2021 History Book Festival: Online Discussions

Thursday, May 20: 5:00 p.m. Eastern

Please join us for the 2021 History Book Festival’s live, online Fiction Keynote event with Lisa Scottoline, bestselling author of the historical novel Eternal, on Thursday, May 20, at 5 p.m. Eastern. Scottoline will be in conversation with novelist Martha Hall Kelly.

In gratitude for the support our virtual festival received in 2020, we are delighted to offer this keynote event free of charge. However, registration is required.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Eternal is the tale of a love triangle that unfolds in the heart of Rome, in the creeping shadow of fascism.

Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco, the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro, a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta’s heart.

But in the autumn of 1937, Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy’s Fascists with Hitler’s Nazis and altering the laws that govern Rome. As anti-Semitism takes legal root and World War II erupts, the threesome realizes that Mussolini was only the beginning.

In 1943, after Italy aligns itself with the Allies, the Nazis invade Rome, and with their occupation come new atrocities against the city’s Jews, culminating in a final, horrific betrayal.

Against this backdrop, the intertwined fates of Elisabetta, Marco, Sandro, and their families will be decided, in a heartbreaking story of both the best and the worst that the world has to offer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Scottoline is the bestselling author of 32 novels that have been published in 35 countries. She is best known for her mystery thrillers, but Eternal—her first historical novel—is the culmination of a lifetime of interest in the Italian Holocaust that began when she took a seminar at the University of Pennsylvania led by Philip Roth called “The Literature of the Holocaust,” studying the work of Italian Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, among others.

Following that course Scottoline knew that one day she’d write about Fascism and the Holocaust in Italy, a story that remains untold in popular fiction. Her background as an Italian American, lawyer, and adjunct law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School fueled her interest in the subject, and after decades of research, including many trips to Italy, Eternal was born.

Martha Hall Kelly will be in conversation with Scottoline during the event. Kelly is the author of three bestselling works of historical fiction: her debut novel set during World War II, Lilac Girls, and the prequels Lost Roses and Sunflower Sisters.

Never an enthusiastic history student, Kelly developed a passion for it when she discovered the long-buried story of Caroline Ferriday, a New York socialite and philanthropist who championed the cause of a group of Polish women nicknamed “the rabbits” who were experimented upon by Nazi doctors at the all-female Ravensbruck concentration camp. Her interest in Ferriday led to the writing of Lilac Girls.

Thursday, June 3: 5:00 p.m. Eastern

Please join us for the 2021 History Book Festival’s live, online Nonfiction Keynote event with Julia Sweig, bestselling author of Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight, on Thursday, June 3, at 5 p.m. Eastern. Sweig will be in conversation with journalist and author Susan Page.

Again, in gratitude for the support our virtual festival received in 2020, we are delighted to also offer this keynote event free of charge. However, registration is required.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Lady Bird Johnson’s complex role—as a political partner to her husband, President Lyndon Johnson, as a vital yet underappreciated presence in the White House, and as a critical advisor and strategist—is recast in this new biography. The story is told in Lady Bird’s own words through the largely unknown and overlooked audio diaries that she kept during her five-plus years in the White House: 123 hours of tape totaling 1,750,000 words. The tapes show her to be a formidable storyteller and historian and a conscious creator of legacy.

Lady Bird’s almost real-time, highly personal narration of key moments of American history showcases her narrative prowess and unique perspective as she brings to life both the tragedies that defined the ’60s—the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the Vietnam War—and the struggles and triumphs of the civil rights movement.

Author Julia Sweig’s exhaustive research unearths several revelations, including the part Lady Bird played in her husband’s decision not to run for reelection in 1968, as well as her crucial role in environmental policy-making as evidenced through her “beautification” project—a euphemism that actually brought civil rights, the environment, and social justice together—most crucially in American cities like Washington, D.C.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julia Sweig is an award-winning author of books on Cuba, Latin America, and American foreign policy. Her writing has appeared in numerous media outlets, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, and the Los Angeles Times. She served as senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations for 15 years and concurrently led the Aspen Institute’s congressional seminar on Latin America for 10 years. Sweig is a nonresident senior research fellow at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. She hosts the podcast “In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson,” produced by ABC Audio and Best Case Studios and available on all major podcast platforms.

Susan Page will be in conversation with Sweig during the event. Page is the Washington bureau chief of USA Today, where she writes about the White House and national politics. She is the author of Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power, a biography of Pelosi published in April 2021, and The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty, published in 2019, which was a New York Times bestseller. Page has covered 11 presidential elections and is now covering her seventh White House administration. In 2020, she moderated the vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris. She frequently appears as an analyst on TV and radio.