UPDATED MARCH 16: Ms. Didion has been forced to postpone her April 19 appearance. We hope to reschedule for later this year.
Celebrate two of America’s most profoundly thoughtful writers with Arlington Reads 2012, featuring works that look inward with stunning, unconventional frankness.
Time Waits for No One… Writers on Life, Love and Loss
Arlington Reads 2012: Joan Didion and Jennifer Egan, in Person
The legendary Joan Didion is the community read’s featured non-fiction author and will visit the County for a rare public appearance on April 19 at 7 p.m.
Joan Didion: April 19, 2012, 7 p.m. - Washington-Lee Auditorium
Didion has explored American culture and politics with tireless intelligence for half a century but her Arlington Reads title, the recent Blue Nights, is more personal: a piercing elegy on the death of her only child at the age of 39.
Didion’s previous work, the equally mournful The Year of Magical Thinking, won the 2005 National Book Award and she was honored with the Gold Medal for Belles Lettres from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. New York Magazine calls her “probably the most influential” living American essayist.
Didion’s April 19, 7:00 p.m. appearance will take place at Washington-Lee High School Auditorium, in order to accommodate a large turnout.
Arlington Reads 2012 also features Jennifer Egan and her 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad.
Jennifer Egan: April 26, 2012, 7 p.m. - Central Library Auditorium
It’s a brash, unpredictable, darkly funny collection of interlocking narratives that follow characters from the 1970s San Francisco punk scene to a future where solar panels replace lawns and PowerPoint is the new literature. The New York Times calls it a “relentlessly savvy” work with “a sense that human culture is changing at such warp speed that memory itself must adapt to keep pace.”
Egan will speak on April 26 at 7 p.m. at Arlington Central Library Auditorium.
Free parking is available in garages adjacent to both venues, which are also within walking distance of the Virginia Square and Ballston Metrorail stations.
Admission to both programs is free but seating is limited and will be on a first-come, first-served basis.
Arlington Reads is Arlington Public Library’s annual one-theme, one-community initiative to promote discussion and the joy of reading throughout the County.
Arlington Reads is made possible by the Friends of the Arlington Public Library. For more information, please call 703-228-6321.
UPDATED MARCH 16: Ms. Didion has been forced to postpone her April 19 appearance. We hope to reschedule for later this year.
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