If your bookshelf is looking a little bare heading into the colder months, relax. The Wisconsin Book Festival, put on by the Madison Public Library and the Madison Public Library Foundation, is hosting its Fall Celebration from Oct. 23-26, with 55 free events at the Madison Public Library Central Branch, Arts + Literature Laboratory, UW Discovery Building, and more locations around town.
On the City Cast Madison podcast today, festival director Jane Rotonda gives host Bianca Martin a preview of who’s coming to this year’s festival, and why readers keep coming to the festival.
Finding the four-day schedule a bit overwhelming? Here’s some tips for every kind of reader about book events this week to check out.
(The Wisconsin Book Festival is an advertiser of City Cast Madison. This article was written without their involvement.)
🎸 For Music Lovers
If you love ‘90s alternative rock, check out music journalist Selena Fragassi talking about “Alanis: Thirty Years of Jagged Little Pill” (Oct. 24, 7:30 p.m., Discovery Building). If you like a little more twang, Tamara Saviano discusses “Poets and Dreamers: My Life in Americana Music” (Oct. 24, 4:30 p.m., Discovery Building).
Or if classic rock and R&B is your thing, UW-Madison professor Doug Bradley’s memoir “The Tracks of My Tears’ (Oct. 24, 6 p.m. Discovery Building) could be your jam.
🧀 For Food Lovers
Say cheese! “The Wisconsin Whey” (Oct. 24, 4:30 p.m., Central Library) celebrates 12 cheesemakers from the Driftless region. If you want to start baking your own bread, “Let’s Bake Bread” (Oct. 24, 6 p.m, Central Library) is a combo comic book/cookbook that makes it easy. “The Cook’s Garden” (Oct. 26, 1:30 p.m. Central Library) will help you start your own garden and incorporate homegrown produce into your cooking.
🧒 For Kids and Parents
“Digital Girlhood” (Oct. 26, 10:30 a.m., Central Library), examines how social media affects tween girls. Bring the kids for “Quijoteres!”, (Oct. 25, 10 a.m., Central Library), Dragoncillo Puppet Troupe’s bilingual reimagining of “Don Quixote.” Celebrate young authors at the authors’ reception for the winners of the “WE READ Youth Voices Writing Contest” (Oct. 25, 9:15 a.m., Central Library).
📚 For Fiction Lovers
“A Thousand Acres” author Jane Hamilton returns with her new novel, “The Phoebe Variations” (Oct. 23, 7 p.m. Central Library). Lily King explores campus love and lit in “Heart the Lover” (Oct. 25, 6 p.m., Central Library). In “The Wilderness” (Oct. 25, 4:30 p.m., Central Library), Angela Flournoy follows five Black women over the course of a two-decade friendship.
🐦 For Nature Lovers
The Wisco Birder, Dexter Patterson, presents his new book “Birds of the Great Lakes” (Oct. 26, 10:30 a.m., Central Library), and you can get a copy for free. Celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Wisconsin State Park system with three nature authors (Oct. 25, 4:30 p.m., Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium). And “Fish Tales” (Oct. 25, noon, Discovery Building) celebrates our finned friends.
