Topping this weekend’s list of big literary events in the Triangle are two visits by bestselling novelist Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor. The elder Kidd is, of course, the author of The Mermaid Chair and The Secret Life of Bees, and she teams with her daughter her for the new memoir Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story, which follows the women to Greece and France on journeys of discovery and bonding. Reviews for the book haven’t been very positive; the Christian Science Monitor, for example, called it an “unrelentingly saccharine book”. But reviews will likely matter little for fans, who’ve already helped the book land firmly on the New York Times bestseller list. And we’ll anticipate big crowds at the Kidds’ two events in the area: Saturday, October 3, at 7 p.m. at the Durham County Library (hosted by the Regulator Bookshop) and Sunday, October 4, at 3 p.m. in Jones Auditorium at Meredith College in Raleigh (hosted by Quail Ridge Books). Note that admission to the QRB event is $5 or free with a purchase of the new book.
Also of note over the next few days:
- Tonight (Thursday, October 1) at 7 p.m., Quail Ridge Books will host a town hall meeting “Remembering Updike” with Dr. Howard Harper, UNC-CH Dept of English, Dr. Victor Strandberg, Duke Dept of English, and Wesley Kort, Duke Dept of Religion.
- On Saturday, October 3, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., McIntyre’s Books will host the final event of the 2009 Community Read program, in this case celebrating the life and work of George Moses Horton, the famous “slave poet” whose collection The Hope of Liberty (1829) marked the first book by a black author in the South. Saturday’s speakers includes Marjorie Hudson on Horton’s history in Chatham County and Barbara Perry on the subsequent history of African-Americans in Chatham County during the 19th and 20th centuries. Horton’s poetry will be presented by Ruth Horton, Carl Thompson, Esther Coleman, Chris Heintzman, Aleicia Fisher, Ariel Alston, Alston Neville, Ebony Terry, and Essence Terry.
- And look forward next week to a visit from Sarah Vowell, at Quail Ridge Books on Thursday, October 8, with the paperback publication of The Wordy Shipmates.