CELEBRATE THE LOCAL LAUNCH OF WALTER ISAACSON’S ELON MUSK

From Walter Isaacson, recent winner of the National Humanities Medal, author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies comes Elon Musk, the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era—a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter.

Author Walter Isaacson will be at the Nims Fine Arts Center with The Garden District Book Shop to discuss Elon Musk. Isaacson will be joined in conversation by author Amy Gajda who wrote Seek and Hide: The Tangled History of the Right to Privacy. After the discussion, Isaacson will be available to chat with guests and personalize copies of Elon Musk. 

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Free admission will be given to those with a valid student ID. Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase on site.

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.

At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he said.

It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.

For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?

John Connolly - The Land of Lost Things - October 5th

Bestselling international author John Connolly will be at The Garden District Book Shop to celebrate the release of his new novel The Land of Lost Things, another dive into and expansion on the world of The Book of Lost Things.

The event will begin with a welcome reception featuring light refreshments. Shortly afterward, Connolly will sit down with guests to discuss his work and answer any questions about The Land of Lost Things. Connolly will then be available to chat with guests and personalize copies of his books. 

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Twice upon a time—for that is how some stories should continue…

Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident—a body without a spirit. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud the fairy stories Phoebe loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world.

But an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, to journey to a land colored by the memories of childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father—a land of witches and dryads, giants and mandrakes; a land where old enemies are watching and waiting…