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Presented by the Georgia Center for the Book, Gwinnett County Public Library, and the AJC Decatur Book Festival. This week's event is hosted by Nicki Salcedo in conversation with Ilona Bannister, Nancy Johnson, and Andromeda Romano-Lax.
This year, author Joshilyn Jackson and her co-captain, Atlanta author and journalist Nicki Salcedo, have curated a selection of some of the year's best reads, including this week’s event with Nicki Salcedo in conversation with Ilona Bannister, Nancy Johnson, and Andromeda Romano-Lax.
About Ilona Bannister:
Ilona Bannister grew up on Staten Island and lived in New York City until she married a Brit and moved to London. Ilona Bannister, a dual qualified U.S. attorney and UK solicitor, practiced immigration law in the UK before taking a career break to raise her two young sons and unexpectedly found herself writing fiction.
When I Ran Away is her first novel. A rich, bighearted debut that takes us from working-class Staten Island in the wake of the September 11th attacks to moneyed London a decade later, revealing a story of loss, motherhood, and love.
As the Twin Towers collapse, Gigi Stanislawski flees her office building and escapes lower Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry. Among the crying, ash-covered, and shoeless passengers, Gigi, unbelievably, finds someone she recognizes—Harry Harrison, a British man and a regular at her favorite coffee shop. Gigi brings Harry to her parents’ house, where they watch the television replay the planes crashing for hours, and she waits for the phone call that will never come: the call from Frankie, her younger brother.
About Nancy Johnson:
A native of Chicago’s South Side, Nancy Johnson worked for more than a decade as an Emmy-nominated, award-winning television journalist at CBS and ABC affiliates in markets nationwide. A graduate of Northwestern University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Nancy lives in downtown Chicago and manages brand communications for a large health care nonprofit.
Her debut novel, The Kindest Lie - It’s 2008, and the rise of Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and abandoned—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past.
The Kindest Lie examines the heartbreaking divide between black and white communities and plumbs the emotional depths of the struggles faced by ordinary Americans in the wake of the financial crisis. Capturing the profound racial injustices and class inequalities roiling society, Nancy Johnson’s debut novel offers an unflinching view of motherhood in contemporary America and the never-ending quest to achieve the American Dream.
About Andromeda Romano-Lax:
Born in Chicago and now a resident of Vancouver Island, Canada, Andromeda Romano-Lax worked as a freelance journalist and travel writer before turning to fiction. Her first novel, The Spanish Bow, was translated into eleven languages and was chosen as a New York Times Editors’ Choice, BookSense pick, and one of Library Journal’s Best Books of the Year. She has taught fiction in the University of Alaska Anchorage low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program and currently works with novelists and memoirists as a freelance book coach.
Annie and the Wolves - A modern-day historian finds her life intertwined with Annie Oakley's in an electrifying novel that explores female revenge and the allure of changing one's past.
Ruth McClintock is obsessed with Annie Oakley. For nearly a decade, she has been studying the legendary sharpshooter, convinced that a scarring childhood event was the impetus for her crusade to arm every woman in America. This search has cost Ruth her doctorate, a book deal, and her fiance, but finally it has borne fruit. She has managed to hunt down what may be a journal of Oakley's midlife struggles, including secret visits to a psychoanalyst and the desire for vengeance against the "Wolves," or those who have wronged her.
Tickets are free and open to the public. Registration is required.
If you'd like to purchase copies of these books, we hope you'll purchase from Tall Tales Book Shop. To purchase a copy of any of these books, call Tall Tales Books at 404-636-2498, or email them at info@talltalesatlanta.com.
*Adult Programming
AGE GROUP: | Ages 19+ |
EVENT TYPE: | Book Talks | Adults |
Mon, Apr 22 | 9:00AM to 9:00PM |
Tue, Apr 23 | 9:00AM to 9:00PM |
Wed, Apr 24 | 9:00AM to 9:00PM |
Thu, Apr 25 | 9:00AM to 9:00PM |
Fri, Apr 26 | 9:00AM to 9:00PM |
Sat, Apr 27 | 9:00AM to 9:00PM |
Sun, Apr 28 | 9:00AM to 9:00PM |
Virtual events are hosted online. See event description for links to livestreams or videos.
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