A star-studded book festival
The seventh annual Bay Area Book Festival, going all virtual for the second year in a row, continues through this weekend, closing with a powerful trio of Booker Prize-nominated women authors at 6 p.m. Sunday (Mother’s Day). A panel moderated by Words Without Borders executive director Karen Phillips includes Indian author Avni Doshi (“Burnt Sugar”), Ethiopian American author Maaza Mengiste (“The Shadow King”) and Chilean author Alia Trabucco Zerán (“The Remainder”). The event is free and the only session that is not live, as the three novelists are appearing from three different time zones.
Other highlights:
• 7 p.m. today: “Lager and Love Can’t Pay the Bills” is the wry title of this session with Douglas Stuart, whose Glasgow-set novel “Shuggie Bain” captured the 2020 Booker Prize. He’ll discuss the book with author and TED talk speaker Casey Gerald.
• 6 p.m. Friday: Award-winning sci-fi novelists Nnedi Okorafor (“Remote Control”) and Jeff VanderMeer (“Hummingbird Salamander”) ruminate about “How to Dream the World You Want.”
• 1 p.m. Sunday: “A Matter of Death and Life” is the title of the memoir worldrenowned psychiatrist and author Irvin Yalom co-wrote with his late wife, Marilyn, recounting the 65th and last year of their marriage as she was dying of cancer. Joining Yalom to talk about “Love, Loss and Meaning in Life” is the prodigiously gifted author Joyce Carol Oates.
Details: Most ticketed events $15; festival passes $60$120; baybookfest.org.
— Sue Gilmore, Bay Area News Foundation