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Promenade Hall/Overture: Wednesday, September 29
Daniel Kehlmann and Monique Truong
Wednesday, September 29 | 5:30 - 6:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presenter(s): Daniel Kehlmann, Monique Truong
Two of today’s most acclaimed young novelists play sophisticated games with beliefs, perceptions, and reality. A man buys a cell phone and starts receiving calls intended for someone else; an actor's telephone falls dead silent, as though someone has stolen his life. A young woman who experiences words as tastes seeks out her family's secretive pockets of connection amidst a life made up of half-finished sentences…
Daniel Kehlmann’s novel Fame skillfully brings together nine separate episodes into a cohesive novel, constantly pulling the reader to analyze and re-analyze even the smallest seemingly concrete interactions between his distinctive chracters. In Monique Truong's latest novel, Bitter in the Mouth, long-held beliefs about family and what it means to love and be loved are discovered and rediscovered as one woman searces for something concrete about herself.
Bookseller: Borders West
Category(s): Fiction
Promenade Hall/Overture: Thursday, September 30
Joshua Clover: 1989 and After: teenpop and the pax Americana
Thursday, September 30 | 5:30 - 6:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presented by the Center for the Humanities at UW-Madison
Presenter(s): Joshua Clover
In 1989: Bob Dylan Didn't Have This to Sing About, Joshua Clover boldly reimagines how we understand both pop music and its social context by exploring a year famously described as "the end of history." Amid the historic overturnings of 1989, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, pop music also experienced striking changes. Vividly conjuring cultural sensations and events, Clover’s analysis deftly moves among varied artists and genres from grunge to acid house to gangsta rap, including Public Enemy, Dr. Dre, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, U2, Jesus Jones, the Scorpions, George Michael, Madonna, and others. Clover will also present a poetry reading at Project Lodge on Friday, Oct 1, at 7:30pm.
Bookseller: University Book Store
Category(s): History, Music, Society & Politics
Moral Ground: A Townhall Meeting on Why It's Wrong to Wreck the World
Thursday, September 30 | 7:30 - 9:00 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presented in partnership with the Aldo Leopold Foundation, with generous support from Trinity University Press
Presenter(s): Curt Meine, Kathleen Dean Moore, Michael Nelson, Gary Paul Nabhan
This townhall-style meeting led by Moral Ground editors Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson gathers people for an evening of music, readings by contributing authors Curt Meine and Gary Nabhan, and a guided audience discussion about our obligations to justice and compassion.
Bookseller: University Book Store
Category(s): Making it Home, Science & Nature
Promenade Hall/Overture: Friday, October 1
The Gods Will See You Now: Five Wisconsin Poets on Matters of the Spirit
Friday, October 1 | 5:30 - 7:00 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presenter(s): Marilyn L. Taylor, Bruce Dethlefsen, Karla Huston, Richard Roe, David Scheler
A first in Wisconsin Book Festival history: your chance to hear, all at once, five award-winning Wisconsin poets Bruce Dethlefsen, Karla Huston, Richard Roe, Dave Scheler, and Wisconsin Poet Laureate Marilyn Taylor rev up their Ouija boards and transport you to some of the more elusive destinations of the spirit and the psyche; realms that you can’t quite see or touch, but that you’ve always known were out there. Their lively riffs and variations on the natural world, not to mention their imaginative forays into realms of the spirit, will guide you through landscapes you’ve never visited. Or maybe you have. Join these insightful, witty, provocative poets, and find out.
Category(s): Poetry, Wisconsin Ties
Promenade Hall/Overture: Saturday, October 2
Katharine Hayhoe: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions
Saturday, October 2 | 10:00 - 11:30 AM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presenter(s): Katharine Hayhoe
As a climate scientist and a Christian, committed to truth in both science and faith, Katharine Hayhoe balances passion with civility to present a compelling case for why addressing climate change is a part of what it means to be a Christian today. Co-written with her husband, pastor Andrew Farley, A Climate for Change untangles the complex science and tackles many long-held misconceptions about global warming.
