43
Oct. 20 library event features author C.J. Box
YOUNGSTOWN
C.J. Box, the New York Times best-selling author of 21 novels, including the Joe Pickett series, will be the featured author at a 6 p.m. Oct. 20 Literary Society fundraising reception and lecture at the main public library, 305 Wick Ave.
The $70-per-person ticket price includes the reception, lecture and book-signing, and a Literary Society membership.
It also includes a copy of Box’s “Off the Grid,” the 16th novel in the Joe Pickett series, which debuted in first place on the New York Times’ bestseller list in March.
Box won the Edgar Alan Poe award for best novel for “Blue Heaven” in 2009 and the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers’ Association Award for fiction in 2010.
He recently received the 2016 Western Heritage Award for Literature from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
“Libraries, of course, are about literacy, and we want people to be interested in reading,” said Janet Loew, communications and public relations director for the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.
When people can hear from, and ask questions of, a prominent author, “it generates an interest and an enthusiasm for reading, and, hopefully, we’ll bring more people into the library and get more people reading,” Loew added.
“He’s from out west, and his novels have that flavor; so it’s a little different type of author than we’ve had in the past,” Loew said.
“They will have the opportunity to meet an author and see how books come to life from an author’s perspective,” Josephine Nolfi, library programming director, said of those who attend the reception and lecture.
“He has a loyal following because he maintains his characters throughout the books, and his premise is different from the premise of all of the other authors we have had at the Literary Society,” Nolfi added.
“He has created his own unique world. ... The characters are really engaging,” in his books, Nolfi said of Box.
Loew said the annual reception has rarely featured a male author.
“It’ll be a little unique experience from a different perspective,” Loew said.
“This is a man’s man writing books,” Nolfi observed.
“That will appeal, not just to the women, but it will appeal to men, who, we know, are readers, but maybe don’t come to hear authors that have a more traditional appeal to women,” Nolfi added.
More than 10 million copies of Box’s novels have been sold in the United States, and they have been translated into 27 languages.
“Open Season,” “Blue Heaven,” “Nowhere to Run,” and “The Highway,” have been optioned for film and TV.
A Wyoming native and an avid outdoorsman, Box has been a ranch hand, surveyor, fishing guide, small-town newspaper reporter and editor, and co-owner, with his wife, Laurie, of an international tourism marketing firm.
Having served on the board of directors of the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, he received the 2008 “Big Wyo” award from the state tourism industry and now serves on the Wyoming Office of Tourism Board.
Box has hunted, fished, hiked, ridden and skied throughout Wyoming and the Mountain West.
Main library will be closed all day Oct. 20 to prepare for the reception and lecture.
Featuring a best-selling author, the Literary Society-sponsored event occurs annually.
The society promotes literacy in the Mahoning Valley; and its fundraising through these events enables the annual reception to continue to feature major authors, Loew said.
For reservation information, call Deborah Liptak, library development director, at 330-740-6086.