The Splendor Before the Dark

Margaret George

6:00 PM - Ascending to the throne was only the beginning...

The Snowy Nap

Jan Brett

10:00 AM - Children's author Jan Brett discusses a prequel to the bestselling picture book, The Hat.

Ghosts in the Schoolyard

Eve Ewing

7:00 PM - A book about what schools really mean to Americans and to African-Americans in particular.

The Immortalists

Chloe Benjamin

7:00 PM - If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?

Eternal Life

Dara Horn

7:00 PM - A novel that explores what it might mean to live forever.

Bright Dead Things

Ada Limón

7:00 PM - The latest poems from National Book Award Finalist, Ada Limón

The Philosopher's Flight

Tom Miller

6:00 PM - A fantastical reimagining of American history and a beautifully composed coming-of-age tale.

American Philosophy: A Love Story

John Kaag

7:00 PM - The epic wisdom contained in a lost library helps the author turn his life around.

The Gender Effect

Kathryn Moeller

7:00 PM - UW Professor, Kathryn Moeller, discusses her exploration of women and girls in the new world economy

UW Fiction MFA Graduates Reading

7:00 PM - A reading from the graduating MFA cohort in fiction.

Core Samples From The World

Forrest Gander

6:00 PM - New poems from one of our most formally restless poets.

2018 Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellows Reading

7:00 PM - Poetry and fiction from the 2017-18 Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellows

Gold Fame Citrus

Claire Vaye Watkins

7:00 PM - Unrelenting drought has transfigured Southern California into a surreal, phantasmagoric landscape.

Clean

David Sheff

12:00 PM - A powerful rethinking of the greatest public health challenge of our time.

Sleeping Giant

Tamara Draut

7:00 PM - How a newly energized working class is far along in the process of changing America for the better.

UW Fiction MFA Graduates Reading

7:00 PM - A reading from the graduating MFA cohort in fiction

When

Dan Pink

12:00 PM - Unlock the scientific secrets to good timing to help you flourish at work, at school, and at home.

When

Dan Pink

7:00 PM - A public event with Dan Pink about he scientific secrets to good timing.

The Intellectual in Public Life

Alexander Star

7:00 PM - What is the role of intellectual expertise and debate in public life?

Creative Writing Awards Ceremony

Carrie Lorig

7:00 PM - The 2018 undergraduate and graduate creative writing awards ceremony, featuring poet Carrie Lorig

Somos Latinas: Voices of Wisconsin Latina Activists

Andrea-Teresa Arenas & Eloisa Gómez

1:00 PM - Celebrate the progress of this important oral history project!

So You Want To Talk About Race

Ijeoma Oluo

7:00 PM - A book for people of all colors and backgrounds.

Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead

Cecile Richards, Lauren Peterson

7:00 PM - Richards presents a timely and important message: To make change, you have to make trouble.

Pieces of Her

Karin Slaughter

7:00 PM - Can you ever truly escape your past?

Between Gravity and What Cheer

Barry Phipps

7:00 PM - Iowa-based photographs of abstract shapes and colors, artful signs, and the occasional resident.

Love, InshAllah

Nura Maznavi

7:00 PM - Romance, dating, sex and - Muslim women? 25 American Muslim writers sweep aside stereotypes.

Collected Works of Meg Medina

Meg Medina

7:00 PM - A Latina writer of books for kids of all ages.

Burn Baby Burn

Meg Medina

1:15 PM - Meg Medina will visit schools in the Madison area.

There There

Tommy Orange

7:00 PM - A voice full of poetry and rage, a plague of addiction, abuse, and suicide.

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

Caroline Fraser

6:00 PM - The grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life.

Max Einstein: The Genius Experiment & Ambush

James Patterson

10:00 AM - The world's #1 bestselling author has teamed up with the world's most famous genius.

How to Leave: Quitting the City and Coping with a New Reality

Erin Clune

7:00 PM - Priceless stories of own experiences leaving New York for her hometown in Wisconsin.

2018 Friends of UW-Madison Libraries Book Sale

Friends of UW Libraries

4:00 PM - The largest used book sale in Wisconsin returns this fall!

The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind: Thomas Jefferson’s Idea of a University

Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy

4:30 PM - The 2018 James Madison Lecture about Thomas Jefferson’s revolutionary ideas about higher education

2018 Friends of Madison Public Library Book Sale

Friends of Madison Public Library

9:00 AM - Find great bargains for your home library and support the library!

Madison in the Sixties

Stu Levitan

5:30 PM - Madison in the Sixties details the ten tumultuous years that changed Madison forever

The Great Believers

Rebecca Makkai

5:30 PM - A story of survivors who were forever affected by the AIDS crisis.

The Motherhood Affidavits

Laura Jean Baker

5:30 PM - A beautiful and brave memoir of motherhood and its discontents.

