William Walsh and Julie Bloemeke. 7:30 p.m. Sept. 29. Poetry readings. Free. Decatur Library Auditorium, 215 Sycamore St., Decatur. 404-370-8450, Ext. 2225; georgiacenterforthebook.org/Events/show.php?id=735. Georgia poets Walsh and Bloemeke team up to celebrate the debut of Walsh's newest collection, "Lost in the White Ruins."
Simon Winchester, "The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible." 7 p.m. Sept. 30. Signing. Free. Decatur Library Auditorium, 215 Sycamore St., Decatur. 404-370-8450, Ext. 2225; georgiacenterforthebook.org. The best-selling author of "Atlantic" has written a popular history of those who worked to discover, connect and bond the people and the geography of the United States.
S.C. Gwynne, "Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson." 8 p.m. Sept. 30. Lecture, signing. $10. Atlanta History Center, 130 W. Paces Ferry Road N.W., Atlanta. 404-814-4150, atlantahistorycenter.com/program/livingston-lecture-sc-gwynne-rebel-yell-violence-passion-and-redemption-stonewall-jackson. Before Jackson revolutionized the art of war, he was an eccentric physics professor at a military college, with bad eyesight and a host of physical problems. Gwynne ("Empire of the Summer Moon") details the transformation.
Carl Hiaasen, "Skink: No Surrender." 7 p.m. Oct. 1. Talk, signing. Free. Decatur Library Auditorium, 215 Sycamore St., Decatur. 404-370-8450, Ext. 2225; georgiacenterforthebook.org/Events/show.php?id=734. Readers first met Skink, the one-eyed ex-governor of Florida, more than 25 years ago in "Double Whammy." Six novels later, Hiassen brings him back to help a teen search for his missing cousin in the swamps.
John Darman, "Landslide: LBJ and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of a New America." 8 p.m. Oct. 2. Talk, signing. $10. Atlanta History Center, 130 W. Paces Ferry Road N.W., Atlanta. 404-814-4150, atlantahistorycenter.com/program/elson-lecture-john-darman-landslide-lbj-and-ronald-reagan-dawn-new-america. Opposites in politics and style, Johnson and Reagan shared a defining impulse to offer the country a new vision for the future. Darman shows how, in the process, they jointly dismantled the American tradition of consensus politics, ushering in a new era of fracture.
Tribute to Seamus Heaney: An Evening of Poetry and Song. 7:30 p.m. Oct. 2. Free; tickets required. Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, 1700 N. Decatur Road N.E., Atlanta. 404-727-5050, arts.emory.edu/calendar/#/?i=2. Tickets available at arts.emory.edu/box-office/index.html, by phone or in person at the box office. Natasha Trethewey, Kevin Young, Tracy K. Smith, Belinda McKeon, William Corbett and others will read Heaney poems as well as their own work. Music will be provided by the Vega Quartet.
Yamma Brown, "Cold Sweat: My Father James Brown and Me." 7 p.m. Oct. 3. Talk, signing. Free. Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater, 441 Freedom Parkway, Atlanta. 404-865-7100, jimmycarterlibrary.gov/events. Brown's candid, intimate and unflinching portrait of her legendary father offers a profound examination of the nature of celebrity, violence and survival.
About the Author
