BROOKINGS – Alice Sebold, whose novel “The Lovely Bones” is featured on PBS’s The Great American Read America’s 100 Favorite Books List, will appear at the South Dakota Festival of Books in September as part of a partnership between the South Dakota Humanities Council and South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
The eight-part The Great American Read series premiered Tuesday on SDPB.
Sebold will speak to college students during the day and participate in an evening keynote event, an on-stage conversation with Lori Walsh, host of SDPB’s “In the Moment,” Sept. 21 in Brookings. Watch http://www.sdbookfestival.com for more details.
Published in 2002, “The Lovely Bones” quickly became an unprecedented international bestseller, with translations in over 45 languages and sales of more than 5 million copies in America alone. With poignant prose tackling difficult subjects of rape, child murder and the fracture of families, Sebold captured international audiences with her brilliant debut novel.
A film version was adapted, written and directed by Peter Jackson. It was released in 2009 and starred Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci.
An Oprah’s Book Club selection and winner of the Indies Choice Book Award for Adult Fiction, “The Lovely Bones” was described by Publisher’s Weekly as “full of suspense and written in lithe, resilient prose that by itself delights.”
“Sebold’s most dazzling stroke, among many bold ones, is to narrate the story from (main character) Susie’s heaven (a place where wishing is having), providing the warmth of a first-person narration and the freedom of an omniscient one.”
As part of The Great American Read activities with SDPB, SDHC is featuring three titles from America’s 100 Favorite Books List in its Book Club to Go program:
• “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• “The Book Thief” by Marcus Zusak
• “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold
To participate in a Book Club to Go based on The Great American Read, gather your fellow readers, choose a title, and go to sdhumanities.org/lending-library to apply. For a $50 application fee, SDHC will supply up to 30 copies of any of these titles from our lending library, plus an SDHC scholar to lead a discussion, if desired.
PBS’s The Great American Read is a new TV series and digital initiative about the power of books and the joy of reading through the lens of America’s 100 best-loved novels. View the list of America’s 100 Favorite Books and vote for your favorite. See SDPB.org/GreatRead.
