N.C. Events: David Wroblewski, Larry Tise & Fred Chappell

This weekend’s big visitor to Triangle area bookstores is David Wroblewski, author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which earned so many raves reviews last June (the Washington Post called it the “book of the year” when the year was only half over) and is earning a new batch of readers now that it’s out in paperback. Wroblewski will appear Friday evening, November 13, at Raleigh’s Quail Ridge Books and then again on Saturday at McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village.

But while that visiting star may be burning the brightest, don’t let it eclipse two other local lights.

Larry Tise, the Wilbur and Orville Wright Distinguished Professor of History at East Carolina University, visits Manteo Booksellers on Saturday to discuss his new book, Conquering the Sky: The Secret Flights of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk. Released just last month, the book explores a series of test flight from 1908 (five years after that First Flight) which prepared the flying machine for the military market — and truly began earning the invention worldwide fame.

Then early next week, Fred Chappell offers up his second new collection of the year. Following on the success of Shadow Box: Poems — an intricate and enjoyable collection —  Chappell will read from Ancestors and Others: New and Selected Stories at four locations over four days, a whirlwind mini-tour: Tuesday, November 17, at the Bull’s Head Bookshop in Chapel Hill; Wednesday, November 18, at Durham’s Regulator Bookshop; Thursday, November 19, at Quail Ridge Books; and Friday, November 20. Basically, no excuse to miss this short story master looking back over a long and distinguished career.

For links to each of the bookstores and a more comprehensive listing of upcoming events, check out the full MetroBooks Calendar here.

N.C. Events: A Preseason Bonus

Can’t wait for basketball season to begin? Well, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill has good news in store for you: Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court, a just-released memoir by Tar Heels coach Roy Williams, co-written by former Sports Illustrated writer Tim Crothers. The book features a foreword by John Grisham and a nice front-cover blurb by Michael Jordan. Bring out the big guns, why don’t you?

At this point, I’ve only been able to sample sections of the book, but I gotta tell you, I’m already drawn in. While the memoir stretches back to Williams’ difficult childhood — an abusive, alcoholic father, a mother struggling to make ends meet — the book itself is framed by the 2009 basketball season. The opening pages find Williams walking down the middle of the road at 4 a.m., worrying about star player Tyler Hansbrough’s injuries and about the demands of the season ahead — how the prospects and expectations were raising the stakes for the entire team. Even knowing about the NCAA tournament win that ultimately ended the season doesn’t lessen the conflict of that nighttime walk or the sense of suspense about the longer path ahead. By the end of the book, when he reflects back on that season as the sweetest because of all the adversity, you really get a sense of what this book is about. The title doesn’t draw solely from that team cheer at the end of each huddle.

As anyone who’s followed his career knows, Williams has made some controversial and much-publicized  decisions in his lifetime, not the least of which were his decisions to stay in Kansas and then to leave Kansas. In the book, he reflects on these decisions and offers some behind-the-scenes reasons for them, much of it related to his family and his past: his mother, his father, his sister, each depicted in gripping, poignant scenes and with often surprising candor.

In advance of the season ahead, Williams will be touring several North Carolina bookstores to discuss the book — surely a must for Tar Heels fans everywhere. Catch him on Tuesday, November 3, at McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village; on Thursday, November 5, at the Bull’s Head Bookshop in Chapel Hill; on Tuesday, November 10, at Raleigh’s Quail Ridge Books; and on Friday, November 13, at Durham’s Regulator Bookshop.

