PLA 2010 13th National Conference
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Special Events

Nancy Pearl presents "Book Buzz"
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 10:30am - noon

Join Nancy and assorted friends from the world of publishing as they talk about some of the best upcoming books. This program is open to all registered conference attendees. Nancy Pearl speaks about the pleasures of reading to library and community groups across the country and recommends books regularly on NPR's Morning Edition, as well as local public radio stations in Milwaukee, Seattle, and Tulsa. She's the author of Book Crush: For Kids and Teens: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Interest; Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason; and More Book Lust: 1,000 New Reading Recommendations for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason, all published by Sasquatch Books. In 2004 she was awarded the Women's National Book Association Award, given to "a living American woman who has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation." You can check out her monthly recommendations, Pearl's Picks, at many library websites.

 


Nicholas D. Kristof to keynote PLA Conference Opening Session
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 2:30 - 4:00 p.m.

Nicholas D. Kristof graduated from Harvard College, Phi Beta Kappa, and then won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he studied law and graduated with first class honors. He later studied Arabic in Cairo and Chinese in Taipei. After working in France, he caught the travel bug and began backpacking around Africa and Asia, writing articles to cover his expenses. Kristof has lived on four continents, reported on six, and traveled to 140 countries, plus all 50 states, every Chinese province and every main Japanese island. He is also one of the very few Americans to be at least a two-time visitor to every member of the "Axis of Evil." During his travels, he has had unpleasant experiences with malaria, wars, an Indonesian mob carrying heads on pikes, and an African airplane crash. After joining The New York Times in 1984, initially covering economics, he served as a correspondent in Los Angeles and as bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo. In 2000, he covered the presidential campaign and in particular then-Governor Bush, and he is the author of the chapter on Bush in the reference book The Presidents. In 1990 Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, then also a Times journalist, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China's Tiananmen Square democracy movement. They were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism. Kristof and WuDunn are also authors of China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power and Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia. Their next book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, will be published in September, 2009.

Haunted by what he has seen in Darfur, Kristof has traveled to the region four times to provide coverage of the genocide that is unfolding there. In 2006, he won his second Pulitzer Prize for Commentary "for his graphic, deeply reported columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on genocide in Darfur and that gave voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world." He has also won the George Polk Award, the Overseas Press Club award, the Michael Kelly award, the Online News Association award, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors award.  Check out his Facebook Fan page.

 

Sarah Vowell to Keynote Closing Session
Saturday, March 27, 2010  11:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Sarah Vowell is the acclaimed author of four bestselling books and has been a contributing editor for public radio's This America Life since 1996.  She has written documentaries and monologues about everything from the Cherokee Trail of Tear, presidential libraries, and Frank Sinatra, to more personal pieces about her father's homemade cannon, a youthful obsession with The Godfather and her own goth makeover. Vowell's Assassination Vacation  (2005) is a hilarious and haunting road trip to tourist sites devoted to the murders of presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley.  She is also the author of the essay collections, The Partly Cloudy Patriot (2002) and Take the Cannoli (2000), and Radio On (1997). a diary of a year spent listening to American radio.  Her fifth book, The Wordy Shipmates, a history of American Puritans was published in 2008.  She is currently at work on her next book, a history of 19th century Hawaii (Spring 2011).



 Be sure to review the Meal Events featuring Scott Turow, Sue Grafton, Kadir Nelson, and more!