Jonathan Lethem, a MacArthur "genius" fellowship winner, is one of America's most acclaimed novelists, essayists, and short story writers. The San Francisco Chronicle says, "Aside from being one of the most inventive writers on the planet, Lethem is also one of the funniest," and the Los Angeles Times Book Review proclaims "Lethem is one of our most perceptive cultural critics, conversant in both the high and low realms, his insights buffeted by his descriptive imagination." Known for his genre-bending fiction (blending elements of noir mysteries, westerns, science fiction, and comic books), Lethem's novels include Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Salon Book Award, and named Esquire's Novel of the Year; The Fortress of Solitude, a New York Times bestseller; and Chronic City, a New York Times Best Book of 2009. The Ecstasy of Influence, a collection of Lethem's essays discussing the role of a writer as a public intellectual, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and became a New York Times Notable Book of 2011. Booklist described it as a "provocative tour de force....thoughtful and rambunctious....dynamically juxtaposed and connected....to create a jazzy, patchwork memoir....hilarious....fresh, erudite, zestful." His most recent book Fear of Music, about the iconic band Talking Heads, incorporates theory, memoir, and fiction. John Jeremiah Sullivan, described as "a cross between Flannery O'Connor and a decaffeinated Tom Wolfe, with just the right dash of Hunter S. Thompson," is a young star of the literary nonfiction world with stories appearing in magazines such as Harper's and GQ for a decade. Sullivan's first essay collection Pulphead was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as the "most important collection of magazine writing since Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again....a bizarrely coherent, novel, and generous pastiche of the biblical, the demotic, the regionally gusty and the erudite." NPR praises: "[The essays in Pulphead are] among the liveliest magazine features written by anyone in the past 10 years . . . What they have in common, though, whether low or high of brow, is their author's essential curiosity about the world, his eye for the perfect detail, and his great good humor in revealing both his subjects' and his own foibles . . . a collection that shows why Sullivan might be the best magazine writer around." Pulphead landed on year-end best-book lists of Time, The New York Times, and Amazon's Best Books of 2011. Sullivan, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and southern editor of The Paris Review, is also the author of Blood Horses, which traces the history of horse racing. New York Review of Books says it "reads like Moby-Dick as edited by F. Scott Fitzgerald....Sullivan is an original and greatly gifted writer." Reading followed by an on-stage interview, book sale and signing. Pre-order books by the author through Brazos Bookstore for pickup at the event by clicking here. Books will be pre-signed whenever possible. Note: We do our best to ensure all information is accurate. However, it's a good idea to visit the website listed or contact the organization or venue to verify event details.