On the morning of November 7, 1938, a seventeen-year-old Jewish refugee, Herschel Grynszpan, walked into the German embassy in Paris and assassinated Ernst vom Rath, a low-level Nazi diplomat. Two days later, the Third Reich exploited the murder to inaugurate its long-planned campaign of terror against Germany’s Jewish citizens—what became known as Kristallnacht. On the seventy-fifth anniversary of Kristallnacht, Kirsch— lawyer and bestselling author—unpacks the moral dimensions of one of the most enigmatic cases of World War II.

Imagine a rain-soaked Beckett knocks on your door with a new manuscript. What was it like to collaborate with, publish, and know the genius? Seaver (who with her husband discovered and published Beckett’s early work) and Mandell (an actor directed by the playwright himself) team up to read both Beckett’s work and the Seavers’ memoir about the golden age of publishing—and to discuss how the unconventional writer came to be revered by audiences everywhere.

The award-winning author of Half a Yellow Sun delivers a powerful new story of love and culture clash between two Nigerian friends across several decades and three different continents—keenly observing race, identity, and belonging in today’s globalized world.

Fifteen years ago, in Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson, critically acclaimed poet, essayist, translator and classics professor, wrote about a boy named Geryon and his love affair with Herakles. In her newest work Red Doc>, Carson revisits these characters in later life, yet creates a dreamlike offshoot, abandoning her previous style and narrative threads while moving towards the perilous edge of living past the end of one’s myth.

Holt, an irreverent detective of metaphysics and science, dives deep into conversation with Caltech cosmologist Sean Carroll, to try and answer the most persistent mystery of existence: Why should there be a universe at all, and why are we a part of it? why is there Something rather than Nothing? Join us for a discussion of time, infinity, consciousness, the multiverse, and the haunting possibility of Absolute Nothingness.

Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and the new memoir In the Body of the World, discusses the female body and the world’s responsibility to protect it with Jody Williams, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work banning landmines. Williams’ memoir, My Name is Jody Williams, promotes civil society's power to help change the world. These two remarkable women discuss activism, their collaboration on ending violence against women, and bringing women together through the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict and One Billion Rising.

Weaving her own experience with remarkable new discoveries, Grandin brings her singular perspective to the thrilling journey through the revolution in the understanding of autism. She introduces advances in neuroimaging and genetic research that link brain science to behavior, even sharing her own brain scans from numerous studies.

Basking in the golden age of the graphic novel, a group of talented visual artists teamed up to adapt the greatest literature of all time. The Graphic Canon, a visual literary anthology, is a three-volume epic that spans from Greek tragedy to David Foster Wallace. Join us for a look at this stunning work with the editor and illustrators of Zora Neale Hurston, Thomas Pynchon and more, as they unlock the literary canon for a new generation of readers.

Panel discussion with author Ben Ehrenreich; Barbara Epler, president, New Directions; author Mónica Maristain; and poet-translator David Shook. Moderated by Héctor Tobar, staff writer, Los Angeles Times

"Books are the only homeland of the true writer, books that may sit on shelves or in the memory," wrote Roberto Bolaño. Ten years after his death, the legacy of Chilean author Roberto Bolaño lives not just in his poetry and prose but also in the myth that surrounds a man who has come to define 21st-century Latin American literature. This panel delves into the Bolaño mystique, convening the voices that have engaged both with his words and his ghosts.

In 1983, Granta devoted an entire issue to new fiction by 20 of the "Best of Young British Novelists" and did so again ten years later. From Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro to Zadie Smith, these lists have offered a revealing snapshot of a generation of writers about to come into their own. Join us for a reading and discussion with some of Britain’s best, including a judge of the 2013 series and this year’s newly announced novelists.