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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 Joshilyn Jackson in conversation with Kaitlyn Greenidge and Kirstin Valdez Quade.
Join us for the 2021 Joshilyn Jackson Summer Reading Series presented by the Georgia Center for the Book and the AJC Decatur Book Festival. This year, Joshilyn 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 Joshilyn Jackson in conversation with Kaitlyn Greenidge and Kirstin Valdez Quade.
If you'd like to purchase copies of these books, we hope you'll purchase from Tall Tales Book Shop, our partners for this event. To purchase a copy of any of these books, call Tall Tales Books at 404-636-2498, or email them at info@talltalesatlanta.com.
About Kaitlyn Greenidge:
Kaitlyn Greenidge's debut novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman, was one of the New York Times Critics’ Top 10 Books of 2016 and a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. She is a contributing writer for the New York Times, and her writing has also appeared in Vogue, Glamour, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Greenidge lives in Brooklyn, New York.
The critically acclaimed and Whiting Award–winning author returns with Libertie, an unforgettable story about one young Black girl’s attempt to find a place where she can be fully, and only, herself. Coming of age as a freeborn Black girl in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, Libertie Sampson is all too aware that her purposeful mother, a practicing physician, has a vision for their future together: Libertie is to go to medical school and practice alongside her. But Libertie, drawn more to music than science, feels stifled by her mother’s choices and is hungry for something else—is there really only one way to have an autonomous life?
Inspired by the life of one of the first Black female doctors in the United States and rich with historical detail, Kaitlyn Greenidge’s new and immersive novel will resonate with readers eager to understand our present through a deep, moving, and lyrical dive into our complicated past.
About Kirstin Valdez Quade:
Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of the novel The Five Wounds, and her short story collection, Night at the Fiestas, won the John Leonard Prize from the National Book Critics Circle, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a “5 Under 35” award from the National Book Foundation, and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor at Princeton.
The Five Wounds is Kirstin Valdez Quade's debut novel, about a New Mexican family’s extraordinary year of love and sacrifice. It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path.
The Five Wounds is a miraculous debut novel from a writer whose stories have been hailed as “legitimate masterpieces” (New York Times). Kirstin Valdez Quade conjures characters that will linger long after the final page, bringing to life their struggles to parent children they may not be equipped to save.
Tickets are free and open to the public. Registration is required.
*Adult Programming
AGE GROUP: | Ages 19+ |
EVENT TYPE: | Book Talks |
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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