Amor Towles’ much-anticipated new novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, shot to the top of the bestseller lists. It is a transporting story about a count who is sentenced to spend the rest of his life inside the attic of a luxury hotel across from the Kremlin. O, the Oprah Magazine calls it “elegant… as lavishly filigreed as a Fabergé egg.” The story is “a downright Casablanca-like drama,” says The San Francisco Chronicle. Towles’ debut novel, Rules of Civility, was a New York Times bestseller, a Wall Street Journal Top 10 work of fiction, and winner of the Prix Fitzgerald. NPR called the story set in 1937 New York society “glittering…filled with snappy dialogue, sharp observations and an array of terrifically drawn characters…Towles writes with grace and verve about the mores and manners of a society on the cusp of radical change.” A Boston native, Towles lives in Manhattan, where he now writes full time after working more than 20 years as an investment professional. He claims to be “an ardent fan of early 20th century painting, 1950’s jazz, 1970’s cop shows, rock & roll on vinyl, manifestoes, breakfast pastries, pasta, liquor, snow-days, Tuscany, Provence, Disneyland, Hollywood, the cast of Casablanca, 007, Captain Kirk, Bob Dylan (early, mid, and late phases), the wee hours, card games, cafés, and the cookies made by both of his grandmothers.”

Robert Olen Butler’s lyrical and emotional new novel, Perfume River, explores one contemporary North Florida family’s drama as it echoes the legacies of the Vietnam War. It is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s sixteenth novel, in addition to six short story collections and a volume of lectures on the creative process. “What I so like about Perfume River is its plainly-put elegance,” raves fellow Pulitzer winner Richard Ford. “Enough time has passed since Vietnam that its grave human lessons and heartbreaks can be—with a measure of genius—almost simply stated. Butler’s novel is a model for this heartbreaking simplicity and grace.” Butler’s story collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain explored the Vietnam War and its aftermath from the perspective of the Vietnamese, earning him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2013 Butler joined the ranks of Norman Mailer, Edward Albee, Joyce Carol Oats, John Updike and Maxine Hong Kingston to became the seventeenth recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. A two-time winner of both the National Magazine Award and the Pushcart Prize, Butler’s stories appear in The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Zoetrope, The Paris Review, Granta, and four annual editions of The Best American Short Stories. He has lectured in universities, appeared at conferences, and met with writers’ groups in 17 countries as a literary envoy for the U.S. State Department.

Visit www.literarysojourn.org for more information about these authors and their complete reading lists. And as you delve into the new season of reading, don’t forget Literary Sojourn’s Official Independent Bookseller, Off the Beaten Path Bookstore.

Literary Sojourn gathers on Saturday, September 16, 2017 at the Strings Pavilion, where we are excited to present reserved seating, a comfortable theater-style setting where everyone has a great view, and ample parking and restrooms, among many other things!