Time’s Top 10 lists for 2016 are out, and the Nonfiction Books category features two Lavin speakers: Margot Lee Shetterly for her true-but-untold space-race history Hidden Figures and Teju Cole for his remarkable essay collection Known and Strange Things.
Shetterly’s Hidden Figures chronicles the black women mathematicians who made crucial, behind-the-scenes calculations in the 1950s and 60s to launch Americans into space. It’s a New York Times bestseller, and soon to be a blockbuster motion picture (coming this Christmas) starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, and Kevin Costner.
Known and Strange Things, Cole’s third book, is a sprawling collection of essays that runs the gamut from James Baldwin to Shakespeare, from a nautical disaster in Bangladesh to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. “On every level of engagement and critique,” writes Claudia Rankine of The New York Times, “Known and Strange Things is an essential and scintillating journey.”
Be sure to pick up a copy of Known and Strange Things, or Hidden Figures, wherever you buy your books.
Just as captivating on stage as they are in print, Margot Lee Shetterly and Teju Cole are available for speaking engagements. To book them for your organization’s next event, contact The Lavin Agency, their exclusive speakers bureau.
