Upcoming Events at Brazos: A Book List
Spring is officially upon us, and here at Brazos that means a ton of excellent author events and readings. So come on out, brave the Houston traffic, nonstop pollen, and flash-downpours to meet some incredible authors and read the best in new fiction and nonfiction. Below are some of the events in the very-near-future that we’re most looking forward to:
Urrea is a modern master, and his latest book is a sweeping narrative that spans several generations of family members reuniting for a single weekend. The de la Cruz family gathers in San Diego to celebrate the lives of Big Angel, the patriarch in ill health, and his mother, recently passed.
Each member of the family is well-developed and fully realized, and somehow the stakes feel at once intimate and tender while also larger-than-life. This uplifting novel perfectly depicts the American Dream and an America made stronger because of its diversity, and the unconquerable power of love and family. This book is a triumph.
We’re hosting Luis Alberto Urrea in-store on Saturday, March 31. Find more details and reserve your copy of the book here.
Bob Honey is a man out of touch with the contemporary world, a world of social media and targeted advertising that he views with contempt. Maybe that’s why he moonlights as a part-time assassin.
Sean Penn’s debut novel is as dark as it is funny, with wild sentences and incendiary rants that cause the titular antihero to find himself in some pretty absurd situations. The book is full of government conspiracies, neighborhood squabbles, and loves found and lost, and ultimately serves to lambast the post-9/11 American climate in which we focus more on our differences and what sets us apart.
We’re hosting Sean Penn at the Ballroom at Bayou Place on Wednesday, April 4. Find more details and tickets here.
Cecile Richards has spent practically her entire life as an activist impacting meaningful change, and in her new memoir, MAKE TROUBLE, she pulls back the curtain to reveal the private details behind her very public life. Richards details her time as a student protesting the Vietnam War, to fighting for better wages and conditions for garment workers, hotel workers, and nursing home aides, to working under her mother Governor Ann Richards and Nancy Pelosi, to her time as Planned Parenthood’s President, and the book reads as part memoir, part activist handbook. Richards also discusses finding balance in life and the specific challenges that women face, from motherhood to sexism and misogyny in the workplace.
We’re hosting Cecile Richards at the Ballroom at Bayou Place on Sunday, April 8. Find more details and tickets here.
A contemporary love story set within a backdrop of war, civil unrest, and nationalism and with hint of magical realism, EXIT WEST questions our commonly accepted definitions of ‘home’ and asks what it means to be a refugee. Nadia and Saeed begin a new love affair as their home country dangerously nears civil war, and as the violence escalate they are forced to flee. Together they find a magical door that can transport them to another place in the world and walk through, but once they arrive as refugees they face a new set of unforeseen and complex challenges.
We’re hosting Mohsin Hamid at Christ Church Cathedral on Tuesday, April 10. Find more details and tickets here.
William T. Vollmann is a bit of a maniac, and his nonfiction proves it. From shadowing a group of mujahideen on the frontlines of war in 1982 to traversing the world’s most polluted river in a rubber boat, Vollmann often lives the experiences he’s writing about. His newest book, NO IMMEDIATE DANGER, Volume 1 of a trilogy on mankind’s contributions to global warming and climate change titled CARBON IDEOLOGIES, explores the consequences of nuclear proliferation and the Fukushima reactor leak, which he visits several times with his own dosimeter. Like all of Vollmann’s writing, NO IMMEDIATE DANGER is encyclopedic in scope and scale.
We’re hosting William T. Vollmann at Houston United Way on Saturday, April 14. Find more details and tickets here.
