Do you have an idea for a session you would like to curate at the Boston Book Festival on October 19, 2013 as part of our "BBF Unbound" series? We are looking for outside groups/individuals who can introduce fresh voices and new ideas to the BBF. Be creative! The one-hour session can involve a debate, demo, workshop, literary improv, dramatic readings, panel discussion, literary games, etc. We are not looking for product promotions, plugs for businesses, or sessions featuring a single author publicizing his or her book.

In 2012, participants presented two highly successful BBF Unbound sessions--one on the impact of books in prison and one on writing by veterans--and this year we're hoping to expand the program to have sessions all day long.

You will be responsible for running your session, i.e., gathering participants, beginning and ending on time, and covering any expenses (beyond room rental and basic A/V). We will publicize your session on our website and in our Program Guide, and we will ask you to publicize it as well.

We will evaluate proposals based on:

1. Will the content appeal to the BBF audience? 
2. Does the content offer something different from standard BBF fare? 
3. Is the individual/group offering a plausible plan for implementing the session? 

In your proposal, please tell us: 

Who You Are  (your name, name of organization [if applicable], your bio, your or your org's website):

Title of Proposed Session:

Description of Session (150 words max):

Intended Audience:

Implementation Plan (400 words max, including answers to the following questions:  If there are expenses associated, how will you fund your session? How will you guarantee your proposed participants' involvement? How will you communicate your plans and needs to BBF staff? Through what channels will you publicize your session?):

Participants:

Moderator/Emcee:

Audiovisual Requirements:

Deadline for Application: July 15

Notification: August 15

Questions?: Contact Norah Piehl, 617-714-4748, norah@bostonbookfest.org

Submit all materials (including samples of previous work, if applicable), to:

 Norah Piehl, Deputy Director
Boston Book Festival
1100 Massachusetts Ave., Suite 300B
Cambridge, MA  02138
norah@bostonbookfest.org

We are excited that two of the most creative and inspiring people working in the literary arts today will be joining the Lounge Lit line-up. Neil Gaiman and Chip Kidd Discuss Make Good Art  will be held at A.R.T.'s Oberon on Wednesday, June 5 at 6:30. Neil Gaiman--author of popular novels such as American Gods, Stardust, Coraline, and The Sandman--has a truly prolific output including screenplays, children's fiction, and graphic novels in addition to his highly acclaimed fiction. Chip Kidd is renowned as a jacket cover designer and author (he also designed the first ever BBF commemorative poster!). 

Make Good Art, originally a commencement speech by Gaiman, has been turned into an intricately designed book under Kidd's artistic eye. This intimate evening with two exceptional artists will give special insight into their creative processes and provide nuggets of wisdom for artists at all stages. For the full details and to purchase tickets, visit the event page here. 

Once again, Boston Book Festival is proud to be a screening sponsor at IFF Boston 2013. Be sure to check out the following BBF-sponsored titles!

Nicholas Wrathall's Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
Date: 4/27/2013
Time: 3:30pm
Location: Brattle Theatre
Buy Tickets

Featuring one-on-one interviews with the late Gore Vidal, The United States of Amnesia is an intriguing documentary and tribute to the controversial American writer. Additional intimate interviews of Vidal's friends and family along with footage from his on-air career provide insight into his life as a top critic and thinker. The documentary will also be screened at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. 

Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing
Date: 4/27/2013
Time: 4:00pm
Location: Somerville Theatre
Buy Tickets

Based on Shakespeare's play of the same name, Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and has since been making its way through the film circuit, with its US premiere at the 2013 South by Southwest Film Festival. The film has been praised for its humorous and emotionally resonant adaptation of a Shakespearean classic. The theatrical release is scheduled for June 2013. 

Prison Book Program's latest project is a city-wide Book Drive taking place on Saturday April 13. Are your bookshelves bursting at the seams? Do you have books you'd like to donate to a good cause? The Prison Book Program and the City Mission Society are joining forces for the sixth time to make it easier than ever for gently used books to benefit others by presenting The Great American Book Drive^TM.

So bring us your books! On April 13, we'll be taking over The NonProfit Center (89 South Street, Boston - one block from South Station) as our book drive hub. Help spread the word about this event to family and friends with our handy fliers, or by sending an email, or share the info on Facebook. Many individuals and organizations perform "pre-drives" gathering up books in advance at offices, community locations, churches and temples and then deliver the books on April 13. We even have a book drive kit available to help you promote your drive.

