aspiring lawyer, educator, and news anchor, Wilkens-Reed said she thinks Cloud901 will be a valuable asset to youth in the community.

“It provides an outlet for us to explore our dreams and passions,” said Wilkens-Reed, president of the library’s Teen Advisory Council. “This lab is extremely important to the youth because it will be a safe environment where local teens can have free access to the latest top-of-the-line technology in one location, here in the heart of Memphis.”

Projected to cost around $2 million, more than $1.5 million has already been raised through private donations.

The first portion of the center will be located in a designated area on the library’s ground floor. One corner of the room will feature a video production lab, where teens can shoot and/or edit commercials, interviews, films, and music videos. There will be a sound mixing lab and sound isolation booths in another corner, where aspiring artists and audio engineers can record and mix music.

A technology gallery, projection screen, and brainstorming center are some of the other resources that will be offered on the learning lab’s first floor. A staircase in the middle of the ground floor will lead teens to the lab’s second floor, where additional amenities will be available.

“We are looking forward to creating a community of innovators who are on the cutting edge of technology,” said Janae Pitts-Murdock, teen services coordinator for the Memphis Public Library. “We believe that through this learning center, we’re able to develop the types of skills that teens will need to be successful in their future. We want them to have a learning space where they’re able to pursue their passions, explore their interests, [and] career paths. We want to make a substantive and visible impact on the future prosperity and productivity of youth in Memphis.”

One area of the lab’s second floor will offer an art studio where teens can draw, color, and paint. And “creation stations” will allow for clothing design and creating layouts for publications.

There will also be a gaming zone for aspiring video game designers. They’ll be able to learn game coding and technology, utilize game-creation software, and, of course, play video games.

And a performance stage will be used to help teens develop oratorical skills, perform music they recorded in the lab’s sound booths, and recite poems or speeches in front of an audience. The area in front of the stage will hold an audience of about 100 people.

“This is the beginning of something wonderful,” said Keenon McCloy, executive director of the Memphis Public Library. “We hear so much about teens in the community. The library is really one of the places that levels the playing field and reduces or eliminates barriers to access.”

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News News Blog

Teen Learning Lab Breaks Ground at Benjamin Hooks Library

CREDIT: Stephanie White

Stephanie White

Mayor A C Wharton and others unveil the name of a forthcoming teen learning lab.

The Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library will soon be home to a new state-of-the-art learning lab for local teens.

In a packed room on the library’s ground floor Wednesday, library and city officials, along with representatives from various agencies, gathered to hear details about the forthcoming learning lab.

Boasting a total of 8,300 square feet, the center will occupy areas of the central library’s first and second floors. A multitude of resources will be available for teens to utilize.

A citywide contest was held to decide the learning lab’s name, which garnered around 700 submissions. The winning entry was revealed during the gathering: Cloud901. 

The same room selected for the information session Wednesday will be transformed into an area used for Cloud901. It will feature a video production lab, brainstorming center, sound mixing lab, projection screen, technology gallery, and several other amenities.

A staircase stationed in the middle of Cloud901’s ground floor area will be used to access its second floor resources. Amid the features offered on the floor will be an art studio, gaming zone, a performance stage, and a “hi-tech treehouse” area where teens will be able to experiment with graphic design.

Cloud901, which specifically caters to teens aged 13 to 18, is currently in its construction phase. It’s slated to launch officially in six months.

“There’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all when it comes to teens. This is why the offerings are so diverse,” said Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Wednesday. “Whatever it is that they wish to pursue, they’ll be able to do it right here in the soundness and safety of this building. The skills they learn in the learning lab here will go with them a lifetime. It is the world of tomorrow that they’re going to be able to navigate and explore right here in our library.”

Cloud901 is projected to cost $2 million to complete. Thus far, $1.6 million has been raised.

Check out next week’s issue of the Memphis Flyer for more information on Cloud901.

