Arts & Letters Live

“Compelling stories and passionate acting, all literally from the heart of Texas.” —Southern Living                             

Rosaura Cruz, Executive Director of Junior Players, will read “Go Boom” by Elizabeth Hamilton. Lydia Mackay, Assistant Professor of Performance in the Theatre Department at TCU, will read “Survivor Honeymoon” by Amanda Eyre Ward. The evening will also feature Brad Leland of Friday Night Lights and Deep Water Horizon reading “The Dead Languages” by William Humphrey.

This event will pair two powerful authors for a festive evening of Greek art, myth, travel, and food! With vivid characters, poetic language, and page-turning suspense, Madeline Miller’s #1 New York Times bestselling novel Circe is a triumph of storytelling featuring the Odyssey’s most infamous female figure; it’s an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, love, and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man’s world. Mary Norris, the beloved “Comma Queen” of The New Yorker’s copy department, returns with a witty, wise, and charming book about language, love, and the wine-dark sea of Greece. Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen is an unforgettable account of both her life-long love affair with words and her solo adventures to the land of ouzo and olive trees.

6:30 p.m.: Enjoy a pre-event tour of works from Greece in the DMA’s collection.

In The Best Cook in the World: Tales from My Momma’s Table, Rick Bragg preserves his southern heritage by telling the stories that framed his mother’s cooking and education, from childhood to old age. This New York Times bestseller includes 74 mouthwatering Bragg family recipes for classic southern dishes in a delectable, rollicking food memoir, cookbook, and loving tribute to a region, a vanishing history, a family, and especially, to his mother. Helen Ellis, the bestselling author of American Housewife, is back with a fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank-you notes and three-ways, and the Calgon-scented, onion-dipped, monogrammed art of living as a Southern Lady. Ann Pachett loved Southern Lady Code saying, “As a Southern Lady myself, I cannot only confirm the veracity of the facts, I can tell you the book made me laugh like a hyena.”

In Partnership with World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth

The Second Mountain by New York Times columnist David Brooks is a thought-provoking commentary on the rampant individualism that has become the defining ethos of our culture. Brooks explores what it means to lead a meaningful life, suggesting that the first mountain an individual faces is about building up the ego, defining the self, and striving for success; the second mountain is about shedding the ego, planting yourself amid those who need, and giving yourself away. Brooks has spent more than five years thinking about how to give life meaning after worldly success failed to fulfill. This new book is the product of his personal quest for a joyful life.