Maria Semple at The Brattle Theatre

Harvard Book Store welcomes Maria Semple—bestselling author of Today Will Be Different, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, and This One Is Mine—for a discussion of her highly anticipated new novel, Go Gentle. She will be joined in conversation by J. Courtney Sullivan—bestselling author of Friends and Strangers and The Cliffs.

Tickets include admission for one and one hardcover copy of Go Gentle pre-signed by the author.

Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.

The New York Times bestselling author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette returns to form in her most exuberant and life-affirming novel yet with the story of one woman’s cheerful determination to live a life of the mind only to have the heart force its way in.
Adora Hazzard has it all figured out. A Stoic philosopher and divorcée, she lives a contented life on New York City’s Upper West Side. Having discovered that the secret to happiness is to desire only what you have, she’s applied this insight to blissful effect: relishing her teenage daughter, the freedom of being solo, and her job as a moral tutor for the twin boys of an old-money family. She’s even assembled a "coven"—like-minded women who live on the same floor in the legendary Ansonia—and is making active efforts to grow its membership. Adora’s carefully curated life is humming along brilliantly until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger.
Soon, her ordered world is upended by black-market art deals, secret rendezvous, and international intrigue . . . and her past—which she has worked so hard to bury—lands like a bomb in her present. Inflamed by unquenchable desire, Adora finds herself a woman wanting more: and she’ll risk everything to get it.
Adora Hazzard’s journey of self-discovery will grip you from the start. Romantic, hilarious, intelligent, and bursting with the stuff of life, Go Gentle is a thrilling story of one woman’s mid-life transformation, cementing Maria Semple in the pantheon of our most exciting and important contemporary writers.

Maria Semple is the bestselling author of Today Will Be Different, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, and This One Is Mine. Her novels have been translated into forty languages. Before writing fiction, Maria wrote for TV. She lives in New York.

J. Courtney Sullivan is the New York Times best-selling author of the novels Commencement, Maine, The Engagements, Saints for All Occasions, Friends and Strangers (a Today Show Read with Jenna selection), and, most recently, The Cliffs, which was a Reese’s Book Club pick. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages. Sullivan's writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Real Simple, and O, The Oprah Magazine, among many others. In 2017, she wrote the forewords to new editions of two of her favorite classic novels—Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two children.

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.

Event Venue

The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge, United States

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