Philadelphia Book Festival expands across city

The Philadelphia Book Festival, a weeklong roster of literary readings, discussions, and workshops Sunday, April 14, through Saturday, April 20, will feature plenty of nationally renowned literary stars - and even a bona fide media celebrity.

Yet the fest, which opens Sunday at 7:30 p.m. with a sold-out appearance by MSNBC talk-show host, pundit, and political celebrity Rachel Maddow, will distinguish itself this year with an unprecedented variety and breadth of authors from the Philadelphia region. Held in past years almost exclusively at the Free Library of Philadelphia's Central Library, the festival will be a less centralized affair, offering programs at library branches across the city.

"In addition to a [roster] of all brand-new talent, this year we will really focus on the neighborhoods," said the library's director of author events, Andy Kahan. "We have pushed author appearances out into the city . . . with events at more than 50 library branches."

More than 40 authors will participate, including Cheryl Strayed, whose best-selling memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, follows the author as she hikes from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington state; Andrew Solomon, who shares his psychological insights into the parent-child relationship in Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity; children's book illustrator Brian Biggs; and Solomon Jones, who continues his Coletti crime series with The Dead Man's Wife.

Fans of serious literary fiction will be well-nourished with a double program on Tuesday at the Central Library featuring Ken Kalfus (Equilateral) and James Salter (All That Is).

Kalfus, whose wife is Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron, said his latest novel, Equilateral, was partly inspired by current political upheavals in North Africa and the Arab world. Set in Egypt during the last decade of the 19th century, the novel is on its surface a sci-fi yarn in the mode of Edgar Rice Burroughs about a group of scientists and financiers who decide to send a signal to Mars in their search for extraterrestrial life.

Astronomer Sanford Thayer is dispatched to Egypt, where he has 900,000 peasants build a gigantic triangle in the middle of the desert. Filled with gasoline and set on fire, it'll send a clear message across the planets!

Equilateral is also a novel of ideas, which explores European colonialism, the enduring conflict between East and West, and the power of mathematics as a universal language.

"There's a great deal of science and math in the book," Kalfus said in a phone interview. "I hope the book has some of the excitement that geometry can inspire in people."

The Book Festival also features half a dozen African American authors with books about race relations in today's America.

Baratunde Thurston, a former Onion digital editor, comedian, and entrepreneur, will talk Thursday at the Central Library about his best-selling satirical self-help book How to Be Black. Part memoir, it describes Thurston's childhood in one of Washington's roughest neighborhoods and his experiences at a private prep school and Harvard University, where he studied philosophy.

 Philly author Allison Whittenberg will speak Tuesday at the Haddington Branch, 446 N. 65th St., about her young-adult novel Tutored. It tells the story of Wendy, a high school senior from an upper-middle-class black family on the Main Line who falls for a young man, Hakiam, she meets when he signs up for GED tutoring. "He grew up in foster homes," Whittenberg said. "He has a really good heart, but a juvenile record for shoplifting. And he's Wendy's father's worst nightmare."

Whittenberg said the novel touches on the rarely discussed topic of class differences in the African American community and of the pressures that continue for men and women who attain financial success.

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The Book Festival continues its tradition of rich programming for children with an appearance by Tom Burgoyne, the Jenkintown native who joined the Phillies in 1989 as a backup to the Phillies Phanatic and took over the main role five years later. He'll talk about his latest book, The Phillie Phanatic's Best Friend!, an illustrated story about the Phanatic's adventures.

Fanatics of a different sort will be expected at Rich Westcott's program Monday at the Whitman Branch. The sports journalist, writer, and filmmaker will talk about his latest baseball compendium, Philadelphia's 50 Greatest Baseball Players, which features profiles of great ballplayers who were either from Philly or who played with a local team, including Mickey Vernon, Mike Schmidt, and Roy Campanella.

Westcott, who grew up in Roxborough, said he prefers not to rank the players, but named Phillies pitcher Robin Roberts as one of his all-time favorites.

The Seventh Annual Philadelphia Book Festival

When: Sunday, April 14, through Saturday, April 20
Where: Author events throughout the week at all 54 branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia, with author appearances each evening in the Montgomery Auditorium of the Central Library at 1901 Vine St.
Authors: More than 40 writers will participate, including Rachel Maddow, Ken Kalfus, James Salter, Baratunde Thurston, and Cheryl Strayed.
Information: 215-686-5322, www.freelibrary.org/bookfestival