This morning, the Texas Book Festival released its lineup for the 2010 fest, which runs Oct. 16-17. Let’s page through the findings, shall we?
TBF was founded by Laura Bush and she serves as its honorary chair, so no surprise then that she’ll appear this year in promotion of her memoir Spoken From the Heart. She’ll be joined by her husband’s former adviser (less kindly known as “Bush’s Brain”), Karl Rove, who put out a memoir of his own in March called Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight.
Also in attendance with a memoir will be native Texan Gail Caldwell, whose elegy to a lost friend Let’s Take the Long Way Home has earned instant weepie status (and is next on our to-read list), and Joseph O’Neill, who shot to fame with Netherland and will be supporting the reissue of Blood-Dark Track: A Family History, about his Turkish and Irish ancestry.
Big-name biographers include S.C. Gwynne (Empire of the Summer Moon, about Comanche chief Quanah Parker) and James McGrath Morris (Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power).
You want fiction? We’ve got some names to throw at you. Like Michael Cunningham, who won the Pulitzer for The Hours and whose new novel, By Nightfall, will be published in October. And Cristina Garcia (Dreaming in Cuban); her The Lady Matador’s Hotel hits bookstores in early September. How about Justin Cronin? If you start now, you just might finish his 784 page sleeper hit The Passage in time to see him talk in October. And Jeff Lindsay, author of Dexter Is Delicious, the latest in his “lovable serial killer” series (the inspiration for the Showtime series).
And we haven’t even gotten to the food stuff – Alton Brown! Amanda Hesser! Diana Kennedy! – or the kiddies – Lupe Ruiz-Flores! Justine Larbalestier!
That’s just the very, very tip of the iceberg. There are about 200 more authors we didn’t mention. But we know where you can find them.
The 15th annual Texas Book Festival runs Oct. 16-17. In coming weeks, we’ll be beefing up our coverage of TBF authors, starting with the profile of Tom Grimes (Mentor) in today’s issue. Watch this space.
This article appears in August 20 • 2010.