Full details are available at: http://www.prisonbookprogram.org/bookdrive/

Old School Comfort Food with Alex Guarnaschelli: Thursday, April 11, 6pm-8pm
Trident Booksellers & Café, 338 Newbury Street, Boston

Food Network favorite, executive chef, and newly-crowned Iron Chef Alex Guarnaschelli is publishing her first cookbook, Old School Comfort Food: The Way I Learned to Cook. Join Alex for a fun evening of cooking demonstrations, family stories, and a glimpse at her 100 time-tested recipes that you can make in your own home. What's the worst thing Alex has ever tasted on Chopped? How does she handle the pressure in Kitchen Stadium? Find out the answers to these questions-and get her tips on how to build your own culinary confidence-at this lively Lounge Lit event. Tickets include free samples of the yummy food from Alex's book!

A Conversation with Damien Echols and Shaka Senghor: Thursday, May 16, 6pm-8pm
MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst St., Cambridge

Time spent in prison has prompted some of the most profound and insightful writing we know, from Don Quixote to Civil Disobedience. Damien Echols-whose nearly twenty years spent in prison as part of the wrongfully-accused "West Memphis Three" was the subject of the documentary West of Memphis-has written a memoir of injustice, compassion, and redemption in Life after Death, which Eddie Vedder has called "a stunning piece of work." He'll be joined in conversation with Shaka Senghor, an MIT Media Lab Director's Fellow, motivational speaker, and youth mentor whose inspirational memoir of his time in and after prison is entitled Writing My Wrongs. Discover the transformative, restorative power of writing in this frank and wide-ranging conversation. This event is co-sponsored with the MIT Media Lab as part of their "Conversations" series. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Prison Book Program. Tickets include a drink ticket and light refreshments.

The Revenge of Literary Team Trivia: Monday, June 17, 6pm-8pm
Tommy Doyle's, One Kendall Square, Cambridge

Last summer's literary pub trivia was hugely popular, wicked hard, and tremendously fun. Have you spent the last several months since then brushing up on your Brontë and studying your Steinbeck? Here's your chance to show off! Meghna Chakrabarti of WBUR's Radio Boston returns as trivia jockey. She'll be handing out prizes (donated by WBUR, BBF, and our partners) for the teams with the top three scores--and there will even be a special prize for the best team name! So get creative, start studying, and join us for even more literary trivia and tidbits-now with 50% more poetry!

Hope to see you at one or more of these Lounge Lit events this spring!

Becca is a third-year student in the honors program at Emerson College pursuing a BFA in writing, literature, & publishing. Her involvement with the festival began two years ago as a volunteer, and her interest has continued since. Becca is writing a thesis as a collection of flash fiction pieces and plans to pursue her MFA shortly after she graduates from Emerson. Her interests currently lie in book design and book crafts. At Emerson, she is the managing editor for Stork Magazine, a biannual literature magazine that strictly publishes fiction. Along with her position at the BBF, she is also an intern for Rose Metal Press. Her favorite (living) authors are Zadie Smith, Don DeLillo, Jonathan Franzen, and Junot Diaz.

Nadine is also a student at Emerson, a first-year graduate student in the publishing and writing master's program. Her hope after graduation is just to get a job, but specifically to work as an acquisitions editor at a genre fiction publisher. She is a proofreader for Redivider and an office assistant in the Emerson College Office of Graduate Admissions. She is new to Boston, and therefore to the festival, because she spent the last four years getting her undergraduate degree in English and economics in Morris, Minnesota. Her favorite authors are Terry Pratchett and Ian Sansom, and her favorite book is Good Omens, with a whole list of others coming in as close seconds.

Amelia is a senior completing a degree in English and philosophy at Boston College. She has volunteered with the BBF for the past three years and is excited to participate in a fuller capacity in the fifth annual festival. At BC she works as a publishing assistant in the undergraduate sociology department, and she has served as an editorial assistant for Voices, an undergraduate sociological publication, and for Professor Sharlene Hesse-Biber as she prepared her most recent book for publication. As a lifelong lover of books, Amelia aims to enter the publishing and editorial industry after graduation. Her favorite contemporary authors are Ian McEwan, Sherman Alexie, Tim O'Brien, and Jan Brett, though she also loves the plays she is reading in her class on Shakespeare.

Whether you're looking for a great book as a gift for someone on your list or as a companion for the long, cold nights of winter ahead, the BBF team has compiled a list of some of the best books we read this year. We hope our favorites will become yours, too!

