VIRTUAL: Launch for Ron Nyren / The Book of Lost Light, with Ann Packer, Angela Pneuman, Ann Cummins, Lisa Michaels, Cornelia Nixon, Sarah Stone, Rafael Yglesias + Vendela Vida

Booksmith and The Bindery are very pleased to host a virtual launch for Ron Nyren and his debut novel, The Book of Lost Light, winner of the 2019 Black Lawrence Press Big Moose Prize. Join us for this special evening, which will include a reading from the book and a panel discussion with Ron’s writers group of nearly two decades: Ann Packer (The Children’s Crusade), Angela Pneuman (Lay It on My Heart), Ann Cummins (Yellowcake), Lisa Michaels (Grand Ambition) Cornelia Nixon (The Use of Fame), Sarah Stone (Hungry Ghost Theater), Rafael Yglesias (The Wisdom of Perversity), and Vendela Vida (The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty).

This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required.

You can order The Book of Lost Light here – we’re offering free shipping throughout San Francisco and the East Bay.

Joseph Kylander’s childhood in early 20th century San Francisco has been shaped by his widowed father’s obsessive photographic project and by his headstrong cousin Karelia’s fanciful storytelling and impulsive acts. The 1906 earthquake upends their eccentric routines, and they take refuge with a capricious patron and a group of artists looking to find meaning after the disaster. The Book of Lost Light explores family loyalty and betrayal, Finnish folklore, the nature of time and theater, and what it takes to recover from calamity and build a new life from the ashes.

“Ron Nyren’s The Book of Lost Light is a beautifully written novel about the early days of photography; the capturing of time; acting; love, and much else. At its center is a wonderfully complex relationship between a father and his son, which is played out before, during, and after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The book is absolutely riveting, and its images will stay with you long after you finish reading it. I loved it.” – Charles Baxter

“I learned so much from this novel about the mad visions technology has always given us. In this quietly fabulous story, an early-twentieth-century photographer believes he’s solving the mystery of time, while his niece and his son have their own rocky fates. It’s so astute about ambition and has such a wise historical sense of the rich wreckage of San Francisco—I couldn’t stop reading.” – Joan Silber

Ron Nyren‘s novel, The Book of Lost Light, won the 2019 Black Lawrence Press Big Moose Prize. His fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, The Missouri Review, The North American Review, Glimmer Train Stories, Mississippi Review, Fourteen Hills, Able Muse, Dalhousie Review, 100 Word Story, and elsewhere. His stories have been shortlisted for the O. Henry Awards and the Pushcart Prize. He is the coauthor, with his spouse and writing partner Sarah Stone, of Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers, and a former editor of Furious Fictions: The Magazine of Short-Short Stories. Ron earned his MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan. A former Stegner Fellow, he teaches fiction writing for Stanford University.

This event is free and open to all ages, but RSVP is required.

You can order The Book of Lost Light here – we’re offering free shipping throughout San Francisco and the East Bay. The same applies for the other authors’ books – if you’d like a copy, you can click on their titles, above.