In Person
- November 22, 2026 - 2:00 pm
- 3:00 pm
- Building 3, Second Floor, Room 3209
Free
Hernan Diaz’s Ply: A Novel questions the place of technology in the American experiment. Set centuries from now, as humans reinvent social bonds and learn new ways to coexist with nature, it follows an orphan who grows up to become a “pincher,” someone who steals electricity to sell it on the black market – and leads her to a scientific invention that could change reality. In Babylon, South Dakota: A Novel, Tom Lin tells the American West saga of a Chinese American family making a life on its Dakota farm – until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers buys an acre of its farmland and begins building a missile silo. Then, the inexplicable starts to occur, from the wife developing a talent for augury to the chrysanthemums in the garden becoming impervious to everything. Moderated by Clay Smith, literary director at the San Antonio Book Festival.