The Tangled Tree

David Quammen

6:00 PM - Recent discoveries in molecular biology can change our understanding of evolution and life's history

Big Ideas for Busy People: Contagion

7:00 PM - 5 minute talks from some of UW-Madison’s biggest brains turning a microscope on microbes

Debut YA Writers Panel

Amelia Brunskill, Adrianne Finlay, Madeline Reynolds

7:00 PM - A panel discussion of debut YA writers living in the Midwest.

The Immortalists

Chloe Benjamin

7:00 PM - If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?

Citizen Illegal

José Olivarez

7:00 PM - Glimpses into life as a first generation immigrant.

Passing the Bass

7:00 PM - celebration of the life and legacy of world-renowned 2014 NEA Jazzmaster Richard Davis

How Are You Going to Save Yourself

JM Holmes

8:30 PM - Four young friends coming of age in the postindustrial enclave of Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Life in the Anthropocene

Erle Ellis

2:00 PM - A discussion of our role in shaping the planet, and how it will influence our future on many fronts

Love, Hate and Other Filters

Samira Ahmed

4:30 PM - A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl whose world is rocked by a domestic terrorism attack.

Science on Paper

Jacki Whisenant

4:30 PM - A look at how science has been visually communicated through the ages.

Writing the Unseen

Rosemary Zurlo-Cuva , Katrin Talbot, Andrea Potos

4:30 PM - How do we write about experience that ties us to something beyond our material lives?

Wisconsin People & Ideas 2018 Fiction and Poetry Contest Reading

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, & Letters

5:00 PM - A reading from the winners of the Wisconsin People and Ideas fiction and poetry contest.

2018 Charlotte Zolotow Awards

Bao Phi

5:00 PM - The Charlotte Zolotow Award is given annually to the author of the best picture book text in the US.

Storm Lake

Art Cullen

6:00 PM - A forward-thinking, hopeful vision of rural America.

Black Queer Hoe

Britteney Black Rose Kapri

6:00 PM - A refreshing, unapologetic look at the line between sexual freedom and sexual exploitation.

What We Were Promised

Lucy Tan

6:00 PM - An exploration of what we owe to our country, our families, and ourselves.

White Dancing Elephants

Chaya Bhuvaneswar

7:00 PM - Centered on the experiences of diverse women of color facing sexual harassment and racial violence.

2018 Charlotte Zolotow Lecture

Benjamin Alire Saenz

7:30 PM - A lecture by multi-award-winning novelist and poet Benjamin Alire Saenz

Where Did You Get This Number?

Anthony Salvanto

7:30 PM - For any American who wants to get a better read on what America is thinking.

The Radium Girls

Kate Moore

7:30 PM - The incredible true story of the women who fought America’s Undark danger.

A Lucky Man

Jamel Brinkley

7:30 PM - In a world shaped by race, gender, and class—luck may be the greatest fiction of all.

Home of the Braves

Patrick Steele

10:30 AM - Why did the Boston Braves leave Milwaukee?

Fearless Women in SF&F

Mary Robinette Kowal, Mirah Bolender, K Arsenault Rivera

10:30 AM - Three fearless women writers discuss the state of writing (and reading) Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Judy Moody and the Right Royal Tea Party

Megan McDonald

10:30 AM - Judy Moody is in a royal purple-mountain-majesties mood. Make that Majesty with a capital M!

The Gift of Our Wounds

Pardeep Singh Kaleka, Arno Michaelis

10:30 AM - The powerful story of a friendship between two men—one Sikh and one skinhead.

Call Me When You Want to Talk about the Tombstones

Cynthia Marie Hoffman

10:30 AM - A mother and daughter embark on a moving quest to reconstruct their family history.

Where Honeybees Thrive

Heather Swan

11:00 AM - A luminous, global journey from the worlds of honey producers, urban farmers, and mead makers.

Daughter in Retrograde

Courtney Kersten

12:00 PM - Kersten charts the uncertainty of her midwestern homeland by looking to the stars and planets.

Raising the Dad

Tom Matthews

12:00 PM - A novel that exposes all-too-familiar forces that hasten the decline of the average American family.

Tommy: My Journey of a Lifetime

Tommy Thompson, Doug Moe

12:00 PM - Former WI governor Tommy Thompson's journey from boyhood to politics to the world stage.

Interior States

Meghan O'Gieblyn

12:00 PM - What does it mean to be a believing Christian and a Midwesterner in an increasingly secular America?

Play On

Jeff Bercovici

1:00 PM - A deeply reported tour of the science helping athletes redefine the notion of “peak age.”

White Kids

Margaret Hagerman

1:30 PM - A clear-eyed and sometimes shocking account of how white kids learn about race.

Wisconsin Translators Panel

Diane Grosklaus Whitty, Dong Isbister, Daniel Youd

1:30 PM - Translators are an indispensable link between authors and their foreign readers.

