28 Award-Winning Authors Set for Morristown Festival of Books

The second annual Morristown Festival of Books is shaping up to be a real page-turner.

The organizing committee has announced its lineup of authors for October event, including 28 critically-acclaimed professionals, four of which with Pulitzer Prize wins on their resumes.

The event, scheduled for Friday, Oct. 2 and Saturday, Oct. 3, is open to the public. The only paid portion of the event comes Friday night during the keynote speaker address at Mayo Performing Arts Center, where Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists will interact with the crowd and speak about their books.

The 28 authors range the worlds of fiction, non-fiction, children’s, and young adult genres.

From the Morristown Festival of Books, the lineup includes:

NON-FICTION

Eric Asimov (Featured title: How to Love Wine: A Memoir and Manifesto)
With intelligence and wit, the author discusses wine trends and questions conventional wine wisdom. Plus learn how he went from writing beer reviews for his high school newspaper to becoming the wine critic for the New York Times.

Rose Levy Beranbaum (Featured title: The Baking Bible)
All-new recipes for the best cakes, pies, tarts, cookies, candies, pastries, and breads from the woman who’s been called “the most meticulous cook who ever lived.”

Nancy Berner & Susan Lowry (Featured title: Gardens of the Garden State)
In this glorious tour of the stunning public and private gardens of New Jersey, the authors look at the state’s history, culture, and complex topography.

Bryan Burrough (Featured title: Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence)
An explosive account of the decade-long battle between the FBI and the homegrown revolutionary movements of the 1970s.

Dana Goldstein (Featured title: The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession)
A sweeping look at how public education and the teaching profession have evolved and where we may be headed—including hot-button topics, such as standardized testing.

A. J. Jacobs (Work in Progress: It’s All Relative)
Join A.J. on his unprecedented quest to create the most extensive family tree ever, proving that we’re all part of one big (dysfunctional) family. He may even include you and your family in his upcoming book!

Edward J. Larson (Featured title: The Return of George Washington: 1783–1789)
A groundbreaking chronicle of how George Washington came out of retirement four years after the War of Independence to lead a country on the brink of dissolution and secure its future.

Laura Schenone (Featured title: The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family)
The author’s quest from New Jersey to Italy to find her great-grandmother’s long-lost recipe uncovers a mythic love story and age-old culinary secrets.

Gail Sheehy (Featured title: Daring: My Passages: A Memoir)
Sheehy chronicles her life as a groundbreaking “girl” journalist in the 1960s, an iconic guide for women seeking to have it all, and one of the premier political profilers of modern times.

Héctor Tobar (Featured title: Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free)
A gripping narrative of the thirty-three trapped Chilean miners, which deftly moves between the waking nightmares of the buried men and the anguish of their families on the surface. [“The 33” starring Antonio Banderas—the much-anticipated movie based on the book—will be in theaters in November!]

FICTION

Jami Attenberg (Featured title: Saint Mazie: A Novel)
The spirited story of Mazie Phillips—a bawdy, big-hearted broad who runs a New York theater from the Jazz Age through Prohibition and into the Great Depression.

Emily St. John Mandel (Featured title: Station Eleven)
A spellbinding story set in the days of civilization’s collapse that tells the suspenseful tale of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors who risk everything for art and humanity.

Kimberly McCreight (Featured title: Where They Found Her)
For fans of Gone Girl, this is an emotionally powerful novel of psychological suspense featuring a dead baby and a diligent reporter.

Chris Pavone (Featured title: The Accident)
A fast-paced thriller set in the world of high-stakes publishing and international intrigue that delivers nail-biting suspense.

Emily Schultz (Featured title: The Blondes)
A hilarious and whip-smart novel where an epidemic of a rabies-like disease is carried only by blonde women, all of whom must go to great lengths to conceal their true hair color.

Christopher Scotton (Featured title: The Secret Wisdom of the Earth)
A captivating modern morality tale and coming-of-age story set in Kentucky’s coal country that has been likened to Peace like a River and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Akhil Sharma (Featured title: Family Life)
An unnerving and tender story of a young boy struggling to grow within a family shattered by loss and disoriented by their recent immigration to America from India.

Asali Solomon (Featured title: Disgruntled)
A startling coming-of-age tale set in Philadelphia in the late eighties and early nineties that examines the impossible double binds of race.

Tiphanie Yanique (Featured title: Land of Love and Drowning)
An epic saga covering six decades and three generations of a family that is set against the magic and the rhythms of the Virgin Islands and draws upon the author’s own family history.

CHILDREN’S

Jeff Campbell (Featured title: Daisy to the Rescue: True Stories of Daring Dogs, Paramedic Parrots, and Other Animal Heroes)
Delight in this collection of fifty short stories about heroic animals who bring love and companionship but who also save lives.

Gordon Korman (Featured title: The Dragonfly Effect)
The third book in the middle-grade trilogy The Hypnotists is a heart-stopping adventure about a mesmerizing kid who uses his gift of hypnotism to combat the forces of evil.

Tara Lazar (Featured title: I Thought This Was a Bear Book)
When an alien crashes into the story of “The Three Little Bears,” it’s a laugh-out-loud adventure and a classic storybook mash-up.

Rosemary Wells (Featured title: Use Your Words, Sophie)
From the creator of Max and Ruby, an enchanting story of spirited Sophie who knows lots of words but doesn’t always use them—it’s more fun to speak in hyena talk or space language!

YOUNG ADULT

Susane Colasanti (Featured title: City Love)
Three teenage girls learn to navigate their hearts and NYC in the first book in a captivating new romantic YA trilogy.
[Ages 14+]

Kendall Kulper (Featured title: Drift & Dagger)
A teen sea captain, who lives as an outsider in a world of magic, is bent on revenge against the girl who destroyed his life...
[Ages 12+]

Sarah Darer Littman (Featured title: Backlash)
A realistic young adult novel that takes an absorbing look at cyber bullying, as a group of students discover that what happens online doesn’t always stay online.
[Ages 12+]

Tommy Wallach (Featured Title: We All Looked Up)
The lives of four high school seniors (the jock, the slacker, the girl with the bad rep, and the overachiever) intersect after an asteroid is predicted to destroy Earth in seven weeks.
[Ages 14+/mature content]

For more information and full author bios, go to morristownbooks.org.

Pictured: Clockwise, from top left: Gail Sheehy; Ed Larson; Emily St. John Mandel; and Hector Tobar. Photos Courtesy Morristown Festival of Books.