Emily St. John Mandel’s Speculative Fiction That Critics Are Loving? Or the life stories of Dylan Tomine, one of the most famous fly fishermen in the country?
Those are the options readers will have on Tuesday, May 17, when these authors make separate appearances in the Twin Cities.
Mandel, author of the acclaimed novels “Station Eleven” and “The Glass Hotel,” offers another story of speculative fiction in his most recent book, “Sea of Tranquility.” She will read Tuesday at 7:30 pm and Wednesday at 11 am at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, 1111 Mainstreet, concluding Friends of the Hennepin County Library’s pen pal season. Tickets for $45-$55 can be purchased at supportHCLIB.org or by calling 612-543-8112.
“The Sea of Tranquility” tells several stories, separated by hundreds of years, linked by time travel. In 1912 a young Englishman, banished from his family for bad behavior, arrives in Canada. Two centuries later, a writer named Olive Llewellyn has left her home on a lunar colony to tour Earth promoting her book on a pandemic, when a real pandemic breaks out. Gasberry-Jacques Roberts breaks the rules of the Time Institute to save Olive and faces the consequences.
Critics love this book, featuring characters and incidents remembered from “The Glass Hotel.” The New York Times called it one of Mandel’s “best novels”. Kirkus raved: “Even more boldly imagined than ‘Station Eleven.’ Exciting to read, relevant and satisfying.”
Dylan Tomine, who lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, He has been fishing the rivers of the Northwest since childhood and is an activist for wild fish and water. He shares his enthusiasm for his new book “Headwaters: The Adventures, Obsession, and Evolution of a Fly Fisherman,” which he will be speaking about Tuesday at 6 pm at Patagonia, 1648 Grand Ave., St. Pablo. The program is free and open to the public.
In his book, Tomine travels to the Russian Arctic, Japan, Cuba, and British Columbia in search of fish and adventure. The Wall Street Journal called the book “sparkling” and Publishers Weekly said, “Tomine delivers work that informs and moves in equal measure. This will surely attract readers.”