Bookseller: Borders West
Category(s): Science & Nature, Spiritual Beliefs
Ngugi wa Thiong'o & Mukoma wa Ngugi
Saturday, October 2 | 12:30 - 2:00 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presenter(s): Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Mukoma Wa Ngugi
In Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir, celebrated African author and activist Ngugi Wa Thiong'o tells no ordinary coming-of-age tale. Ngugi was born in 1938 in rural Kenya to a father whose four wives bore him more than a score of children. The man who would become one of Africa’s leading writers was the fifth child of the third wife. In this fascinating account, Ngugi deftly etches a bygone era, capturing the landscape, the people, and their culture; the social and political vicissitudes of life under colonialism and war, and the troubled relationship between an emerging Christianized middle class and the rural poor. And he shows how the Mau Mau armed struggle for Kenya’s independence against the British informed not only his own life but also the lives of those closest to him. Mukoma wa Ngugi, the son of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, is a political columnist for the BBC Focus on Africa magazine. He is also the author of the poetry collection Hurling Words at Consciousness and his debut novel Nairobi Heat, a gripping and hard-hitting detective thriller that questions race, identity and class. He has recently been shortlisted for the 2010 Penguin Prize for African Writing (Fiction).
Bookseller: Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative
Category(s): Fiction, International, Memoir & Biography
Steve Paulson & Ron Numbers
Saturday, October 2 | 3:00 - 4:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Made possible by Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries
Presenter(s): Steve Paulson, Ronald Numbers
The relationship between science and religion is a subject that has grown increasingly visible-- and controversial-- in the world today. In Atoms and Eden, Peabody Award-winning journalist Steve Paulson (of To the Best of Our Knowledge) presents twenty interviews with some of the most prominent scientists, religious figures, and intellectuals of the day. Ronald Numbers, historian of science and medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, also addresses the complicated relationship between science and religion. Author of The Creationists, a history of the modern revival of creationism, and co-editor of the collection God and Nature, Numbers tangles with many questions relating to faith, fact, and fiction.
Bookseller: Borders West
Category(s): Science & Nature, Society & Politics, Spiritual Beliefs
Kao Kalia Yang & Judy Pasternak
Saturday, October 2 | 5:30 - 7:00 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Made possible by Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries
Presenter(s): Kao Kalia Yang, Judy Pasternak
In search of a place to call home, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and onward to America, but their history remains largely unknown. Kao Kalia Yang’s memoir The Latehomecomer is a tribute to her grandmother, the remarkable woman whose spirit held the family together. With a journalist’s heart for the truth and a storyteller’s gift for lyricism, Yang describes her family’s harrowing escape from Laos, their life in the refugee camps, and her own experiences with American life and learning. In her compelling and compassionate expose, Yellow Dirt: The Betrayal of the Navajo, prize-winning investigative reporter Judy Pasternak reveals how from the 1930’s to the 1960’s, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe of people: In the uranium mines that fueled the Manhattan Project and the Cold War, the Navajo worked unprotected. Pasternak chronicles the state-sanctioned deception which resulted in the deadly radiation contamination of the tribe’s air, water and soil. Transporting readers into a little-known country-within-a-country, Pasternak gives rare voice to Navajo perceptions of the world, their own complicated involvement with uranium mining, and their political coming-of-age.
Bookseller: University Book Store
Category(s): International, Memoir & Biography, Science & Nature, Society & Politics
Lauren Groff & Dean Young
Saturday, October 2 | 8:00 - 9:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presented by the Monsters of Poetry
Presenter(s): Lauren Groff, Dean Young
Writers Lauren Groff and Dean Young will present selections of their innovative and engaging recent works. Groff’s short stories have appeared in a number of journals, and her first novel traveled quickly onto the New York Times bestseller list. Poet Dean Young has published nine books of poetry and was recently a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His unique verses give new vitality to the genre of contemporary poetry.
Bookseller: A Room of One's Own
Category(s): Fiction, Poetry
Promenade Hall/Overture: Sunday, October 3
John Lehman: The Last Day of the Sixties
Sunday, October 3 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Venue: Promenade Hall/Overture
Presenter(s): John Lehman
Attend the world premiere of The Last Day of the Sixties: A Dramatic Reading of Richard Brautigan’s Most Memorable Work presented in a narrative form by Wisconsin writer John Lehman. Brautigan was the "rock star" poet/short story writer of the sixties. His Trout Fishing in America, Revenge of the Lawn and Loading Mercury with a Pitch Fork are best-selling classics. This thoughtful presentation dramatizes what made this writer great, how the times influenced him and the courage he had to have to face his inner demons. Perfect for writers, poets, teachers and people wanting one last look at Brautigan's sixties.
Category(s): History, Poetry, Society & Politics