Get out your reading glasses, because more than 100 top authors will gather in San Antonio in early April for the annual San Antonio Book Festival, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
They range from best selling fiction authors like Ann Patchett of 'Commonwealth' fame, pop culture writers like Craig Johnson, author of the 'Longmire' series that the popular TV program is based on, to local favorites like San Antonio Poet Laureate Carmen Tafolla to long time Bexar County Medical Examiner Vincent DiMaio, who's book 'Morgue: A Life and Death,' discusses some of the high profile cases he has been a part of.
Clay Smith is an editor at Kirkus Reviews, which is the most respected book reviewer in the country and the reviewer that book stores and Amazon.com uses to determine which books to stock and promote, is the Literary Director of this year's event. He says when times are crazy, books help ground us.
"The conversation around books and the conversation between readers around good books like this is something that helps give our lives context," he said.
Other authors who will be featured at the San Antonio Book Festival include novelists Amor Towles and Jenny Browne, Jessica Luther, whose book 'Unsportamanlike conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape' digs into the sexual assault scandal at Baylor University, and Alexandra Zapruder, whose family's history with the 1963 JFK assasination is studied in 'Twenty-Six Seconds, A Personal History of the Zapruder Film.
'There are also books about all of the hot button topics of today, Smith says.
"Terrorism, immigration, the border, class, race, social mobility..."
The San Antonio Book Festival will also feature long time Bexar County Medical Examiner Dr. Vincent DiMaio, who has consulted on some of the top murder and death cases of the past half century. He will be premiering his new book "Morgue: A Life in Death."
Smith says the Book Festival will also feature the creation of a new book group, called 'Alta Mundo,' which will feature young Hispanic Sci-Fi and Fantasy authors making their mark in what is generally an Anglo-dominated field.
The Mayor's Book Club author Jan Jarboe Russell will be discussing her book 'The Train to Crystal City,' and there will even be recipe authors on hand.The Book Festival is April 8 at the Central Library and at the Southwest School of Art across the street.
IMAGE: GETTY