Tim O’Brien

Worthington, Minnesota native O’Brien is best known as one of the more insightful writers to emerge out of the Vietnam War, chronicling the ongoing cost of the conflict in books like The Things They Carried , In the Lake of the Woods , and Going After Cacciato , which won the National Book Award in 1979. His new novel, July, July , moves beyond the war to take on a wider canvas, taking stock of the Baby Boom generation’s tortuous path through the decades. Starting out at a 30-year college reunion, July reunites a set of friends from the 1960s and explores how their lives changed between the 1960s and the new millennium, parsing how the idealistic innocence of their youth was transformed through the passing years. Think Big Chill II . This reading takes O’Brien back to his alma mater, where he got a degree in political science in 1968. Ruminator Books, (651) 699-0587, www.ruminator.com