BOOKS, POETRY & LECTURES

Home > BOOKS, POETRY & LECTURES > 30th Annual Houston Chronicle Book & Author Dinner

• Tweet
• Outlook
• ICAL
• PRINT
• Email
• Feedback

• RSS

• Official Website
• Buy Tickets
• Add to My Favorites

30th Annual Houston Chronicle Book & Author Dinner

Presented by Houston Chronicle at Hilton Americas - Houston

November 1, 2009

Add Review/Comment
Comment on Facebook

Join The Houston Chronicle for the gala 30th Annual Houston Chronicle Book & Author Dinner, the 30th anniversary celebrating three decades of bringing noteworthy authors to Houston! Presented by Spectra Energy, this literacy-lovers event begins with book signings and cocktails at 5:00 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1 at the Hilton-Americas Houston. The star-studded evening allows Houstonians to purchase books, get autographs, and hear five major authors speak about their latest book over dinner while benefitting literacy.

2009 Featured Authors:

Oscar Casares
A native of Brownsville, Texas, Oscar Casares used to work in advertising. When someone suggested he write down his old family stories about life in a border town, he did. The stories became Brownsville, the 2004 short story collection that put Casares on the literary map. Amigoland, his first novel published this summer, proves that he is here to stay. Casares teaches creative writing at the University of Texas-Austin.

Lee Child
After 18 years as a presentation director for British television, Lee Child sat down to write his first book. Killing Floor, the first in the Jack Reacher mystery series, was an immediate success. Child’s 13th Reacher title, Gone Tomorrow, was released earlier this year to the same instant popularity. Child has homes in Manhattan and the south of France. He is tall and remains slim, despite an appalling diet and a refusal to exercise.

David Cross
He played Tobias Funke on television’s “Arrested Development,” a key character in the profoundly dysfunctional Bluth family. He was also part of Mr. Show, the sketch-comedy show in which all the sketches were strangely connected. David Cross is also a stand-up comedian and the author of I Drink for a Reason, a collection of essays about everything from scrapbooking in Michigan to ideas for t-shirts to be sold at Urban Outfitters. Actor Paul Rudd calls it “one of the funniest books I’ve ever skimmed!”

Charlaine Harris
A Mississippi Delta native, Charlaine Harris grew up in a cotton field. After college, Harris commenced a dizzyingly productive writing career, finally settling into a genre that felt right. Dead Until Dark, the first in her Sookie Stackhouse series, combined elements of traditional mystery, science fiction and romance. This year brought Dead and Gone, book nine of the popular series. Television viewers can catch up with Sookie and co. in “True Blood,” the HBO series based on Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse books.

Julie Powell
A blog, a book and a de-boned duck behind her, Julie Powell has shown skill on a computer keyboard and in a kitchen. In 2002, Powell cooked and blogged her way through Julia Child’s seminal cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The blog became Powell’s 2005 memoir, Julie & Julia, which made its way onto the big screen this year with Amy Adams and Meryl Steep in leading roles. Coming soon, Powell’s second memoir: Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession.

Event proceeds benefit the literacy programs of the Houston Public Library and the Houston Chronicle. The Houston Chronicle Book & Author Dinner has touched many lives throughout the Houston community for 30 years. The Chronicle is proud to underwrite this important event, which supports outstanding literacy programs of the Houston Public Libary and Readers Are Leaders Foundations.

Book sales provided by Brazos Bookstore and Murder By The Book.