Books & Books and Miami Book Fair present…

An Evening with Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager

The Writer's Library: The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives

With a Foreword by Susan Orlean, twenty-three of today's living literary legends, including Donna Tartt, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Andrew Sean Greer, Laila Lalami, and Michael Chabon, reveal the books that made them think, brought them joy, and changed their lives in this intimate, moving, and insightful collection from "American's Librarian" Nancy Pearl and noted playwright Jeff Schwager that celebrates the power of literature and reading to connect us all.

Before Jennifer Egan, Louise Erdrich, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Jonathan Lethem became revered authors, they were readers. In this ebullient book, America’s favorite librarian Nancy Pearl and noted-playwright Jeff Schwager interview a diverse range of America's most notable and influential writers about the books that shaped them and inspired them to leave their own literary mark.

Illustrated with beautiful line drawings, The Writer’s Library is a revelatory exploration of the studies, libraries, and bookstores of today’s favorite authors—the creative artists whose imagination and sublime talent make America's literary scene the wonderful, dynamic world it is. A love letter to books and a celebration of wordsmiths, The Writer’s Library is a treasure for anyone who has been moved by the written word.

NANCY PEARL regularly speaks about the importance and pleasure of reading at libraries, literacy organizations, and community groups around the world.  She can be found on NPR’s Morning Edition and KWGS-FM in Tulsa, Oklahoma talking about her favorite books. Her monthly television show on the Seattle Channel, Book Lust with Nancy Pearl, features interviews with authors, poets, and other literary figures. Among her many honors are the 2011 Librarian of the Year Award from Library Journal and the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. Nancy is the creator of the internationally recognized program If All of Seattle Read the Same Book, and was the inspiration for the Archee McPhee "Librarian Action Figure." Nancy is a best-selling author, librarian, and literary critic, but first and foremost, she is a reader and has spent her life promoting reading as one of the most beneficial and joyful experiences anyone can have.

JEFF SCHWAGER is a Seattle-based journalist and playwright. Book-It Repertory Theatre produced his adaptation of Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson in 2013. The following year, the company's five-hour stage version of his adaptation of Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay won Theatre Puget Sound's Gregory Award for Outstanding Production. He lives on Queen Anne Hill, in a Craftsman house built in 1913, with his partner Megan and his pug Edgar.

A Virtual Evening with Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager