Rochester Reads Event: Sonja Livingston & Queen of the Fall
I think authors are rock stars – so meeting an author is a terribly exciting thing for me, so I just had to share my recent meeting of author Sonja Livingston.
Last year I read Ghostbread by Sonja Livingston, and immediately connected with the book. A memoir of Sonja Livingston’s youth spent in some of the Rochester area’s most poverty stricken neighborhoods. Sonja beautifully describes not only the hardships, but also the beauty, and joy she found in unlikely circumstances. Without a doubt, Ghostbread was my favorite book I read last year, and possibly ever. I will be encouraging both my daughters to read Ghostbread when the time is right, it is beautifully written, but it also offers important lessons.
I was thrilled when I saw Sonja Livingston is touring the Rochester Area doing readings followed by Q&A and book signings with Writers & Books as part of the “If All of Rochester Reads the Same Book” program, and knew I had to get myself to an event.
If All of Rochester Reads…
Each year, Writers & Books selects one book for the Rochester area to explore together. The goal of “If All of Rochester Reads the Same Book…” is to encourage people to connect to others in our community through reading and discussion, and through the shared experience of literature. This year the selected book was Queen of the Fall, by Sonja Livingston. I’ll be honest, it has been sitting on my Goodreads “To-Read” shelf for a while, and on my Amazon Wishlist for even longer, but I picked up a copy at the event yesterday (and had it signed) and will start it later this week.
Encouraging the whole city to read the same book strikes me as a really interesting idea! I hadn’t heard of any place doing that before. I can imagine conversations starting up in grocery store lines and at bus stops. How connecting that could be! I’m so glad you got to meet the author of one of your favorite books too! That’s exciting!