DEBBIE PORTER, BBF FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Thinking about my favorite recent reads, I realize that many of the most memorable works I've enjoyed  over the last couple years have been memoirs. In addition to memoirs by great BBF presenters like Nick Flynn and Carlos Eire, there were the excellent Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch. The best memoirs succeed, as these do, in turning personal history into art. In addition to the ones mentioned above, two other notables are:

One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina
The blurb by Colum McCann on the cover is correct--this is a portrait of the artist as a young Kenyan. Told in dazzling, impressionistic language, it describes the author's childhood as a middle-class Kenyan who is exquisitely aware of every experience, conversation, sensation. Although the path is far from linear, this bookish, sensitive child and young man becomes a writer. In the process of telling his story, Wainaina paints a dynamic portrait of east and south Africa, with its mutivariate cultures, languages, and tribal affiliations.

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Lives Other Than My Own by Emmanuel Carrere
Emmanuel Carrere describes himself as having been constantly dissatisfied in his life and "laying waste to my loved ones because I always imagine that one day, somewhere else, I'll find something better." That is, until the day he and his girlfriend, along with their respective sons, experience the tsumami in Sri Lanka. Safe on the high ground of their hotel they are untouched by the giant wave, but not so a couple to whom they have become close who lose their four-year-old daughter. The tsumani changes Carrere irrevocably. When he returns home to Paris he confronts another, more personal tragedy--the death from cancer of his girlfriend's sister. Carrere choses to write about the sister, whom he barely knew, and the people close to her as a kind of tribute to love, courage and commitment--values he suddenly esteems above all others. Lives Other Than My Own does not lend itself to easy classification as it is not truly a memoir, but rather nonfiction in which the author plays a part. It is a thought-provoking meditation on the things that matter most.

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NORAH PIEHL, DEPUTY DIRECTOR

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
I'm usually skeptical of YA novels about terminal illness, which often veer toward the maudlin. But I knew that if anyone could pull off a heartbreaking and nevertheless down-to-earth novel about teens with cancer, it would be the masterful John Green. Just like the protagonist Hazel, I fell in love with the inimitable Augustus Waters, whose quirky and optimistic spirit saves the day despite looming tragedy. Green's novel abounds with moments of grace and truth, as well as unexpected humor and unabashed romanticism: "I fell in love the way you fall asleep; slowly, then all at once." I admit I sobbed at the end of this book, but the heartache is evoked by emotional honesty, not emotional manipulation.

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Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck
Speck--a co-author of the landmark book Suburban Nation--convincingly and inspiringly makes the case that improving a city's pedestrian experience dramatically enhances overall quality of life, not to mention affords a bounty of associated environmental and economic benefits. Speck points out the folly of many recent (and expensive) city planning decisions and makes even the most seemingly mundane topics--from the width of traffic lanes to the timing of crosswalk signals to the distribution of street trees--both fascinating to consider and critical to address. Most importantly, Speck offers readers whose cities are far from walkable an arsenal of ideas and arguments to make the case for walkability. You'll never view your neighborhood the same way again.

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Gold by Chris Cleave
Feeling nostalgic for the Olympics? Relive all the drama (and then some) with this nailbiter set in the elite world of competitive cycling. Set amid the British trials for the Olympic track cycling team, Cleave's novel offers suspenseful sports writing at its best, while simultaneously considering the nature of friendship, sacrifice, and genuine strength and courage.

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SARAH HOWARD PARKER, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
I spend a fair amount of time reading aloud, so I'm always grateful for children's books that make me laugh. This is bound to become a bedtime favorite--a simple tale of a bear looking for his hat in a forest full of animals (some more honest than others). 

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Bright Brave Phenomena by Amanda Nadelberg
Nadelberg's poetry is like a good song lyric--modern, fidgety, and a bit whimsical. She may not be as accessible as Billy Collins, but something about her writing strikes a familiar chord, while offering an entirely fresh, and indeed bright, perspective.

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The Beginners by Rebecca Wolff
This mysterious coming-of-age story follows two teenage girls as they latch onto the newest (and weirdest) residents of their sleepy, creepy New England town. Wolff's first novel recalls vividly the innocence and fragility of adolescence, as well as the darkness and confusion that muddy the boundaries of age, and in this case, time and reality.

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HENRIETTE LAZARIDIS POWER, EDITOR, THE DRUM LITERARY MAGAZINE

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
A truly moving book that continuously surprised me in the way O'Neill conveys ideas, emotions, and truths so that they seem at once familiar and revelatory.

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Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
Excellent in the detail of personality, class, and culture. You wince at the characters' bad behavior but you ache for things to turn out all right for them.

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The Keep by Jennifer Egan
Egan plays with various conventions of the novel form--the sensation novel, the prison novel, the Victorian sprawler--while creating a narrative that is contemporary and compelling. It's fascinating to watch her push the form, as if she's trying to see what more it can be capable of.

