Fall for the Book

Event Details

End: September 30, 2016
More Info: http://fallforthebook.org/

Tuesday, 9/27

7 p.m.

Military Historian Edward G. Lengel

Sherwood Community Center, 3740 Old Lee Highway, Fairfax, VA

American Military historian Edward G. Lengel is editor in chief of the Papers of George Washington and a professor at the University of Virginia. He has researched and written extensively on our nation’s first president, and was a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize. His publications include General George Washington: A Military Life, and most recently, First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His-- and the Nation's-- Prosperity, which breaks new ground in the study of Washington’s history and personality. The Journal of the American Revolution says of First Entrepreneur: “It is fascinating, enlightening and very convincing. Highly recommended.” Sponsored by the Virginia Historical Society.

 

Tuesday, 9/27

7 p.m.

Historian Garrett Peck

Kingstowne Library, 6500 Landsdowne Centre Dr, Alexandria, VA

With the 1865 publication of Drum-Taps, Walt Whitman became poet laureate of the Civil War, aligning his legacy with that of Abraham Lincoln. Historian Garrett Peck’s book, Walt Whitman in Washington, D.C.: The Civil War and America's Great Poet, chronicles the Leaves of Grass author’s decade in the Capitol during this period of national upheaval, where he served as a volunteer “hospital missionary,” making more than six hundred hospital visits and serving over eighty thousand sick and wounded soldiers.

 

Wednesday, 9/28

7 p.m.

Journalist Claudia Kalb

City of Fairfax Regional Library, 10360 North St, Fairfax, VA

In her new book, Andy Warhol Was A Hoarder: Inside the Minds of History's Greatest Personalities, journalist Claudia Kalb re-examines monumental historical figures through the lens of modern psychology, weaving together interviews with leading mental health experts, groundbreaking research and historical records. Kalb examines the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and of course, Andy Warhol. Author Edward Hallowell says, the book is “a brilliant and fascinating journey into the perils that so often accompany genius. Spell-binding.” Sponsored by the City of Fairfax Regional Library Friends.

 

Wednesday, 9/28

7 p.m.

Journalist Tom Gjelten

Kings Park Library, 9000 Burke Lake Rd, Burke, VA 22015

Journalist Tom Gjelten covers issues of religion, faith, and belief for NPR News, with a long history of reporting on global conflicts. His 2008 book, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause, was named a “Notable Nonfiction Book,” by the New York Times. His newest title, A Nation of Nations: A Great American Immigration Story, traces the implications of the 1965 Immigration Act, which officially opened the country’s doors to immigrants of color. The Washington Post says of Nations: “Gjelten has produced a compelling and informative account of the impact of the 1965 reforms, one that is indispensable reading at a time when anti-immigrant demagoguery has again found its way onto the main stage of political discourse.” Sponsored by the Friends of the Kings Park Library.

 

Wednesday, 9/28

7:30 p.m.

Historians James McPherson & Edward Ayers

Harris Theater

Two noted historians of the Civil War, James McPherson and Edward Ayers, join in conversation about their work on this important period in American history in a rare event presented by Fall for the Book at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 28, in Harris Theater on Mason’s Fairfax campus.

McPherson, appearing via video conference from Princeton University, will offer observations, growing out of his most recent book, on why the Civil War still matters, and Ayers, who will be on the stage in Harris Theater, will talk about his work on the Reconstruction and its relationship to the war and present time.


Wednesday 9/28

10:30 a.m.

Historian Glenn Altschuler

Sandy Spring Bank Tent, Johnson Center North Plaza

Glenn Altschuler, Professor of American Studies at Cornell University is the author or coauthor of ten books, including Cornell: A History, 1940–2015 and All Shook Up: How Rock 'n' Roll Changed America. His newest book, Ten Great American Trials was co-authored with fellow Cornell professor Faust F. Rossi. It covers ten compelling twentieth-century trials, including Sacco and Vanzetti and O. J. Simpson. Through these ten cases, Altschuller and Faust dissect the conflicting narratives both the prosecution and defense attorneys crafted, and how politics influenced the content and context of the trials. Sponsored by the Department of History and Art History.


Thursday, 9/29

10:30 a.m.

Historian Mark Molesky

Sandy Spring Bank Tent, Johnson Center North Plaza

Mark Molesky is a historian who specializes in the intellectual, cultural, and political history of modern Europe. His book This Gulf of Fire: The Destruction of Lisbon, or Apocalypse in the Age of Science and Reason, chronicles the destruction of Lisbon in 1755 after an estimated 8.5 magnitude earthquake, tsunami, and ensuing fire ripped through the city. A finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was called “a thoroughly absorbing take on a momentous event” by Library Journal, and "[a] masterpiece of nonfiction" by News-Record. Sponsored by Department of History and Art History.


Friday, 9/30

5:30 p.m.

Novelist Ross Howell Jr. and Memoirist Frye Gaillard

The Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD

Ross Howell Jr.’s debut novel Forsaken is set in 1912 Hampton, Virginia during the trial of an uneducated African American girl accused of killing her white employer. As racial tensions roil, a white novice journalist becomes enmeshed in the aftermath. Howell Jr. weaves real court records, letters, newspaper stories, and personal accounts into his narrative to reveal characters both large and small in this tale of the Jim Crow era, and the laws that would shape the world. In his memoir Journey to the Wilderness: War, Memory, and a Southern Family's Civil War Letters, Frye Gaillard examines old letters from family members serving for the Confederacy from the perspective of his generation’s transition from believing the Civil War to be a “glorious lost cause” to viewing it through the lens of civil rights. In this moving and thought-provoking book, Gaillard meditates on the past and the changing identity of the South.  

 

You can find our full schedule at www.fallforthebook.org. Thank you for your time, and have a great day!