Short Takes

Lori Ostlund (THE BIGNESS OF THE WORLD) makes the Dzanc Books alternate "20-under-40" fiction list, as reported by Publishers Weekly; the list includes authors who publish with a wider range of small and independent presses than those included in the New Yorker's recent "20 under 40" issue. Also, they're not all under 40 (although there are 20 of them).

CORNBREAD NATION 5 enthusiastically reviewed in the inaugural issue of the new online food mag The Zenchilada (see page 105).

Bookslut on Colin Cheney's debut collection HERE BE MONSTERS. His poem "Lord God Bird," which originally appeared in Notre Dame Review, has just been awarded a Pushcart Prize. Also a new audio interview at Scattered Rhymes, with links to Darwin's notebooks and other topics Cheney mentions.

Encyclopedia Britannica's Advocacy for Animals site recommends VISIONS OF CALIBAN: ON CHIMPANZEES AND PEOPLE by Dale Peterson and Jane Goodall as great summer reading for animal lovers, and notes that it is "approaching the status of a classic."

TENNESSEE WOMEN reviewed on H-Net: "Suffice it to say, there is not a ringer among the eighteen essays. Each is informed by the most recent scholarship in the fields of American women's history, southern history, and the history of Tennessee." From a highlight in the current issue of Mississippi magazine: "In 34 articles, the second volume of MISSISSIPPI WOMEN chronicles the interesting, intriguing, and complicated lives of past Mississippi women."

H-Southern Industry reviews Marko Maunula's GUTEN TAG, Y'ALL.

Now available:

CHARLOTTE, NC
Edited by William Graves and Heather A. Smith
This collection of accessible essays by geographers, historians, and architects, examines rapid change in Charlotte from several unusual and interesting angles. Contributors look at the banking industry and the construction of a global finance center, but also NASCAR, the reuse of textile mills, gentrification in uptown, and immigrant corridors on South Boulevard and the East Side, trying to clarify what kind of place Charlotte is and how it got to be that way.