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SANTIAGO NOCERA, BBF INTERN

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
I started 2012 off by picking this book up on the first day of the year. Bel Canto has been one of my favorite books for a long time, so I was looking forward to reading another Patchett novel. State of Wonder is gorgeous and Patchett's writing is as beautiful as the tropical rainforest in which the story takes place. It's a slow read, and occasionally gets bogged down in a bit of science, but by the end Patchett creates a world so foreign and beautiful it's hard to put the book down and return to reality.

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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
I can't believe this is my first Murakami novel, but I've been convinced to read more after this. They way Murakami explores the (literal) depths of the human mind and human consciousness is astounding. It's hilarious, powerful, and easily one of the strangest books I've ever read.

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Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
I love novels with intersecting narratives, and McCann's Let the Great World Spin does just that as he explores several lives in 1973 New York City. Not all of the narratives are equally effective, but the finished product is a powerful collection of ordinary lives tied together by extraordinary events.

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SHANNON LEBLANC, BBF INTERN

One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life by Bliss Broyard
My nonfiction workshop at Emerson College has been reading this book all semester and it's a fascinating study of nonfiction, the history of race relations in the United States, and personal identity. Broyard, daughter of the late NY Times writer Anatole Broyard, learns after her father's death that he, and her family, are actually part Creole. The book dives deep into United States history, Anatole's family and personal history, and, ultimately, explores questions of personal, professional, and racial identity on both an individual and societal level. Bliss weaves the personal memoir and her research effortlessly, creating a captivating read. 

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When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations of Voice by Terry Tempest Williams
After discovering that all of the journals her mother left Williams were blank, Williams dissects voice and what it means to be a woman with multiple identities, each with its own particular voice. This book reads like poetry, detailing nature, the environment, and emotions with powerful language. William's prose and reflections allows readers to evaluate their sense of voice and personal identity. 

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House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday 
In this novel, Abel, a young Native American man, leaves his reservation and ancestral homelands to serve in World War II, jail, and a string of jobs in Los Angeles. What he learns about himself, his ties to nature and his homeland, and his Native American identity, is the foundation of Momaday's book. Momaday weaves various viewpoints with beautiful, poetic prose to create a view of Abel and his world that has been affected and shaped by history and adversity. 

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MARLENE PEREZ, BBF INTERN

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
Calvino manages to use the second person voice masterfully, weaving you, the reader, in and out of stories of different styles and genres. This novel is a beautiful postmodern reflection on the experience of reading.

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The Passion According to D.H. by Clarice Lispector
A wealthy Brazilian woman has a mystical crisis that involves a cockroach and a mental breakdown. This story is both maddening and enlightening.

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"What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" by Raymond Carver
A short story from a collection under the same title. I think this story is a brilliantly written and thoughtful, though negative, view on love. I plan to read the entire collection of stories very soon.

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With nearly four dozen sessions and almost 150 world-class presenters, BBF 2012 is bound to satisfy, but we have a few tips to help you make even more of the day.

Plan ahead. Check out our schedule grid online (it'll also be on a massive banner in Copley Square), plan your personal schedule for the day, and plan to arrive early for the sessions that are most important to you-admission for everything except pre-registered seminars and the keynote is on a first come-first served basis, and even our biggest venues fill up!

Buy your tickets today. Richard Ford's keynote is an entirely ticketed event. Tickets are just $10 and are available online until 9am on Friday, October 26-after that they'll be available at our merchandise booths in Copley Square and at Old South Church while supplies last. Buy why take your chances? Order advance tix while you still can.

Print your tickets. If you do purchase advance tickets to the keynote, be sure to print your e-tickets at home before heading out for the day!

T it, drive it, park it. Copley Square is just steps from the Copley T stop on the green line or a short walk from the Back Bay orange line/commuter rail station. Or, if you plan to drive, take advantage of the terrific parking deal from our friends at LAZ parking--just make sure to print your voucher before leaving home!

Dress for the weather. The BBF has dozens of great activities, indoors and out, but we all know that New England autumn is unpredictable at best. Check the weather forecast and pack accordingly-it sounds like Hurricane Sandy will hold off until next week, but the BBF proceeds, whatever the weather!

Visit our booksellers. Book signings follow every session, thanks to our friends at Harvard Book Store, Brookline Booksmith, Porter Square Books, Trident Booksellers, and Wellesley Booksmith! Their sales tables will be open in our venues all day--stop by, say hi, and buy a book or two!

Stop by the BBF Pavilion. The hub of Saturday's action will be the BBF Pavilion, located right in front of Trinity Church on Copley Square Plaza. It's the location of the main BBF info table, as well as all our cool new merchandise (you'll love this year's umbrellas, totebags, and commemorative posters!). Plus, our presenting partner 90.9 WBUR will be there, as well as the Brookline Booksmith.

