Boston Book Festival

This session takes a fresh look at the French Revolution from the perspective of public opinion and fashion. Robert Darnton’s The Revolutionary Temper: Paris 1748 – 1749, considers the period prior to the Revolution, showing how public opinion among ordinary Parisians was fueled by real and fake news from diverse sources including pamphlets, engravings, and rhyming doggerel. Anne Higonnet’s Liberty, Equality, Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution, describes the sartorial revolt of fashion influencers Joséphine Bonaparte, Térézia Tallien, and Juliette Récamier. The story of these women’s styles and celebrity is a study in creativity, liberation, and female empowerment. Join us for a rip-roaring look at the French Revolution, led by Rachel Slade, author of Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S.A. (And How It Got That Way.) Vive la révolution!

This session examines shocking episodes in American History that are little known yet have an extraordinary impact on contemporary society. In Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum, award-winning journalist for NBC News, Antonia Hylton, tells how so-called “feebleminded” Blacks were rounded up and placed in asylums where they were put to work as indentured servants. To add insult to injury, insanity was blamed on freedom, not subhuman conditions. The lack of understanding and treatment of the mental health of Black people is a theme throughout. Pulitzer Prize winner and Yale historian David Blight, in Yale and Slavery: A History, brings to light Yale’s long and complex involvement in slavery and racism. Northeastern professor Caleb Gayle wrote We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power, to reveal the story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that both owned slaves and accepted Blacks as full citizens, at least until tribal leaders revoked that citizenship in the 70’s. Join GBH’s Executive Producer of American Experience, Cameo George, for an eye-opening exploration of little known episodes from American history that illustrate that the past is ever-present.

In this eclectic grouping of authors whose books have each earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, the theme is seeking understanding and comfort in a world where change is the only constant. In The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster, John O’Connor goes in search of Bigfoot's myth and meaning. Publishers Weekly calls his effort “a winning portrait of America at its weirdest.” Curator and cultural observer Simon Wu’s memoir in essays, Dancing On My Own: Essays on Art,Collectivity, and Joy, interrogates art, capitalism, and identity and seeks to center joy in a socially engaged art-making life. Finally, The Atlantic writer James Parker’s Get Me Through the Next Five Minutes: Odes to Being Alive, pays homage to the poetry and beauty in everyday life. His quirky, funny odes to everything from Proust to dog waste are celebratory and life-affirming. Join us for a fun and provocative appreciation of everyone’s search for meaning and joy, led by Edgar B. Herwick III, host of GBH’s Curiosity Desk.