May 24, 2010 Allende, Meltzer, Pamuk, Paterson, Remnick, Smiley, Turow Headline National Book Festival

Internationally known authors Isabel Allende, Brad Meltzer, Katherine Paterson, Jane Smiley, Scott Turow, David Remnick and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk will be among more than 70 writers headlining the 10th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010, between 3rd and 7th streets on the National Mall. The event, free and open to the public, will run from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (rain or shine).

The 2010 National Book Festival will feature authors, poets and illustrators in several pavilions. Festivalgoers can meet and hear firsthand from their favorite authors, get books signed, have photos taken with PBS storybook characters and participate in a variety of activities. Some 130,000 book fans attended the festival of 2009.

A new website has been launched to celebrate “A Decade of Words and Wonder,” the theme of this 10th National Book Festival, at www.loc.gov/bookfest/. The website offers a variety of new features including a video looking back at the first decade of the National Book Festival; brief “video vignettes” from interviews with past festival authors; and easy access to website offerings from past festivals. New material will continually be added to the website, and in June visitors will have a chance to vote for their favorites among the National Book Festival’s nearly 500 past participating authors.

“We are delighted to be celebrating this 10th anniversary of a beloved event for book lovers of all ages,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. “We will have a lineup of authors to thrill festivalgoers, and we are going to be offering special events all through the week going into the festival.”

Allende, whose latest book is “Island Beneath the Sea” (HarperCollins), is the author of several acclaimed works, including “The Sum of Our Days” and “The House of the Spirits.” The award-winning Chilean-born writer, now a U.S. citizen, has seen her work published in 30 languages.

Brad Meltzer, whose latest book is “Heroes for My Son” (HarperStudio), is the best-selling author of such thrillers as “The Book of Lies” and “The Book of Fate.”

Beloved young people’s author Katherine Paterson, currently the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, will hold a reading in the Children’s Pavilion to conclude the rollicking serial story “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure,” available exclusively at www.read.gov/exquisite-corpse/. Her latest novel is “The Day of the Pelican” (Clarion Books); her other books include “Bridge to Terabithia”” and Jacob Have I Loved.”

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker magazine, is most recently the author of a biography, “The Bridge—The Life and Rise of Barack Obama” (Knopf). He has written several other books, including “Reporting: Writings From The New Yorker” and “Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire.”

Jane Smiley, whose latest book is “A Good Horse” (Knopf) won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel “A Thousand Acres.”

Orhan Pamuk, whose work has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide in 50 languages, is a Turkish author whose body of work earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. He is the author of several works including “Snow” and “The Museum of Innocence.”

Scott Turow’s latest best-seller is “Innocent” (Grand Central), the sequel to his smash “Presumed Innocent.”

Other authors and illustrators slated to participate in the National Book Festival include Adele Logan Alexander, M.T. Anderson, Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, Ree Drummond, Timothy Egan, Bruce Feiler, illustrator Peter Ferguson, Jonathan Safran Foer, Mem Fox, Jonathan Franzen, Elizabeth George, Gail Godwin, Margaret Peterson Haddix, Philip Hoose, Norton Juster, Jules Feiffer, Elizabeth Kostova, Chang-rae Lee, Thomas Mallon, Marilyn Nelson, Michelle Norris, Nell Irvin Painter, Linda Sue Park, illustrator James Ransome, Richard Rhodes, Henry Petroski, graphic novelist Jeff Smith, Peter Straub, Evan Thomas and Judith Viorst.

The delightful artist Peter Ferguson, who has illustrated several children’s and fantasy books, will create the 2010 National Book Festival poster.

Representatives from the 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories will celebrate their unique literary heritage in the Pavilion of the States. The popular Let’s Read America Pavilion will offer reading activities that are fun for the whole family. The Library of Congress Pavilion will showcase the cultural treasures to be found in the Library’s vast online collections and offer information about popular Library programs.

The 2010 National Book Festival will be made possible through the support of David M. Rubenstein, Target, The Washington Post and many other generous supporters.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, is the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing unparalleled collections and integrated resources to Congress and the American people. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov and via interactive exhibitions on a personalized website at myLOC.gov.