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News The Fly-By

Memphis Green Communities Offers Money To Retrofit Commercial Properties

CREDIT: © Dave Bredeson | Dreamstime.com

Two projects to fight greenhouse gas emissions are advancing in Memphis and both want to reform some of the city’s major environmental offenders — big buildings.

Friday is the deadline for applications to the Memphis Green Communities program, which would give commercial property owners grants or loans for energy conservation retrofits to their buildings. Also, the Memphis Clean and Green initiative is gearing up to ratchet down energy use at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. 

Cars seem to get much of the blame for greenhouse gas emissions. It’s easy for drivers to see the fossil fuel going in the gas tank and the exhaust coming out. A long line of cars is even the main photo on the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) website about greenhouse gas emissions. 

But according to the EPA, the production of electricity is the major source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country. That electricity is largely generated by burning fossil fuels, mostly coal and natural gas. While the number of electric cars on the road is growing, it’s still small. So, most of that electricity is going to buildings.

Memphis Green Communities launched a month ago with $14.5 million in federal grants available for the owners of commercial buildings in Memphis. Projects have to cost more than $50,000 to be eligible for assistance.

John Zeanah, administrator of the Office of Sustainability for Memphis and Shelby County, said few applications have been filed for the Memphis Green Communities program, but there has been a lot of interest and questions. Commercial property owners, he said, want to insulate their roofs, replace windows and boilers, and some are interested in solar projects.

“We’re really seeking competitive projects that have goals of improving energy efficiency and that have economic impact for the city,” Zeanah said.   

In December, Memphis Mayor A C Wharton and the Memphis Bioworks Foundation launched the Memphis Clean and Green initiative. Once fully implemented, the plan is expected to cut $8 million from the city’s $40 million annual energy bill. 

The first project aims to reduce energy usage at the Central Library by 29 percent. The 330,000 square-foot building has an average energy bill of about $650,000 each year.

The $21 million project will replace some heating and cooling units and some mechanical systems. Memphis Bioworks President Steve Bares told the Memphis City Council in August that he’d bring the final details of the project and a bond request to the board sometime this fall.

Bioworks will train Memphians to work on the project.

“Clean energy jobs are, of course, something that’s moving nationally, and it’s a big opportunity for us in the Delta,” Bares said. “We need to be able to build that local workforce and improve the urban environment and create a national visibility for Memphis in that 21st-century economy.”

The library project is the first of many that will reduce energy use at city-owned buildings. Those projects will likely be funded through federal Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds.

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Book Features Books

Behind the Scenes at the Friends of the Library Book Sale

The spring 2014 Friends of the Library Book Sale is next week. But last week, in the basement storage rooms (and hallways) of the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library on Poplar, pre-sale activity was very much under way.

In the hallways alone, there were 150 or so boxes of books — books donated daily by individuals and local businesses — ready to be transferred upstairs to the site of the sale in the Central Library’s ground-floor meeting rooms. More books in boxes waited to be inspected and categorized. (Out of the 3,500 items — not all of them books — donated weekly.) And recycling bins were in place to hold books too damaged or mildewed to sell.

In the hallway too was Cynthia Hawes, who volunteers at the library several days per week. Hawes was taking a break, showing me around, and filling me in on the background work that goes into the library’s semiannual book sales.

The sale coming up is May 23rd and 24th, and, as Hawes reminded me, all proceeds go to fund library programs and ongoing efforts: among them, children’s summer reading programs across the entire Memphis library system; the digitizing of archival material in the library’s Memphis Room; and general staff development.

The book sale isn’t all books, however. Magazines, CDs, vinyl records, VHS recordings, and DVDs will be on sale too — and priced to move: top price in the case of adult hardbacks (including oversize and coffee-table books), $2; in the case of adult paperbacks, 50 cents. Children’s and young-adult books will be available too, with hardbacks going for $1 and paperbacks for 50 cents.