Take our survey. Let us know what you think of the BBF! You can take our survey on paper or on your smartphone on-site, or online after the festival. No matter what medium you choose, if you give us your e-mail when you complete your survey, you'll have a chance to win a new iPad!

And most importantly, have fun! You'll be in the company of thousands of other book lovers at New England's largest literary event. Relax, take it all in, and enjoy this opportunity to mix and mingle with folks who love books and reading just as much as you do!

Admission to all daytime events on October 27 is free. The Keynote with Richard Ford at 6:00 pm at Old South Church will be a ticketed event. Tickets are only $10. We anticipate high demand, so get your tickets here, now. We'll also have a limited supply available at the BBF, but why wait? Guarantee yourself a seat by ordering online today.

BBF members who join by Oct. 19 can also receive a free ticket to the keynote, as well as terrific year-round benefits. Join today!

Tickets to Page to Screen, our kick-off event on Friday, October 26 at 7:30 p.m., are also available now and selling fast! The event brings together Buzz Bissinger, Rachel Cohn, Andre Dubus, Nick Flynn, and Daniel Handler--all authors whose books have been adapted for film and television. You can read more about the event and purchase tickets here.

We're looking forward to seeing you at Page to Screen on October 26 and at the Boston Book Festival on October 27!

Book to Film is a new series co-sponsored by the BBF and our colleagues at ArtsEmerson. Together, we've curated a two-weekend series of films based on popular and award-winning books for adults and children. Screenings will take place at ArtsEmerson's state-of-the-art Bright Family Screening Room at the Paramount Center.

Tickets for each film are available for just $10 ($7.50 for ArtsEmerson members) and are on sale now at ArtsEmerson's web site.

Buy Tickets Now!