N.C. Events: Mysteries Through Monday

Mysteries take the mainstage at Triangle-area bookstores this weekend, with two appearances by The Deadly Divas, “nice woman who write about murder.” Marcia Talley, newly elected president of Sisters in Crime, leads the group’s outing with her new book, Without a Grave, and she’s joined by Elizabeth Lynn Casey, author of Sew Deadly; Denise Swanson, author of Murder of a Royal Pain; Heather Webber, author of Weeding Out Murder (and of the Lucy Valentine romance series); and Sara Rosett, author of Magnolias, Moonlight and Murder. The group has just begun their swing through North Carolina, and here’s where you can catch them over the next few days:

Friday, October 23

• 10:30 a.m., Coffee with the Divas, The Cary Library, Cary
• 2 p.m., Tea at the Eva Perry Library, Apex
• 7 p.m., The Regulator Bookshop, Durham

Saturday, October 24

• 11 a.m., McIntyre’s at Fearrington Village, Pittsboro
• 2 p.m., West Regional Library, Cary

Sunday, October 25

• 3 p.m., Friendly Center Barnes & Noble, Greensboro

Additionally, don’t miss another bright new name on the mystery scene, Derek Nikitas, with his second novel The Long Division. A graduate of UNC-Wilmington’s MFA program, he’ll be appearing at Wilmington’s Pomegranate Books on Monday, October 26, at 7 p.m.

N.C. Events: New Stories From Jill McCorkle

A.S. Byatt may be the big-name literary celebrity in the Triangle this week, but it’s a homegrown talent that’s really cause for celebration. Algonquin Books has recently published Jill McCorkle’s first short story collection in eight years, Going Away Shoes, and she’s once again proven herself a master of the form. I’ve long been a follower and a fan of McCorkle’s work, and while her novels are undoubtedly impressive, I’ll admit that I take the most joy out of her richly textured, densely packed shorter work — it’s simply a marvel how much life she’s able to pack into such a short amount of space. Even the briefest of the stories here, “View-master” (barely five pages), marks the intersection of several complete lives, and another  of my favorites, “Intervention,” seamlessly weaves past and present — the weight of a lifetime of relationships — into the story of a single momentous evening, one that marks both a turning point and a reaffirmation. That story is also one of the most highly lauded in this collection, having appeared in Ploughshares before being selected both for the Best American Short Stories anthology and for New Stories from the South, and a second story, “Magic Words,” has recently been selected for the upcoming Best American Short Stories.

After reading “Intervention” myself a couple of years back, I had the opportunity to encounter it again when McCorkle read it aloud one evening — and it was just as fascinating that second go-around, maybe even more so since I knew where the story was going and could focus on the small moves that she made to get us there, the layering of information, the small asides that seemed extraneous on the first read but ultimately integral, indispensable. Let that be encouragement for others to check out the new collection and to catch one of the author’s upcoming events: Thursday, October 15, at The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines and again on Saturday, October 17, at McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village.

N.C. Events: Chaz, Chefs & A Cancellation

Two of my favorite folks will be at Raleigh’s Quail Ridge Books on Friday night, September 25, at 7 p.m. Katy Munger reads from Desolate Angel, the first novel in the Dead Detective mystery series written under the name Chaz McGee. (For background on why Munger’s new series — and why it sports a new pseudonym — check out this interview with Sarah Weinman.) Joining her will be musician Joe Newberry of the band Big Medicine, offering up a dose of bluegrass to accompany Munger/McGee’s series debut.

Ann Prospero was at Quail Ridge on Thursday night, and continues a local tour with her new book, Chefs of the Triangle: Their Lives, Recipes, and Restaurants, throughout the weekend. I recently received the book, which features a foreword by Metro’s own Moreton Neal, and had hoped to try one of the recipes out before her signings began, but events have kept me busy of late. Look forward later to my report on a trio of inter-related recipes from J. Betski’s in Raleigh: Pretzel-Crusted Pork Tenderloin, Cooked Sauerkraut, and Beer Jus. In the meantime, check the book out yourself at Durham’s Regulator Bookshop on Friday evening, and again at McIntyre’s in Fearrington Village on Sunday. Local chefs profiled in the book will be on hand at each event, bringing samples!

Looking ahead at the weekend, please note that the Tomie dePaola event at the Weymouth Center has been cancelled.

Looking ahead at early next week, mark your calendars for Tuesday night at QRB, when Marianne Gingher continues the flash fiction tour with contributors to the new anthology Long Story Short. She’ll be joined by contributors Angela Davis-Gardner, John Kessel, Carrie Knowles, and Peggy Payne. Check out my interview with Gingher here.