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The Excitement Will Be In Tents

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Here’s what you book fiends have been waiting for – the author lineup for the 2012 Library of Congress National Book Festival, Sept. 22 and 23 on the National Mall.

Authors will include towering American novelist Philip Roth and Nobel Prize-winner Mario Vargas Llosa; the irrepressible T.C. Boyle (some of you know him as T. Coraghessan Boyle); Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists Geraldine Brooks,  Jeffrey Eugenides and Junot Diaz; poets Nikky Finney (winner of the 2011 National Book Award), Philip Levine (the U.S. Poet Laureate, 2011-2012) and Joy Harjo (also a musician, playwright and memoirist).; mystery writers Patricia Cornwell and Lisa Scottoline; graphic novelist Craig Thompson; and historians Robert Caro and Elizabeth Dowling Taylor.

There’s more! Authors, poets, or illustrators Natalie Babbitt, Bob Balaban, Stephen L. Carter, Sandra Cisneros, Michael Connelly, Thomas Friedman, Steve Inskeep, Walter Isaacson, Jewel, Mike Lupica, Lois Lowry, David Maraniss, Chris Matthews, Walter Dean Myers, Mary Pope Osborne, Chris Raschka, Marilynne Robinson, R.L. Stine, Colson Whitehead and Daniel Yergin are in the lineup.

Also, don’t miss … Katherine Applegate, Avi, Fergus Bordewich, Natalie Pope Boyce, Christopher Bram, Giannina Braschi, Peter Brown, Douglas Brinkley, Bryan Collier, James Dashner, Anna Dewdney, Michael Dirda, Maria Dueñas, Stephen Dunn, John A. Farrell, Sharon Flake, John Gaddis, Michael Grant, Linda Greenhouse, Jenny Hahn, Charlaine Harris, Paul Hendrickson, Ellen Hopkins, Nalo Hopkinson, Tony Horwitz, Eloise James, Tayari Jones, Laura Kasischke, Charles Kupchan, Hope Larson, David Levithan, Margot Livesey, Thomas Mallon, Leonard Marcus, Sonia Manzano, Steven Millhauser, Corey Olsen, Patricia Polacco, Laura Amy Schlitz, Francesca Serritella, Susan Richards Shreve, Anita Silvey, Sally Bedell Smith, Jerry Spinelli, Philip C. and Erin E. Stead, Margie Stiefvater, David Ezra Stein, David O. Stewart, Raina Telgemeier, Jeffrey Toobin, Justin Torres, Vernor Vinge, Siobhan Vivian, Eric Weiner and Jacqueline Woodson.

There will be even more authors.  To find out who they are, watch for updates on this blog – or go to the National Book Festival website at www.loc.gov/bookfest/ where you will find author updates, author bios, great photos, and soon, the festival poster by delightful artist Rafael López.

The US Capitol and Library of Congress rise up behind the tents of the 2011 National Book Festival
Festival-goers heading for the pavilions of the 2011 National Book Festival

The 12th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival will be on Saturday, Sept. 22 and Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012, between 9th and 14th streets on the National Mall.  The event, free and open to the public, will run from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and from noon to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, rain or shine.

Be there!

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