Jane Smiley at the Lafayette Library and Learning Center

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane

Smiley

Contra Costa County Library Summer

Reading Festival AUTHOR EVENT

Jane Smiley, born in Los Angeles, is a critically acclaimed, award winning

American novelist.  Her book, A
Thousand Acres, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics
Circle Award, and her novel The All True Travels and Adventures of Lidie
Newton won the Spur Award for Best Novel of the West.

 Smiley’s newest novel, Some Luck, will be published in October 2014.  Heartwarming, deeply engaging, Some Luck focuses onthe life and times of an American farm family over three transformativedecades.  Displaying Smiley’s signature dazzling virtuosity as well a deep understanding of human nature, this book is rich with humor, wisdom, surprises and compassion.

On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by

time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different yet

equally remarkable children. Moving from post-World War I America through the
early 1950s, Some Luck gives us an
intimate look at this family's triumphs and tragedies, zooming in on the
realities of farm life, while casting a panoramic eye on the monumental changes
that marked the first half of the twentieth century.

 Smiley has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1987. Her novel Horse Heaven was short-listed for the Orange Prize in 2002, and her most recent novel, Private Life, was chosen as one of the best books of 2010 by The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post.

Ms. Smiley has written several works of nonfiction, including Thirteen Ways

of Looking at the Novel and The Man Who Invented the Computer. She

has also published a five volume series for young adults, The Horses of Oak

Valley Ranch. Her new novel, to be published in October, 2014, is entitled Some
Luck.

 Preregistration is recommended at ccclib.org/summer/

For further information, visit or contact the Lafayette Library and Learning Center, 925-254-385-2280