John Hendrickson, senior editor at The Atlantic, takes us on a personal journey of the personal dynamics, professional challenges, and complex issues stutterers like him face daily. An account of perseverance, Life on Delay is a narrative about not giving up, and a glimpse into the process of making peace with our past and present […]
The beloved and celebrated Irish novelist Colm Tóibín makes his return to the Mark Twain House & Museum. Susan Campbell will join him to discuss his new book A Guest at the Feast, a collection of essays about growing up in Ireland during radical change; about cancer, priests, popes, homosexuality, and literature. It is both an […]
Karen Joy Fowler joins us to discuss her new novel about the family behind one of the most infamous figures in American history: John Wilkes Booth. Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, Booth explores the multiple scandals, family triumphs, and criminal disasters of the Booth family. Considered the “Best Book of the Year” by NPR […]
“I came in with Halley’s Comet,” said Mark Twain in 1909, “It is coming again next year. The Almighty has said, no doubt, ‘Now there are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’” He died on April 21, 1910—one day after the comet had once again reached its perihelion. […]
Considered “a life-and-death drama…brimming with malevolence and malfeasance but also humble charity and true nobility,” Empire of Ice and Stone tells the story of the ill-fated 1913 Canadian Artic Expedition of the wooden-hulled brigantine Karluk—considered the last great voyage of “The Age of Discovery.” An exploration of the forces that drive our hearts to extremes, Empire of Ice and Stone is filled […]
In his new biography of Edgar Allan Poe, Mystery of Mysteries, Mark Dawidziak examines the renowned author’s life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes. In a compelling dual-timeline narrative alternating between Poe’s increasingly desperate last months and his brief but impactful life, Mark Dawidziak sheds new light on the enigmatic […]
Thomas will discuss Sink his coming-of-age memoir in which he explores growing up with lessons of toxic masculinity that were drilled into his body and a cycle of violence that permeated the very fabric of his environment. But even in the depths of the isolation this created, there were unexpected moments of joy: from summers […]