Pen / Faulkner Reading Series

Pen/Faulkner Reading Series Book Club

The PEN/Faulkner Reading Series consists of nine public readings held at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the National Cathedral. 

The Book Club is held in conjunction with the series, and will feature discussion of work by featured authors approximately one week before their public readings. (Please note: The authors will NOT be in attendance at the discussions at Politics & Prose.) These sessions will be led by members of the PEN/Faulkner Board of Directors and affiliated writers, and will cover work by a broad range of invited authors, including Gary Shteyngart, Ann Patchett, Emma Donoghue, and Allegra Goodman, among others. 

Book club members will receive access to exclusive PEN/Faulkner pre-reading receptions attended by the authors. Learn more about PEN/Faulkner's roster of authors here. http://www.penfaulkner.org/reading_series.

Wednesday, November 2, 1-3 p.m.
Emma Donoghue and Chris Adrian

(NB: This is a discussion of the authors' work -- Emma Donoghue and Chris Adrian will not be appearing at Politics & Prose, but will be speaking at the Folger Shakespeare Library as part of the PEN/Faulkner Speakers Series.)

Join a literary conversation on two novels: Room, by Emma Donoghue, and The Great Night, by Chris Adrian.  The Washington Post called Donoghue's novel "one of the most affecting and subtly profound novels of the year," and readers have agreed---Donoghue imagines a captive five-year-old whose room is his world.  Adrian is not only a celebrated author who was just chosen one of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40,” but also a practicing pediatric oncologist in San Francisco. His novel places A Midsummer Night's Dream smack in the Mission district, as Titania and Oberon cope with their changeling child's leukemia.

The discussion will be led by award-winning novelist Mary Kay Zuravleff, who is the author of two novels, The Bowl Is Already Broken and The Frequency of Souls, and serves on the board of PEN/Faulkner.        

Price: $40 ($35 P&P members and Reading Series subscribers)

Books:
Room, by Emma Donoghue (Back Bay, $14.99)
The Great Night, by Chris Adrian (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26)

Emma Donoghue & Chris Adrian will read at PEN/Faulkner on Monday, November 7 at 7:30 p.m. Click here for $15 tickets and more information.

Monday, November 21, 1-3 p.m.
Edith Pearlman

(This is a discussion of the author's work -- Edith Pearlman will not be appearing at Politics & Prose, but will be speaking at the Folger Shakespeare Library as part of the PEN/Faulkner Speakers Series.)

Join a board member of the PEN/ Faulkner Foundation for a literary conversation on the short story collection Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman.  Pearlman is this year’s recipient of the PEN/Malamud award for excellence in the art of the short story.  She has written more than 250 works of short fiction and non-fiction and has been published in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Collection, New Stories from the South, and The Pushacart Prize Collection: Best of the Small Presses.

Price: $40 ($35 P&P members and Reading Series subscribers)

Book:
Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories, by Edith Pearlman (Lookout, $18.95)

Edith Pearlman will read at Pen/Faulkner on Friday, December 2 at 7:30 p.m. when she receives the 2011 PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction. Click here for $15 tickets and more information.

Wednesday, November 30, 1-3 p.m.
Gish Jen and Helen Simonson

(This is a discussion of the authors' work -- Gish Jen and Helen Simonson will not be appearing at Politics & Prose, but will be speaking at the Folger Shakespeare Library as part of the PEN/Faulkner Speakers Series.)

Join PEN/Faulkner board member Tracy McGillivary, and PEN/Faulkner’s Deputy Director, Emma Snyder, for a literary conversation on two novels: World and Town, by Gish Jen, and Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson.  Jen is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Lannan Award for Fiction and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  Simonson, a graduate of the London School of Economics and former travel advertising executive, is the author of a bestselling debut set in her native England.

Price: $40 ($35 P&P members and Reading Series subscribers)

Books:

World and Town, by Gish Jen (Vintage, $15.95)
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson (Random House, $15)