Graceland, At Last, Margaret Renkl
Graceland, At Last, Margaret Renkl
List: $35.99 | Sale: $25.20
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Graceland, At Last
Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South

Author: Margaret Renkl

Narrator: Joyce Bean

Unabridged: 7 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/08/2022

Synopsis

Winner of the 2022 Southern Book PrizeWinner of the 2022 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the EssayAn Indie Next Selection for September 2021A Book Marks Best Reviewed Essay Collection of 2021A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2021A Country Living Best Book of Fall 2022A Garden & Gun Recommended Read for Fall 2021A Book Marks Best Reviewed Book of September 2021From the author of the bestselling #ReadWithJenna/TODAY Show book club pick Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and LossFor the past four years, Margaret Renkl’s columns have offered readers of The New York Times a weekly dose of natural beauty, human decency, and persistent hope from her home in Nashville. Now more than sixty of those pieces have been brought together in this sparkling collection.“People have often asked me how it feels to be the ‘voice of the South,’” writes Renkl in her introduction. “But I’m not the voice of the South, and no one else is, either.” There are many Souths—red and blue, rural and urban, mountain and coast, Black and white and brown—and no one writer could possibly represent all of them. In Graceland, At Last, Renkl writes instead from her own experience about the complexities of her homeland, demonstrating along the way how much more there is to this tangled region than many people understand.In a patchwork quilt of personal and reported essays, Renkl also highlights some other voices of the South, people who are fighting for a better future for the region. A group of teenagers who organized a youth march for Black Lives Matter. An urban shepherd whose sheep remove invasive vegetation. Church parishioners sheltering the homeless. Throughout, readers will find the generosity of spirit and deep attention to the world, human and nonhuman, that keep readers returning to her columns each Monday morning.From a writer who “makes one of all the world’s beings” (NPR), Graceland, At Last is a book full of gifts for Southerners and non-Southerners alike.

About Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl is the author of Graceland, At Last and Late Migrations, which was a Read with Jenna/TODAY Show book club selection. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, where her essays appear weekly. Her work has also appeared in Guernica, Literary Hub, Proximity, and River Teeth, among others. She was the founding editor of Chapter 16, the daily literary publication of Humanities Tennessee, and is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Carolina. She lives in Nashville.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Ed

Margaret Renkl is a national treasure. I would like to put this book into a time capsule so that thousands of years from now, evidence will remain that even at this late hour, there remained at least one voice of reason and compassion speaking for the vulnerable, the heroic, and most of all, for our......more

Goodreads review by Kris

Since I am not a reader of The New York Times, I had the sheer joy of reading each of these essays for the first time as part of this beautiful collection. Though I purchased Graceland At Last as a treat to myself at the end of 2021, I didn’t pick up until this week. I’m always astonished of how the......more

Goodreads review by Reid

I really love Renkl, but I sort of thought this collection was a mixed bag. Some of these essays I had read before, others I hadn’t. Every essay is good, but stacked together like this, you begin to notice patterns in Renkl’s writing that become very tired. I’m a proud southerner, and Renkl is one o......more

Quotes

“Joyce Bean's warm, friendly voice is by turns serious and smiling in her excellent narration of Margaret Renkl's insightful new essay collection.… Renkl, who lives in Tennessee, is a detailed observer whether she's watching a flock of sheep "mow" a lawn, considering John Prine's music, or writing an open letter about racism to her fellow white Christians. She blends her private life throughout, giving listeners personal involvement with the essays. Bean's clear, straightforward, and welcoming performance is perfectly in tune with Renkl's mix of intimacy and objectivity.” —AudioFile Magazine"From her home in Nashville—'a blue dot in the red sea of Tennessee'—[Renkl] writes perceptively of the region where she was born and raised (in Alabama), educated (in South Carolina), and settled . . . Renkl vividly evokes the lush natural beauty of the rivers, old-growth forests, 'red-dirt pineywoods,' marshes, and coastal plains that she deeply loves . . . A wide-ranging look at the realities of the South." —Kirkus Reviews"New York Times columnist Renkl effectively lifts the lid on the Southern culture and challenges its stereotypes in this versatile compendium. Renkl's essays cover the natural world, local politics, Southern-fried art and culture, and social justice issues from a Nashvillian perspective. Her nature writing shows an impressive predilection for botany and ornithology . . . [Graceland, At Last] serves as a well-written collection for anyone interested in everyday life below the Mason-Dixon Line." —Publishers Weekly

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