Memphis Reads – Memphis Flyer

Reading is a solitary venture, a quiet moment spent with a book, and between reader and author. But sometimes even the most introverted readers among us want to be sociable, right? And this year Memphis Reads — the Christian Brothers University-led, city-wide reading initiative — has selected Dave Eggers’ What Is the What.

What Is the What is the story of Valentino Achak Deng, who, along with thousands of other children known as the Lost Boys, was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of 7 and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, while crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges.

On Wednesday, November 4th, Deng will lead a discussion at Rhodes in Hardie Auditorium at 6 p.m. The following day will bring Eggers, a literary entrepreneur and the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

“By having both Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng here together, readers can have the unique opportunity to meet both the writer of What Is the What and the man upon whom the story is based,” says Karen Golightly, associate professor of English for CBU and director of Memphis Reads. “They can hear, firsthand, Deng’s life story as a Sudanese Lost Boy, but also Egger’s experience in writing that story.”

Valentino Achak Deng appears at Hardie Auditorium/Rhodes College on Wednesday, November 4th, 6 p.m.; and Dave Eggers at the Creative Arts Building (2375 Tiger Lane South), Thursday, November 5th, 7 p.m.

And then sometimes a book isn’t so quiet. Sometimes it is a rollicking good time. Sometimes reading can rattle the cage and stomp the floor, and no one rattled the cages more than Sam Phillips, the man who gave us “Rocket 88” and Elvis Presley and rock-and-roll itself.

On November 10th, the much-anticipated Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll will be released. Written by honorary Memphian (he hails from Boston), Peter Guralnick, who has penned such laudatory and auditory tomes as Last Train to Memphis, Searching for Robert Johnson, and Sweet Soul Music, among many others, the book looks at the life of the founder of Sun Records. On Wednesday, November 11th, Guralnick will be at the Brooks for a discussion moderated by Memphis author and music historian Robert Gordon.

As he prepares for his umpteenth trip to Memphis, whose music royalty have been the subjects of so many of his books, Guralnick told me by phone that everything he’s ever done “has stemmed from personal passion, everything I’ve ever written about has been written out of belief and out of a desire to tell people.” It is a passion that springs forth from the pages of his books.

He first met Sam Phillips in 1979 and says he was “mesmerized, I’d never met a more charismatic figure.” Phillips at that time hadn’t been interviewed much outside of local newspapers and trade publications, and really had no interest in looking back. “He didn’t need to tell about history because history was going to take care of itself,” Guralnick says. Knox Phillips, Sam’s son, wrote Guralnick a letter, and the two became fast friends, with Knox becoming an advocate for his father to tell his own story to select writers, one of whom was Guralnick.

“This is an epic story, but it’s a story which, as Sam said, ‘isn’t worth anything if it isn’t big fun.’ He said that about every session he ever had,” Guralnick says. “And I wanted to write something on a grand scale that could be epic, tragic, comic, discursive, that could suggest some of the breadth of Sam’s ambitions, his aspirations, and the depth of his thinking, too. Because more than anything, I think Sam considered himself a teacher, and it’s what he dedicated himself to.”

Peter Guralnick discusses Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll

Wednesday, November 11th, 7 p.m. at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

Dinaw Mengestu was 2 years old when he moved, along with his mother and sister, from war-torn Ethiopia to join his father in America. That was nearly three decades ago. Mengestu has since graduated from Georgetown University, earned his MFA in fiction from Columbia University, and published his debut — and semi-autobiographical — novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (2007). That book was followed by another novel, How To Read the Air, which was excerpted in The New Yorker (the same magazine that named Mengestu to its “20 Under 40” writers of 2010). And earlier this year saw the publication of a third novel, All Our Names. All three novels examine issues of identity and displacement and questions of the individual in relation to country and culture, politics and race. But those issues, in this author’s hands, apply not only to immigrants to the U.S. As Mengestu shows in All Our Names, the same issues operate in the lives of the native-born and all-American.

In 2012, Mengestu, who today teaches at Georgetown, was awarded the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. That same year, he was named a MacArthur Foundation fellow. And on Tuesday, November 4th,

Memphians have a chance to meet him as guest of the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library and Christian Brothers University. In a way, many Memphians have met him already.

That’s because The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is the inaugural title for “Memphis Reads,” which was launched on October 1st. The program is a citywide initiative of the Memphis Public Library and Information Center, and its aim is a straightforward one: promoting literacy. It’s an aim that’s had Mayor Wharton’s enthusiastic support. It’s a program affiliated with “Fresh Reads” at CBU, which has partnered with the Memphis Public Library for “Memphis Reads.”

“Fresh Reads” is part of CBU’s First Year Experience. All incoming freshmen read one title (this year, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears), then they discuss it, then they write about it in the context of their own lives. The Central Library has published the top 10 student essays on its “Memphis Reads” blog.

According to Karen B. Golightly, associate professor of English at CBU and director of “Fresh Reads,” it was the Memphis Public Library’s adult services coordinator, Wang-Ying Glasgow, who suggested Mengestu’s book — and for good reason.

“In partnering with the library to form ‘Memphis Reads,'” Golightly says, “we wanted to choose a book that people would not only want to read but a book that would engage them on more than just the plot level. We hoped to introduce a book — and a common reading experience — that might break down some of the walls that separate us. If the people who read The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears can see each other as individuals, as humans, rather than as teachers, government workers, administrators, homeless people, immigrants, black, white, Asian, Democrats, Republicans, etc., then the spaces between us could be bridged.

“I know, it’s a lofty idea. But it’s one that we hope to achieve,” Golightly adds. “One book, one person at a time.”