February Author Talks Around the Corner

In the depths of winter, books can bring us together.  This February’s Online Author Talks are giving us a lot to talk about!  

Smithsonian curator Sabrina Sholts starts our month as she talks about how the very fact of being human increases our pandemic risks—and gives us the power to save ourselves.  Weaving together a wealth of personal experiences, scientific findings, and historical stories, Sholts brings dramatic and much-needed clarity to one of the most profound challenges we face as a species. Though the COVID-19 pandemic looms large in Sholts's account, it is, in fact, just one of the many infectious disease events explored in The Human Disease. With its expansive, evolutionary perspective, the book explains how humanity will continue to face new pandemics because humans cause them, by the ways that we are and the things that we do. By recognizing our risks, Sholts suggests, we can take actions to reduce them. When the next pandemic will happen, and how bad it will become, are both largely within our highly capable human hands—and will be determined by what we do with our extraordinary human brains. 

Waubgeshig Rice is joining us to chat about his newest book Moon of the Turning Leaves, the hotly anticipated sequel to the bestselling novel Moon of the Crusted Snow, a brooding story of survival, resilience, Indigenous identity, and rebirth. 

It’s been over a decade since a mysterious cataclysm caused a permanent blackout that toppled infrastructure and thrust the world into anarchy. Evan Whitesky led his community in remote northern Ontario off the rez and into the bush, where they’ve been living off the land, rekindling their Anishinaabe traditions in total isolation from the outside world.

As new generations are born, and others come of age in the world after everything, Evan’s people are in some ways stronger than ever. But as resources in and around their new settlement are beginning to dry up, Evan and his fifteen-year-old daughter, Nangohns, are elected to lead a small scouting party on a months-long trip to their traditional home on the north shore of Lake Huron—to seek new beginnings and discover what kind of life—and what dangers—still exist in the lands to the south.

And to complete our month, journalist and author Lee Hawkins will talk to us about examining his family’s legacy of post-enslavement trauma and resilience in his riveting memoir, I Am Nobody’s Slave.

Hawkins explores the role of racism-triggered childhood trauma and chronic stress in shortening his ancestors' lives, using genetic testing, reporting, and historical data to craft a moving family portrait. This book shows how genealogical research can educate and heal Americans of all races, revealing through their story the story of America—a journey of struggle, resilience, and the heavy cost of ultimate success.

Whether you join us for the live-stream or go back to watch the recording, you can submit questions for our presenters when you register ahead of time for the talks! All registered participants will receive a link to the recording through their email.

Register today to join the conversation: https://libraryc.org/mykpl