Realer Than Real: Writing With All Five Senses

Michelle Wildgen, Susanna Daniel

1:30 PM - A workshop about sensory writing and how to use it in your fiction and nonfiction.

Love Wisconsin

Megan Monday, Brijetta Hall Waller

1:30 PM - Love Wisconsin is a storytelling project all about the people of Wisconsin.

Indictus

Natalie Eilbert

1:30 PM - This book attempts to indict us, so that the wounded might one day be free.

The Man Who Caught the Storm

Brantley Hargrove

2:00 PM - A biography that chronicles the life and death of the greatest storm chaser who ever live.

The Fall of Wisconsin

Dan Kaufman

3:00 PM - The untold story behind the most shocking political upheaval in the country.

Severance

Ling Ma

3:00 PM - A moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire.

Lost Connections

Johann Hari

3:00 PM - A radically new way of thinking about an epidemic sweeping across the United States.

The Power of Presence

Joy Thomas Moore, Doug Nelson

3:00 PM - The seven pillars of presence that all parents can use to positively influence their kids.

Once a Professor: A Memoir of Teaching in Turbulent Times

Jerry Apps

3:00 PM - Farm boy professor and celebrated rural historian shares the life lessons he learned.

Wisconsin State Parks

Scott Spoolman

4:00 PM - An examination of geologic processes to the landscape to understand of our state's natural history

This Radical Land

Daegan Miller

4:30 PM - If you know where to look, you can uncover a different history, one that's mostly forgotten.

Consent on Campus

Donna Freitas

4:30 PM - A call to action for university administrators, faculty, parents, and students themselves.

Everyone Knows You Go Home

Natalia Sylvester

4:30 PM - A novel about immigration and the depths one Mexican American family will go for forgiveness.

American Wolf

Nate Blakeslee

5:00 PM - Before men ruled the earth, there were wolves.

Paris by the Book

Liam Callanan

6:00 PM - A missing person, a grieving family, a curious clue: a half-finished manuscript set in Paris.

Good and Mad

Rebecca Traister

6:00 PM - A glimpse into the galvanizing force of women’s anger, which, when harnessed, can change history

The World in a Grain

Vince Beiser

6:00 PM - It's the ingredient that makes possible our lives--and our future, and we're running out of it.

Milk!

Mark Kurlansky

7:00 PM - Profoundly intertwined with human civilization, milk has a compelling story to tell.

While I Have Your Attention

John Roach

7:30 PM - Musings on everything from politics and religion to family and cabin life to sports.

One Person, No Vote

Carol Anderson

7:30 PM - The astonishing history of government-dictated racial discrimination and voting requirements.

Gastropod Live!

Cynthia Graber, Nicola Twilley

8:00 PM - Gastropod is the award-winning podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history.

BookMarks

Chloe Benjamin, Mark Kurlansky, Natalia Sylvester, Rebecca Traister

9:00 PM - Stories mined from our secret lives as readers.

The Lake Michigan Cottage Cookbook

Amelia Levin

10:30 AM - A cookbook that brings the lakeshore’s flavors and charm to you year-round, wherever you are.

My Own Devices

Dessa

10:30 AM - An uncompromising and candid account of a life in motion, in music, and in love.

Living the Sutras: A Guide to Yoga Wisdom Beyond the Mat

Amy Pearce-Hayden, Kelly DiNardo

10:30 AM - A Sunday morning brief intro into the sutras and a guided meditation.

Big Game

Mark Leibovich, David Maraniss

10:30 AM - Politics, football, and the inevitable intersection of the two in today's heated cultural atmosphere

Joyful

Ingrid Fetell Lee

12:00 PM - How small changes to our surroundings can lead us to happier, healthier, more satisfying lives.

Celebrating Wisconsin People

Fabu, Kim Blaeser, Max Garland, Denise Sweet, Karla Huston, Marilyn Taylor

12:00 PM - State and local poets laureate read to celebrate the poetry and people of Wisconsin.

Summer Hours at the Robber's LIbrary

Sue Halpern

12:00 PM - An unforgettable tale of family… the kind you come from and the kind you create.

NBF Presents Making Sense of One Another: Literature and Connection

Karen Bender, Chris Bachelder

1:30 PM - A panel discussion on Literature & Connection.

Go Big Read: The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

Dan Egan

7:00 PM - Go Big Read presents an ode to the majesty and history of this national treasure: The Great Lakes.

Virgil Wander

Leif Enger

7:00 PM - A swift, full journey into the heart and heartache of an often overlooked American Upper Midwest.

The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig

Don Zolidis

10:00 AM - Seven breakups. Seven makeups.

We Can't Breathe

Jabari Asim

7:00 PM - Essays that reveal black voices telling their own stories.

Speak the Truth

Gyasi Ross

7:00 PM - One of the best storytellers and one of the sharpest young intellectuals in this time

The Library Book

Susan Orlean

7:00 PM - A dazzling love letter to a beloved institution—our libraries.