Meet the authors coming to the Charleston Literary Festival, starting with these books
The Charleston Literary Festival has revealed its list of guest authors for the November event. Many of these authors have been featured here (thank you very much). Barbara Kingsolver, Virginia Evans, Lily King, Daniel Kraus, Hernan Diaz, Jayne Anne Phillips, and many more! The official bookstore is Philosophers and Fools. Support your local bookstore and get your tickets now.
NONFICTION
“How to Rule the World” by Theo Baker. A freshman at Stanford joins the school paper and investigates the falsification of scientific research that resulted in the resignation of the school's president. He also gives an intimate and unsettling account of the new entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley. Ask me in person for my insider info. Highly recommended.
“The Land and Its People” by David Sedaris. Several of these pieces were previously published in The New Yorker, but I enjoyed them all again. I strongly recommend this as an audiobook, as Sedaris delivers his material with precision honed over multiple presentations. Riotous fun.
“Trash!” By Simon Pare-Poupart. The author paid for his education – undergrad through Ph.D. – by working on a garbage truck. He has a career as a journalist but continues his work in waste management for the physicality and honesty of the job. A brief but incisive look at the job and the issue of “stuff.”
FICTION
“The Calamity Club” by Kathryn Stockett. A delightful, funny, and heartbreaking tale of Birdie and Meg (and a host of other characters) in 1933 Mississippi. Lengthy, but so engaging you just keep reading! Perfect summer entertainment.
“Whistler” by Anne Patchett. The foundation of this book was an essay Patchett wrote about her three fathers for The New Yorker. This fictional treatment is an absolute delight – honest, relatable, sincere, never pretentious. The woman is a master of the written word.
“Alan Opts Out” by Courtney Maum. A wry skewering of excess set in Greenwich, Connecticut (the same setting as the series “Your Friends and Neighbors”), but it could easily be set on Daniel Island. Totally worth a read.
“The Fine Art of Lying” by Alexandra Andrews. An extramarital fling that leads to murder, art theft, and a lot of creative lying. A very twisty story that really picks up in the second half.
“The Jellyfish Problem” by Tessa Yang. A sea-monster tale that doubles as a metaphor for grief and loss.
“Returns and Exchanges” by Kayla Rae Whitaker. A sprawling family story of the Taylors and their chain of stores based in Lexington, Kentucky, in the 1980s. Not a page-turner, but a slow-burn look into the machinations of family, love, business, and societal constraints. Every family has dysfunction; this book just gets an inside look at one for our examination and judgment. Suitable for book clubs.
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