Post Praises Ethan Canin's Latest

Washington Post book critic Ron Charles calls America America Ethan Canin's "best novel" in a June 29 Book World review. "America America isn't hawking any particular partisan agenda," Charles writes, "but like other great political novels, it's a story in which the audacity of hope confronts the tenacity of power — and loses." Naming the book "a worthy successor to Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men," the critic concludes that the novel "couldn't have arrived at a more auspicious moment than this season of potentially epochal political change." The complete review is accessible here. Don't miss your opportunity to meet Canin and hear him speak about the book on Wednesday evening, September 24, at George Mason University.

Stars of Stage and Screen Join Festival Line-Up

Bruce George, activist, author and co-founder of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, and Alison Larkin, Anglo-American comedienne and author of the novel The English American, have recently signed on for the upcoming Fall for the Book Festival.


In addition to winning a Peabody Award for his work with Def Poetry Jam, Bruce George’s own writings have been published in magazines and journals including Essence, Emerge and Class Magazine, among others, and he co-edited the recently released book, The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates. He is one of the founders of an anti-violence/poverty initiative entitled “The American Experiment Peace Project,” seeking to uplift people in struggle.

Springing from her internationally acclaimed one woman show, in her bestselling novel The English American, writer/comedienne Alison Larkin draws further from her experiences as an adopted English woman who finds her birth parents — and a new homeland — in the United States (and weaves them into a work of fiction). Larkin trained as a classical actress and playwright in London before moving to America and becoming a stand-up comic. She has appeared on Broadway, at American's top comedy clubs, and on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Comic Relief and Providence. For more info visit www.alisonlarkin.net.