Book to Film Series Schedule

	Friday, Oct. 12, 6 p.m. Friday Night Lights Directed by Peter Berg While it eventually found success as a beloved television series, the original film was based on Buzz Bissinger’s book by the same title. In the economically depressed town of Odessa, Texas, there’s little to look forward to except Friday night high school football games. When the star suffers a debilitating injury, hope seems lost until Coach Gary Gaines (played by Billie Bob Thornton) rallies the team to overcome their setbacks and depend on each other in order to make it to the state championships.
	Friday, Oct. 12, 9 p.m. Mystic River Directed by Clint Eastwood Nominated for numerous awards, both Sean Penn and Tim Robbins won Oscars for their performances as the father of a murdered teenage girl and her suspected killer. Although the production company wanted the movie to be shot in Canada, director Clint Eastwood insisted on making the film in Boston, the original setting of Dennis Lehane’s gripping thriller about three childhood friends whose lives once again intersect through tragedy. Rolling Stone praised Eastwood’s film as unforgettable: “You can't shake it. It's that haunting, that hypnotic.
	Saturday, Oct. 13, 1 p.m. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Directed by Brad Silberling Jude Law as Lemony Snicket narrates this black comedy enjoyed by all ages, based on the best-selling books by Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler). The happy childhood of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire swiftly comes to an end when their parents die in a fire, leaving them orphaned-and with a huge fortune, but only when the oldest child comes of age. Sent to live with their greedy and strange distant relative, the out-of-work-actor Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), the siblings soon realize that he wants their fortune for himself. With the help of their paranoid Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep) and snake-adoring Uncle Monty (Billy Connolly), the Baudelaire children manage to avoid his murderous plans.;
	Saturday, Oct. 13, 6 p.m. The House of Sand and Fog Directed by Vadim Perelman A quarrel over real estate escalates into unexpectedly tragic consequences. Based on the novel of the same name by Andre Dubus III, this quiet psychological drama slowly gets under your skin; when recovering addict Kathy (played by Jennifer Connelly) is mistakenly evicted from her house, she finds herself driven to extremes to reclaim her property despite the fact that it has been auctioned off to an Iranian family. Ben Kinsgley plays Colonel Massoud Behrani, a former Iranian military officer, who desperately tries to maintain the appearance of financial success for his family and refuses to negotiate with Kathy. The film deftly explores the motivations of each character without casting any of them as the villain. Both Connelly and Kingsley are deeply moving, but the standout performance is Shohreh Aghdashloo who plays Nedereh, Behrani's wife, a sheltered, gracious woman who reaches out to Kathy only to pay the ultimate price.
	Saturday, Oct. 13, 9 p.m. Gone, Baby, Gone Directed by Ben Affleck Ben Affleck's strikingly assured directorial debut feature based on Dennis Lehane's unsettling novel is set in his hometown of Boston. Two young private detectives (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) are hired to investigate the kidnapping of four-year-old Amanda McCready. As they are pulled deeper into the world of dealers, gangs, and child molesters, they eventually unearth the answer to Amanda's disappearance, presenting them with an untenable moral dilemma. A film of enormous power and gritty realism, with an Oscar-nominated performance by Amy Ryan as Amanda's derelict mother.
	Sunday, Oct. 14, 1 p.m. Election Directed by Alexander Payne Student body elections in a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska, wreak mayhem in the lives of teacher and student alike. Popular high school history and civics teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) resents overachiever Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon)-the obsessive and manipulative student who got Jim's best friend fired after having an affair with him, and the only candidate for student body president. Under the guise of hoping to establish a more democratic election, Jim convinces varsity football player Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) to run against Tracy. As events spiral out of control, Jim will stop at nothing to prevent Tracy from winning the title.
	Friday, Oct. 19, 6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21, 1 p.m. Watchmen Directed by Zach Snyder Based on one of the most seminal graphic novels ever written, Alan Moore's Watchmen is more of an investigation of the nature of power than a mere comic book (originally released in 1986 as a series of twelve issues). Directed by Zack Snyder, the film is set in an alternate history during the 1980s where the U.S. has won the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon is President as the Cold War threatens to escalate. As anti-vigilante sentiment grows, the Watchmen must rally to prevent nuclear catastrophe.
	Friday, Oct. 19, 9 p.m. Persepolis Directed by Vincent Paronnaud Based on Marjane Satrapi's bestselling autobiographical graphic novel, this animated film follows Satrapi as an outspoken Iranian girl living through the 1979 revolution. Initially delighted with the end of the Shah's regime, as Marji grows up under the rule of Islamic fundamentalists she becomes more vocal about the injustice of the new forms of repression. Worried that her opinions will cause her problems, Marji's family sends her to Vienna to study. Coming of age in a foreign culture and plagued by troubling disappointments, Marji returns to Iran only to discover that both she and her homeland have changed, and she must decide where she belongs.
	Saturday, Oct. 20, 1 p.m. Howl's Moving Castle Directed by Hiyao Miyazaki Award-winning Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) delivers another visually breathtaking story with Howl's Moving Castle. 18-year-old Sophie strikes up an expected friendship with Howl, a peculiar wizard whose home has the power to travel. But their friendship angers a witch, who in retaliation turns the pretty Sophie into a decrepit old woman. With help of the fire demon Calcifer and Howl's other magical companions, Sophie sets off to find a way to reverse the witch's spell and return to her former self-visiting other worlds and dimensions along the way. Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, Lauren Bacall, and Billy Crystal comprise the English-speaking voiceover cast.
	Saturday, Oct. 20, 6 p.m. V for Vendetta Directed by James McTeigue A near-future dystopian thriller adapted from the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V for Vendetta takes place in a London where a corrupt, abusive dictatorial government has come into power. The ordinary Evey (Natalie Portman) finds herself thrown into the fight against the totalitarian state when she becomes the unlikely ally of freedom fighter V (Hugo Weaving) after he rescues her from a run-in with the secret police. Caped and masked (with the face of Guy Fawkes), V rebels against the fascist regime by using his own terrorist tactics.
	Saturday, Oct. 20, 9 p.m. Ghost World Directed by Terry Zwigoff In one of the smartest adaptations of a comic book ever brought to screen, best friends Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) search for what to do with themselves the summer after high school graduation. As Enid and Rebecca search for their grown-up identities, they begin to drift apart and into other, more complicated, relationships. Directed by Terry Zwigoff with a screenplay by Daniel Clowes based on his comic book of the same name, the film reveals the agonies of adolescent uncertainty and the changing nature of friendship without ever patronizing its young subjects.

Buy Tickets Now!

Book lovers and cinephiles alike love to argue the merits of film adaptations of beloved books. But who's more invested in this process than the book authors themselves? The Boston Book Festival kicks off BBF 2012 on Friday, October 26 at 7:30 pm with a very special conversation among five authors whose book-length works have been turned into films and television shows.

Co-sponsored by the Boston Phoenix and moderated by Wesley Morris, Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic for the Boston Globe, the event will feature Buzz Bissinger (Friday Night Lights), Rachel Cohn (Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist), Andre Dubus III (The House of Sand and Fog), Nick Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City/Being Flynn), and Daniel Handler (A Series of Unfortunate Events).

We'll play clips from the films under discussion and hear first-hand from authors about their books' journeys from page to screen. There will also be plenty of time for audience questions, followed by a book signing at which the conversation can continue.

