DeKalb County Public Library

James Dickey is one of America’s most distinguished poets. Collected in one volume for the first time, The Complete Poems of James Dickey is an authoritative edition of all 331 of his poems. It is edited by Ward Briggs, Carolina Distinguished Professor of Classics Emeritus, and Louis Fry, Scudder Professor of Humanities Emeritus at the University of South Carolina. The Library hosted a celebration of Dickey’s life and poems on July 15, 2013. The event featured readings of Dickey’s poems by Ward Briggs, Bronwen Dickey, John Lane, and former Georgia Poet Laureate, David Bottoms.

The Library has several books of poetry by James Dickey including The Whole Poems: Collected Poems 1945-1992.

International bestselling author Jasper Fforde visited on October 5, 2012 with a new literary thriller, The Woman Who Died a Lot.  Fforde’s  books skillfully and playfully combine doses of reality with plenty of fantasy and sci-fi, and they have sold millions of copies around the world for the writer, who lives in Wales.

Ayana Mathis is a distinctive and acclaimed new voice in fiction. Her new novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, is the latest Oprah Book Club 2.0 selection. Beginning in the 1920s in Georgia, it tells the story of the Great Migration of African Americans through the trials and triumphs of one very remarkable, unforgettable family. Hattie Shepherd is 15 when she flees Georgia for a new life in Philadelphia. What she finds is a disappointing marriage and children she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. Captured in twelve luminous threads, their onrushing lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation. It is a powerful, beautiful story you will treasure, and we were pleased to be able to host this young author at the First Baptist Church Decatur on March 21st, 2013.

One of our finest and most popular writers, Ron Rash, returned to us with a powerful new novel, The Cove. He was joined by a close friend and talented young writer, Michel Stone, whose first novel The Iguana Tree is drawing high praise around the country. In his much anticipated new book, Rash, the New York Times bestselling author of Serena and Saints at the River, tells the story of a blazing but doomed love affair set against the backdrop of Western North Carolina during the World War I era. The cove is a dark, forbidding place where the spirits are said to wander, and the locals believe the young woman Laurel is a witch. When Walter, a mute, enters her life, though, Laurel finds for the first time a love and happiness that she fears places everyone at risk. Stone’s debut novel “is a stirring story of love and courage under the most daunting of conditions,” a moving account of an illegal border crossing by a Mexican couple and their infant daughter and their struggle to find a home. Critics call it “a gripping story of loss, grief and human dignity.” They joined us for this author talk on May 15, 2012.

Atlanta’s own Tayari Jones visited us on June 8, 2011 with her acclaimed new novel, Silver Sparrow. Set in an Atlanta middle class neighborhood in the 1980s, it is the mesmerizing story of a bigamist, his deceptions and the fate of a pair of teenage girls drawn into heartbreaking complicity. Jones was born and raised in Atlanta and now teaches at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Her previous books include Leaving Atlanta, set in the city during a series of terrible child murders, and The Untelling, which won the Lillian Smith Award.

Known for his work as the co-editor of BoingBoing.net, the  former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founder of the UK Open Rights Group, Cory Doctorow is a science fiction novelist, technology activist, and blogger. He is the author of young adult novels Pirate Cinema and the bestselling Little Brother and  novels for adults, Rapture of the Nerds and Makers, as well as being a contributor to The Guardian, the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Wired, and many other newspapers, magazines and websites. Doctorow was here on Sunday, February 17, 2013 to discuss his latest bestselling young adult novel, Homeland, the sequel to Little Brother.

Georgia’s Poet Laureate, David Bottoms, joined us with a new collection, We Almost Disappear, that affirms his status among the front rank of poets. Critics are calling the new title his “most personal and heartbreaking book” with its poems firmly rooted in southern soil and in the people of the south. Bottoms was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2009 and twice has been included on the Georgia Center for the Book’s list of “25 Books All Georgians Should Read.” He has written nearly a dozen books, and his first volume of poetry won the coveted Walt Whitman Prize. This recording was from an author talk he gave on November 11, 2011.

Mirabai Starr is an adjunct professor of philosophy and world religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos. She has lived at the Lama Foundation, an international spiritual community, that studies the diverse paths of religion, from Buddhism to Christianity, from Jewish to Native American beliefs. A disciple of ecumenism, her new book is God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Critics say her book offers “an expanded vision of value to everyone” and is “a deeply personal journey exploring aspects of the God of Love.” She joined us on June 3rd, 2012 for this talk.

Atlanta’s prize-winning author Melissa Fay Greene has written a new book, No Biking in the House without a Helmet, a joyous account of a great, loving, complicated and ever-expanding family — her own! The story behind the book is as simple one: when Melissa and her husband Atlanta attorney Don Samuel found their four kids growing up and leaving the house, they decided to “backfill,” meaning, “whenever one leaves, we’ll get another.” Over eight years, five children have joined the family from orphanages in Bulgaria and Ethopia. Melissa’s account of their laughter and tears will charm and delight you. Greene is the author of The Temple Bombing, Praying for Sheetrock, and There is No Me Without You; One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Africa’s Children.

Prize-winning novelist Anne Lamott, the author of more than a dozen bestselling books, pays us a visit with a surprising and delightful new nonfiction work, Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son. It is a vibrant, sweet and often funny account of a new and unexpected chapter in her life: becoming a grandmother. Stunned to learn that her son Sam is about to become a father at the age of 19, Lamott kept a journal about the first year of her grandson’s life. It is full of wonderful, moving details that every parent and grandparent will understand and appreciate, as Lamott describes how relationships throughout her family change and evolve. Can a baby change a family forever? You bet—and you won’t want to miss the author’s take on this.