Friends of Grosse Pointe Public Library Present Lecture On Let the Great World Spin

The Friends of the Grosse Pointe Public Library present a Contemporary Books Lecture on Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, winner of the 2009 National Book Award. The lecture will be held Tuesday, November 9, 2010 in the Grosse Pointe South High School Library, 10 Grosse Pointe Boulevard, Grosse Pointe Farms. Admission at the door is $10. The lecture is free for Friends members, students and teachers with identification. There are no pre-sales for this lecture. Contact Donna Di Sante, 313-881-2258 for further information.

About the Book: In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann's stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people. Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author's most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s.

Lecturer Michael Byers is an associate professor at the University of Michigan Department of English and author of The Coast of Good Intentions, Long for this World, and the recently released, Percival's Planet, a novel about the discovery of Pluto in 1930. This year Mr. Byers had two stories listed in the 100 Best Stories of the Year by Best American Short Stories.