:Events:
All events are free. No tickets or reservations necessary.
May
Jeffrey Small, May 20th
We begin a series of three programs tonight celebrating our role in the annual Decatur Arts Festival. The prize-winning Atlanta author Jeffrey Small joins us to talk about his exciting new novel, ”The Jericho Deception,” a thriller that bestselling author Steve Berry calls ”captivating with plausibility and imagination.” It centers on a scientist’s invention of the Logos machine, a device that can produce religious ecstasy but also madness. When there’s a murder, two graduate students...
Read MoreJoe Cook, May 21st
The second of three programs part of the Decatur Arts Festival brings an author with special interest to those who care about the outdoors and our environment. Joe Cook is the executive director of the Coosa River Basin Initiative and coordinator of Georgia River Network’s Paddle Georgia Event. His new book, ”Etowah River User’s Guide,” is an appealing and handy look at the biologically diverse and beautiful Etowah River in North Georgia. Printed on waterproof...
Read MoreSusan Puckett, May 22nd
For two decades, Susan Puckett was the food editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and now she has crafted a new book that focuses on her native Mississippi Delta: ”Eat Drink Delta: A Hungry Traveler’s Journey Through the Soul of the South.” It is part travelogue, , part memoir and part photo gallery and captures all the contradictions in a region that is known for its poverty and racial divide and yet lures people who want...
Read MoreBill Cheng, May 23rd
Cheng, began writing SOUTHERN CROSS THE DOG in 2008, while earning his MFA at Hunter College. He drew his inspiration for this story of a group of black, childhood friends set in part against the backdrop of the 1927 Great Flood in Mississippi from the great tradition of country/delta blues music. This debut novel has been praised by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones, who calls Cheng’s prose, “lush and so very often poetic”; and...
Read MoreAnnalee Newitz, May 29th
One of America’s top science journalists, Annalee Newitz, joins us with a program about her intriguing new book, ”Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction.” It’s a brilliantly speculative work of popular science that examines humanity’s success at dodging the bullet of extinction and suggests ways to keep doing it. That would seem to make her talk a pretty important one not to miss. She is the founding editor of the...
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Susan Rebecca White, June 2nd
We are delighted to welcome Susan Rebecca White, one of Atlanta’s most popular authors, with a celebration of the release of her new novel, ”A Place at the Table.” The doors open at 7:15 p.m., and she’ll appear on stage at 7:30 in conversation with another wonderful Atlanta writer, Susan Puckett. You won’t want to miss this! The new novel following ”Bound South” and ”A Soft Place to Land” moves from a freed-slave settlement in...
Read MoreMary Hood, June 3rd
We are pleased to join the prestigious publication Georgia Review for a special evening with one of Georgia’s most gifted authors, Mary Hood. Her appearance crowns a new issue of Georgia Review that features a much anticipated new story and a new essay by Hood as well as a lengthy interview with the author and a selection of her letters. ”She is a most distinguished writer, and we are privileged to be able to present...
Read MoreCharlie Lovett, June 5th
Nine months after the death of his beloved wife, Amanda, Peter Byerly isn’t sure what drew him into a bookshop in a small Welsh town. The young antiquarian bookseller relocated from North Carolina to the English countryside, hoping to heal his wounds by losing himself collecting and restoring rare books. But upon opening an eighteenth-century study of Shakespeare forgeries, Peter is shocked when a portrait of Amanda tumbles out of its pages. Victorian in origin,...
Read MoreDaniel James Brown, June 10th
Author Daniel James Brown tells a remarkable true story in his fascinating new book, ”The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.” The story centers around the University of Washington’s oar crew, a team that transformed the sport and helped take the spotlight from Hitler’s Germany. This emotional story tells how the sons of loggers, shipyard workers and farmers defeated elite rivals from eastern and...
Read MoreAnton DiSclafani , June 11th
The Georgia Center for the Book is pleased to host a reading for one of the most anticipated books of the summer, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls. A Graduate of Emory University, author Anton DiSclafani sets this coming-of-age story against the backdrop of the Great Depression. After her mysterious role in a family tragedy, passionate, strong-willed, fifteen-year-old Thea Atwell is cast out of her Florida home, exiled to an equestrienne boarding school for Southern...
Read MoreRick Atkinson, June 12th
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Rick Atkinson visits us with the triumphant final volume in his celebrated World War II trilogy, ”The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945.” It is a revealing, detailed and brilliant narrative of the war’s bloody final year. ”It is hard to imagine a better history of the western front’s final phase,” writes the critic for Publishers weekly. It follows his two acclaimed earlier volumes on American armies, ”An...
Read MoreKhaled Hosseini, June 13th
We are honored to present a special appearance by the noted author Khaled Hosseini with his eagerly anticipated new book, And the Mountains Echoed, an emotionally complex and powerful novel about how we love and the choices we make. Hosseini, of course, is the author of the international bestsellers ”The Kite Runner” and ”A Thousand Splendid Suns.” He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and moved to the United States in 1980. He was recently named...
Read MoreTemple Grandin, June 19th
Temple Grandin is one of the world’s best-known adults with autism. With a PhD in animal science, six bestselling books to her credit and a selection by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the year, she is an accomplished figure who is in demand for lectures around the country. Her work has been noted in major newspapers and magazines, and the HBO movie about her life received seven Emmy Awards....
Read MoreJordan Is So Chilly by Brenda Bynum, June 20th
We are pleased to welcome back actor Brenda Bynum to the Georgia Center for the Book for a truly special presentation. Bynum will give life to the literary artistry of Clayton County native Lillian E. Smith with her performance, “Jordan Is So Chilly”: An Encounter with Lillian Smith, based on the writings of the author of Strange Fruit and Killers of the Dream. Bynum has given dramatic readings from the letters of Flannery O’Connor...
Read MoreAtlanta Walks around Decatur, June 24th
Join us for what will be one of our most interesting presentations at the Georgia Center for the Book…and don’t forget to wear a pair of comfortable shoes! The two authors of Atlanta Walks: A Comprehensive Guide to Walking, Running, and Bicycling the Area’s Scenic and Historic Locales Ren and Helen Davis will join us for a half hour presentation about their book, which divides the metropolitan area and surrounding counties into a variety of...
Read MoreJuly
Curtis Sittenfeld, July 1st
We welcome the bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld with ”Sisterland,” her wonderful new novel about family and identity, loyalty and deception and the delicate line between truth and belief. It is funny, provocative and beautifully written, and we urge you not to miss her first appearance ever at the Center for the Book. Her previous novels, all of which hit The New York Times bestseller list, include ”Prep,” ”The Man of My Dreams” and ”American Wife.”...
Read MoreJingle Davis & Benjamin Galland, July 8th
If you love the Georgia coast, you won’t want to miss this evening’s guests and their gorgeous, informative new book, ”Island Time: An Illustrated History of St. Silmons Island, Georgia.” It’s a spectacular look at a very special place, produced by a pair of natives and published in a beautiful edition by the University of Georgia Press. The book looks at the island’s amazing history going back to prehistoric times and bringing the story through...
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Georgia Center for the Book
at DeKalb County Public Library
215 Sycamore Street Decatur, Georgia 30030
(404) 370-8450 x 2225
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