Books and Authors

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Colum McCann is the award-winning author of seven books. His most recent novel, Let the Great World Spin, takes Philip Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center as the starting point for a dazzling, multilayered symphony for Manhattan. Hailed as an American masterpiece, the novel is at once heartbreaking and uplifting - as death defying as Petit's high-wire artistry. Let the Great World Spin was a bestseller on four continents and won both the National Book Award and the International IMPAC Literary Award. "I believe in the democracy of story-telling," says Dublin-born McCann. "I love the fact that our stories can cross all sorts of borders and boundaries. I feel humbled by the notion that I'm even a small part of literary experience. I grew up in a house, in a city, in a country shaped by books. I don't know of a greater privilege that being allowed to tell a story, or to listen to a story. They're the only thing we have that can trump life itself."

Monday, March 12: Talk on Let the Great World Spin

Wednesday, March 14: Colum McCann appearance

Wednesday, March 14, noon - 1pm: Conversation between Colum McCann and McCann scholar John Cusatis

Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea

Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of thirteen books whose awards include the Lannan Literary Award, the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize, and an American Book Award. He is a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an American mother, Urrea uses his dual-culture experiences to explore universal themes of love, loss, and triumph. Into the Beautiful North imagines a town in Mexico where all the men have immigrated to the U.S. After Viewing The Magnificent Seven, a group of women travel north to persuade them to return. A national bestseller, Into the Beautiful North earned a citation of excellence from the American Library Association and has been widely praised for its unforgettable characters. Urrea says, "I set out to make myself happy. I confess: this book was utterly selfish. But I also thought that if I made myself laugh out loud every day, perhaps you would laugh too."

Monday, March 19: Talk on Into the Beautiful North
Wednesday, March 21: Luis Alberto Urrea appearance

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is the bestselling author of five novels and two books of nonfiction. She is a recipient of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and her novel Bel Canto won both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award. Patchett has written for many publications, including the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Gourmet, the New York Times, and Vogue. Her newest book State of Wonder, spins a tale of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazonian jungle. Both a gripping adventure and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love, the novel quickly received widespread critical and popular acclaim. On the choice of the book's setting Patchett says, "The Amazon is a giant open canvas for the imagination. You feel like anything could happen there, and that's a great place from which to tell a story."

Monday, March 26: Talk on State of Wonder

Wednesday, March 28: Ann Patchett appearance

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides' novels include The Virgin Suicides, which was translated into thirty-four languages and made into a feature film, and Middlesex, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics' Circle Award, France's Prix Medici, and the International IMPAC Literary Award. His greatly anticipated and quickly acclaimed new novel, The Marriage Plot, tackles books, love, and coming of age in the 1980s. On display are Eugenides' characteristic intelligence, wit, and affection for his characters. The Marriage Plot asks whether the great love stories of the nineteenth century are dead, or whether there can be a new kind of romantic tale for a world changed from Jane Austen's day by sexual freedom, prenuptial agreements, and no-fault divorce. "Most people still dream of finding the one," Eugenides says. "The marriage plot goes on, just in a different form, and it was my job to figure out how it influences the lives of my three heroes."

Monday, April 2: Talk on The Marriage Plot

Wednesday, April 4: Jeffrey Eugenides appearance

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan is widely considered to be England's greatest living novelist. He has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize numerous times, winning the Booker for Amsterdam. His novel Atonement received the WH Smith Literary Award, the National Book Critics' Circle Fiction Award, the Los Angeles Times Prize, and the Santiago Prize for the European Novel, and was adapted into a feature film. John Updike called Atonement, "A staggering book - something no American could have published." On a hot summer day in 1935, a thirteen-year-old girl's incomplete grasp of adult motives - together with her precocious literary gifts - brings about a crime that alters the lives of all around her. McEwan describes the novel as a love story. "Like all love stories," he says, "the love has to be threatened." Sweeping and psychologically penetrating, the novel follows the repercussions of a single act through the chaos of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.

Monday, April 9: Talk on Atonement

Wednesday, April 11: Ian McEwan appearance

Host

Elise Blackwell is the author of four novels: Hunger, The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish, Grub, and An Unfinished Score. Her books have been translated into several languages and named to numerous best-of-the-year lists, including the Los Angeles Times, Sydney Morning Herald, and Kirkus. Her short stories and cultural criticism have been published in such places as the Atlantic, Witness, Seed, and Global City Review. A regular columnist for the Chronicle of Higher Education, she directs the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at the University of South Carolina.