We've had a lot of requests from people looking to join a book club.  If you have openings in your group, will you please email Sina (sina@keplers.com) and let her know?  Thanks very much.

And here is information about several wonderful author events you won't want to miss.

David Rieff: Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir 
Thursday, January 31^st at 7:30 p.m.

David Rieff is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of six previous books, including the acclaimed A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis and Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West. He is a contributing editor to The New Republic and a contributing writer to the Los Angeles Times Book Review, as well as a frequent contributor to many other newspapers and magazines in the United States and Western Europe.

Geraldine Brooks: People of the Book 
Tuesday, February 5^th at 7:30 p.m.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, the journey of a rare illuminated prayer book through centuries of war, destruction, theft, loss, and love.

In 1996, Hanna Heath, a young Australian book conservator has been called to handle the job of a lifetime: analysis of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a priceless six-hundred-year-old Jewish prayer book that has been salvaged from the destroyed Bosnian library by a courageous librarian. Very little is known about this legendary book. Its provenance and the identity of the artist whose stunning illustrations grace its pages, have long been debated. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of artifacts in its centuries' old folios-an insect wing, wine and salt stains, a white hair-she becomes determined to unlock the book's mysteries.

Hanna's investigation enables her to expose a nefarious international cover up and offers her a second chance at lasting romance. Intricate, vivid, and utterly engrossing, People of the Book is at once a novel of sweeping historical grandeur, vividly realized characters, and electrifying intrigue from an acclaimed and beloved author.

Brooks is also the author of Year of Wonders, Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence. Previously, Brooks was a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal in Bosnia, Somalia, and the Middle East.

Part love story, part murder mystery, set on the cusp of the Second World War, Russell Banks's sharp-witted and deeply engaging new novel raises dangerous questions about class, politics, art, love, and madness-and explores what happens when two powerful personalities, trapped at opposite ends of a social divide, begin to break the rules.

Moving from the secluded beauty of the Adirondack wilderness to the skies above war-torn Spain and Fascist Germany, The Reserve is a clever, incisive, and passionately romantic novel of suspense that adds a new dimension to this acclaimed author's extraordinary repertoire.

Russell Banks is the founding president of Cities of Refuge North America and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His work has been translated into 20 languages and has received numerous international prizes and awards. He is the New York State Author.

Manil Suri: Age of Shiva 
Monday, March 3^rd at 7:30 p.m.

The Age of Shiva is at once a powerful story of a country in turmoil and an extraordinary portrait of maternal love. Meera, the narrator, is seventeen years old when she catches her first glimpse of Dev, performing a song so infused with passion that it arouses in her the first flush of erotic longing. She wonders if she can steal him away from Roopa, her older, more beautiful sister, who has brought her along to see him.

It is only when her son is born that Meera begins to imagine a life of fulfillment. She engulfs him with a love so deep, so overpowering, that she must fear its consequences. Meera's unforgettable story, embodying Shiva as a symbol of religious upheaval, places The Age of Shiva among the most compelling novels to emerge from contemporary India.

The Death of Vishnu won the 2002 Barnes and Noble Discover Prize and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Suri is a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: The Palace of Illusions: A Novel
Tuesday, March 4^th at 7:30 p.m.

A reimagining of the world-famous Indian epic, the Mahabharat-told from the point of view of the wife of an amazing woman.

Relevant to today's war-torn world, The Palace of Illusions takes us back to a time that is half history, half myth, and wholly magical. Narrated by Panchaali, the wife of the legendary Pandavas brothers in the Mahabharat, the novel gives us a new interpretation of this ancient tale.

The novel traces the princess Panchaali's life, beginning with her birth in fire and following her spirited balancing act as a woman with five husbands who have been cheated out of their father's kingdom. Panchaali is swept into their quest to reclaim their birthright, remaining at their side through years of exile and a terrible civil war involving all the important kings of India. Meanwhile, we never lose sight of her strategic duels with her mother-in-law, her complicated friendship with the enigmatic Krishna, or her secret attraction to the mysterious man who is her husband's most dangerous enemy. Panchaali is a fiery female redefining for us a world of warriors, gods, and the ever-manipulating hands of fate.

CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI is the author of the bestselling novels Queen of Dreams, Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, and The Vine of Desire, and of the prizewinning story collections Arranged Marriage and The Unknown Errors of Our Lives. She lives in Houston, Texas, and teaches creative writing at the University of Houston.