All told, the sale will involve more than 15,000 items, and for books alone, that means everything from literary fiction to romance novels, cookbooks, textbooks, reference books, and art books, plus books on religion, history, and travel — and more. Hawes said setting out those items for the hundreds of browsers and buyers expected at the sale takes library staff four to five days.

“When I look at the Friends of the Library, the first thing that jumps out is the $400,000 positive impact we have generated for our library system annually for the last several years,” Herman Markell, another library volunteer, said by email. “All with a handful of volunteers and three part-time employees and all from donated material and library discards! We do this with basically three revenue streams.”

Markell was referring to the donated books slated for the shelves of the Second Editions bookstore at the Central Library, the two book sales per year, and the library’s online inventory (more than 7,000 titles) sold through Amazon.

The books on Amazon have a separate storage area in the library’s basement, and, on the day of my visit, Sanda Smith, Kathy Fay, and Louise Brown were manning computer stations.

Looking for a two-volume Icelandic dictionary? You’re out of luck. The library’s copy sold on Amazon, Hawes said. But just try not eyeballing the thousands of books in the room next door, where donated books are broken down by category.

Sherman Dixon was there inside a chain-linked area, where signed editions, mint-condition editions, and rare volumes are stored. Bill Fidler was within reach of a multivolume set of Casanova’s memoirs. Frances Manley was gluing the spine of a well-worn volume. And Diane Parker, Thomas Jones, and Sharon Trower were busy shelving.

Hawes was busy answering my questions, but I was wondering: How do these people get anything done given the daily fresh supply of donated books? Hawes answered by showing me a set of lockers, each with the name of a volunteer, and opening one. It contained a stack of books, which volunteers can take home, enjoy, then return.

An “occupational hazard” to working among so many books? Sherman Dixon, who said he had more at home waiting to be read, wouldn’t call it that. “My wife would,” he added.

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We Recommend We Recommend

Sign In, Please

“The real definition of insanity is folding a fitted sheet … and expecting it to result in anything other than a migraine and a huge turban.”

So writes Memphian turned San Franciscan Lisa Quinn in her new book, Life’s Too Short To Fold Fitted Sheets. Quinn will be signing and discussing her useful (and light-hearted) look at curing domestic divadom on Thursday at Davis-Kidd.

At D-K the next day: Say hello to Memphians Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, the couple whose story you read of and saw in the book and film The Blind Side. The title of their own book is In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving, and this week, they’re getting a ton of national media attention. For some local attention, meet the couple at their only Memphis booksigning.

This summer’s already been crazy hot. Doesn’t Ice Cold sound good right about now? That’s the title of the latest from crime novelist Tess Gerritsen, who will be at Davis-Kidd to sign it on Tuesday. She’ll be discussing the book too at a taping of Book Talk at the Central Library earlier on Tuesday. You’re invited.

And you’re advised to take note of the modern-day ghost story Her Fearful Symmetry, authored by Audrey Niffenegger, who wrote an earlier best-seller, The Time Traveler’s Wife. Her Fearful Symmetry was critically acclaimed when the hardback appeared last fall. Be on hand when Niffenegger reads from and signs the new paperback edition at Burke’s Book Store on Tuesday. If you make it snappy, you can make it to both Gerritsen’s and Niffenegger’s early-evening signings on Tuesday. That laundry you thought needed folding? Forget the fitted sheets. Life’s too short. Lisa Quinn says so.

At Davis-Kidd Booksellers (683-9801): Lisa Quinn, Thursday, July 15th, 6 p.m.; Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, Friday, July 16th, 6 p.m.; Tess Gerritsen, Tuesday, July 20th, 6 p.m.

At the WYPL Studios inside the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library: Tess Gerritsen on “Book Talk,” 3:30 p.m. (seating limited; for more information, call 415-2752).

At Burke’s Book Store (278-7484): Audrey Niffenegger, Tuesday, July 20th, 5:30 p.m.