Talking Books, Writing and Travel in New York and Los Angeles
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 04.23.07 | 4:55 PM ET
It’s a good week for literature lovers on the East and West coasts. In New York, the PEN World Voices Festival kicks off tomorrow and runs through Sunday. It’s packed with compelling events featuring authors from around the globe. Among the highlights: Tomorrow, Pico Iyer and Billy Collins, both the subject of World Hum interviews, will discuss the environment. On Wednesday, novelist Don Delillo makes a rare appearance on a panel entitled Writing Home. (It was in DeLillo’s novel “The Names” that we first came across the phrase “world hum.”) Thursday’s schedule features Multiple Passports: Writers on Homeland and Identity, which includes Ian Buruma, author of the excellent Asia travel book “God’s Dust.” And Sunday brings two panels for travel literature fans: Voyage and Voyeur: Travel and Travel Writing, featuring Alain de Botton, among others, and A Tribute to Ryszard Kapuscinski.
In Los Angeles, meanwhile, the giant Los Angeles Times Festival of Books takes over the campus of UCLA all weekend. It’s always a good time.
The omnipresent Pico Iyer—fresh off a flight from New York, no doubt—will be representing yet again. He’ll join Tony Cohan, among others, on a panel entitled “The Global Village.” (Didn’t they appear together last year, too?) Fans of Los Angeles literature might check out “Hopes and Disappointments in the Promised Land,” featuring the always-engaging Carolyn See and Luis Rodriguez.
On Sunday, “Crossing the Border: Immigrant Lives” will include Gustavo Arellano, who writes the excellent Ask a Mexican column.
Saturday’s complete schedule can be found here; Sunday’s can be found here. Free tickets for panels became available Sunday.
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