BBF's Page to Screen kick-off event will be held in the beautiful sanctuary at Old South Church, 645 Boylston St. Tickets are only $15 and are available for purchase online now.

The discussion sets the stage for a weekend all about books and ideas-make plans now to attend this special evening and the full day of presentations to follow at the BBF on October 27!

Over our first three years, the Boston Book Festival's keynote sessions have quickly gained a reputation for being stimulating, dynamic, even provocative--and certainly never boring! When the 2012 edition of the BBF hits town on October 27, we can promise that our two keynotes--one for kids, one for adults--will continue this tradition.

2012 Boston Book Festival Keynote: Richard Ford

2012's Boston Book Festival keynote will be delivered by award-winning novelist and short story writer Richard Ford. Ford is best known for his Frank Bascombe novels, including Independence Day, the first novel ever to win both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize. His latest work, Canada, has been called by Lorrie Moore "a hearty meal of a novel." It is indeed a supremely satisfying, beautifully introspective novel about loss and progress, about the ongoing process of making sense of one's past in order to proceed into the future. 

2012 Boston Book Festival Kids' Keynote: Lemony Snicket

This year's kids' keynote will be delivered by the elusive and mysterious Lemony Snicket, author of the wildly popular Series of Unfortunate Events. This October, he'll be publishing Who Could That Be At This Hour? the first volume of his autobiography, an account that shouldn't be published, in four volumes that should never be read. Does attending this year's kids' keynote require bravery? Or foolhardiness? We'll let you be the judge of that.

Richard Ford and Lemony Snicket will headline an illustrious line-up that includes dozens of other authors we'll be revealing over the coming weeks. Visit our presenters' page to learn more about our keynote speakers and their work, and mark your calendars now for October 27--the full day of programs, for kids and adults alike, is not to be missed.

Debbie Porter, BBF Founder and Executive Director

Canada by Richard Ford
I am about halfway through Richard Ford's Canada, about a teenager whose life changes as the result of a tragic act of bad judgement on the part of his parents. It is a serious and masterfully written novel about isolation, alienation, character, childhood, and memory set in the unforgiving environment of the American West. 

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We the Animals by Justin Torres
I have also begun We the Animals, a semi-autobiographical novel by Justin Torres. It will be a quick read, not only because it's short, but also because it is captivating. Like Canada, it is about family, memory, and growing up poor with parents who are a mismatched and, in this case, highly volatile couple.

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Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada
Next on my list of summer reading is Alone in Berlin, by Hans Fallada. Written in 1947, it has been described by Primo Levi as "the greatest book ever written on German Resistance to the Nazis."

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Norah Piehl, Director of Communications and Development

Living, Thinking, Looking by Siri Hustvedt
Short forms like essays and short stories are perfect for dipping into on summer vacations, and Hustvedt is a master of the essay form. Here she brings together more than thirty essays written between 2006 and 2011 on the intersections of life, philosophy, and the visual arts, all written in vibrantly intellectual prose that will make readers feel entertained, energized, and maybe even just a little bit smarter.

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The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Gilded Age by Claire McMillan
2012 marks the 150th anniversary of Edith Wharton's birth, and the old girl still feels as relevant and timely as ever in these debut novels inspired by her most famous works. The Innocents re-sets The Age of Innocence in East London's young Jewish community, and Gilded Age uses The House of Mirth as a jumping-off point to skewer the social mores of present-day monied Cleveland. If you like your summer reading breezy but with some literary underpinnings, you can't do much better than these two novels.

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The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
Louise Brooks, the quintessential flapper, got her start in life in Wichita, Kansas. This vibrant historical novel imagines Louise's first trip to the big city, during which her respectable middle-aged chaperone, who's been entrusted with preserving Louise's tenuous virtue, winds up breaking a few taboos of her own.

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Sarah Howard Parker, Director of Operations

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
This book has been getting a ton of great press lately, and for good reason. The story of a marriage gone south is full of unreliable narrators, mystery, and lots of last-minute twists that made me want to
go back and read it all over again as soon as I finished. If you're on the library waiting list for Gone Girl, check out Flynn's earlier books Dark Places and Sharp Objects.

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You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik
Controversial and seemingly based on true events, Maksik's novel paints a picture of a morally conflicted American teacher in Paris. Indulgent and provocative.


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Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson
Another unreliable narrator! Christine is an amnesiac who wakes each day not knowing where she is. She leaves herself clues before going to sleep in the hopes of eventually piecing the puzzle together. Ironically, you will not be able to go to sleep until you finish this book.

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Henriette Lazaridis Power, Editor, The Drum Literary Magazine

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
Set in North Korea, Johnson's novel leads you into a nightmarish world where things are real simply because the Dear Leader says they are. You want the book to end so you can escape, but you also can't get enough of Johnson's writing.

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Broken Harbor by Tana French
French's In the Woods, The Likeness, and Faithful Place were the literary high points of my past three summers, so I'm eagerly awaiting the July release of her fourth novel. French's daisy-chain approach, centering each novel around a minor character in the previous one, draws you closer to a group of characters you think you know well.

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Santiago Nocera, BBF Intern

Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer
Lehrer's latest book is a look into, as the title says, the way that creativity works. Looking at creativity through neuroscience, Imagine explores the brain's capacity for fostering creativity and inspiration. It's a broad topic, but Lehrer maintains focus by linking science with real life stories such as Bob Dylan's source of inspiration, the creation of the Swiffer, and more. And while the text definitely gets into some complex neuroscience terminology, Lehrer does a great job in making sure the material is well explained and accessible to even the most right-brained readers.

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The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
I'd been meaning to pick up last year's Orange Prize winner for over a year, and the wait was well worth it. Obreht's first novel alternates between present day reality and fantastical folk tales, and the combination allows for an interesting balance on the edge of magical realism. Each passage in The Tiger's Wife is bursting with details, and Obreht's imagination seems to have no limits. The folk tales throughout the novel are stories within the story, and while Obreht doesn't tie everything up with a nice bow at the end, the mystery of it all is what makes her novel so intriguing.

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The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness by Joel ben Izzy
This is on my list of books to reread this summer. It's a tiny, beautiful memoir about perseverance and the power of storytelling. Joel ben Izzy, a professional storyteller, loses his voice to cancer and with it his passion and career. This is the story of how ben Izzy learned to find happiness without a voice. His story is inspiring, but what makes The Beggar King stand out is that ben Izzy introduces each new chapter with a short, and beautifully told, fable or story. Each chapter of the memoir is emphasized by a fictional story that helped ben Izzy cope with his distress and find the secret of happiness. It's short enough and interesting enough to read in one sitting, but the short chapters resemble individual short stories that are best read one at a time.

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Shannon LeBlanc, BBF Intern

The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
I know I'm probably that last person on earth to read this series, but I usually have a difficult time with these kind of texts. However, Harry Potter eventually won me over, so I'm hoping the same thing will happen here.

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Boneshaker by Jan Beatty
I had the pleasure of meeting the poet and receiving a signed copy at AWP this year and her book has been on my "to read" list since then. I think all writers, regardless of genre, should read poetry. Jan was one of the friendliest people I've ever met, and I'm really excited to start reading her book.

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The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch 
This memoir details Yuknavitch's abusive parents and the swimming scholarship that allows her to escape her fractured homelife; however, drug addiction eventually causes her to lose her scholarship. As a former competitive swimmer, I'm interested to see how Yuknavitch writes about swimming and how she mixes these descriptions and information with her prose and her story's progression.

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Three Day Road by Joseph Boydon
This was one of the first books I read this summer, and it was a captivating read. Boydon's two main characters are Crees who leave Northern Canada to serve in World War I. The book is told in a series of flashbacks and sometimes alternating points of views, but various complex themes make it both poetic, haunting, and thought-provoking. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in historical fiction.

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Marlene Perez, BBF Intern

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
I only wished that I had not watched season one of HBO's series based on the book, because the TV series is right on point. This made the book that much harder to read because the TV series was so accurate to the book's portrayal of character, plot, etc. Otherwise, the book was great in that Martin has created his own world, full of characters (remembering their names and connections is the hardest part), lands, cities, monsters, and of course a battle to win the throne.

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Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
So far, this book is really wonderful in that it is gripping from the very beginning but still wants to be read slowly. It reads how I imagine any vampire would like to be read.

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Dracula by Bram Stoker
I have to keep the vampire theme up!

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Blindness by José Saramago
This one was recommended to me by a professor who mentioned that because it analyzes what it means to be human, many of the characters exhibit zombie-like qualities, making them, in some way, zombies in literature.

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Katy Berk, BBF Intern

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
As a recent graduate myself, I’m so drawn in by Eugenides’ protagonists. They stumble, mess up and generally claw through the early eighties and their early twenties in a humorous, melodramatic, and absolutely realistic way. Makes me excited for the next four years!

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Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Ethopia and surgery. Two topics that seem neither beautiful nor literary and yet Verghese makes them both sing. After finishing I dreamed of visiting Addis Adaba; however, not even his gorgeous prose on medicine could steer me towards med school.

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