Want something low commitment and fun? Be part of the FREE Thurber Prize for American Humor book club! We'll discuss the top three finalist books for this year's Thurber Prize. Which book deserves to win? Read them all and tell us!

This program is FREE (RSVP required). Join us virtually on Zoom!

With over 80 million books in print worldwide and fifteen current and upcoming Netflix and Prime series (and counting), Harlan Coben is a master of creating thrilling suspense stories. Join us as he discusses his latest blistering novel, Think Twice.

How can a man who’s already dead be wanted for murder?

Three years ago, sports agent Myron Bolitar gave a eulogy at the funeral of his client, renowned basketball coach Greg Downing. Myron and Greg had history: initially as deeply personal rivals, and later as unexpected business associates. Myron made peace and moved on—until now, when two federal agents walked into his office, demanding to know the whereabouts of Greg Downing.

According to the agents, Greg is still alive—and has been placed at the scene of a double homicide, making him their main suspect. Shocked, Myron starts looking for answers… and soon discovers secrets, lies, and a murderous conspiracy that turns everything he thought he knew about Greg Downing upside down.

This event will be moderated by ABC6/FOX28 lifestyle show host Alissa Henry. You will have the opportunity to ask questions and meet Harlan Coben after the event.

Awarded annually, The Thurber Prize for American Humor is one of the highest recognitions of humor writing in the United States. Past winners and finalists include Steven Rowley, James McBride, Patricia Lockwood, Trevor Noah, David Sedaris, Patricia Marx, Mike Birbiglia, Alan Zweibel, and Dave Barry.

Join us for The 23rd Thurber Prize for American Humor award show! Celebrate humor, art, and literary brilliance in Columbus, OH as we honor James Thurber's legacy and mark Thurber House's 40th anniversary. This special anniversary year, we've reimagined The Thurber Prize show into an unforgettable evening at the Columbus Museum of Art.  We're excited to introduce the first Thurber Prize in Cartoon Art alongside the esteemed Thurber Prize for American Humor in Writing, blending tradition with a new era of excellence. The winners of both awards will be announced live at the show.

From the FBI’s former assistant director, a shocking journey to the dark side of America’s highways, revealing the FBI Highway Serial Killings Initiative’s hunt for the long-haul truckers behind an astonishing 850 murders–and rising.

In 2004, the FBI was tipped off to a gruesome pattern of unsolved murders along American roadways. Today at least 850 homicides have been linked to a solitary breed of predators: long-haul truck drivers. They have been given names like the “Truck Stop Killer,” who rigged a traveling torture chamber in the rear of his truck and is suspected to have killed fifty women, and “The Interstate Strangler,” who once answered a phone call from his mother while killing one of his dozen victims. The crisis was such that the FBI opened a special unit, the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. In many cases, the victims—often at-risk women—are picked up at truck stops in one jurisdiction, sexually assaulted and murdered in another, and dumped along a highway in a third place. The transient nature of the offenders and multiple jurisdictions involved make these cases incredibly difficult to solve.

Based on his own on-the-ground research and drawing on his twenty-five-year career as an FBI special agent, Frank Figliuzzi investigates the most terrifying cases. He also rides in a big-rig with a long-haul trucker for thousands of miles, gaining an intimate understanding of the life and habits of drivers and their roadside culture. And he interviews the courageous trafficked victims of these crimes, and their inspiring efforts to now help others avoid similar fates.

Long Haul is a gripping exploration of a violent, disordered world hiding in plain sight, and the heroes racing to end the horror. It will forever unsettle how you travel on the road.

You will have the opportunity to ask the speaker questions after the event, purchase books, and get your books signed.

Mo Rocca is a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, author of New York Times bestseller Mobituaries, host of the hit Mobituaries podcast, and host of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation. He’s also a frequent panelist on NPR’s hit weekly quiz show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!

From beloved CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Mo Rocca comes an inspiring collection of stories that celebrates the fascinating triumphs of famous people who made their biggest marks late in life.

Eighty has been the new sixty for about twenty years now. In fact, there have always been late-in-life achievers, those who declined to go into decline just because they were eligible for social security. Journalist, humorist, and history buff Mo Rocca and co-author Jonathan Greenberg introduce us to the people past and present who peaked when they could have been puttering—breaking out as writers, selling out concert halls, attempting to set land-speed records—and in the case of one ninety-year tortoise, becoming a first-time father. (Take that, Al Pacino!)

In the vein of Mobituaries, Roctogenarians is a collection of entertaining and unexpected profiles of these unretired titans—some long gone (a cancer-stricken Henri Matisse, who began work on his celebrated cut-outs when he could no longer paint), some very much still living (Rita Moreno, the EGOT who’s still got it). The amazing cast of characters also includes Mary Church Terrell, who at eighty-six helped lead sit-ins at segregated Washington, DC, lunch counters in the 1950s, and Carol Channing, who married the love of her life at eighty-two. Then there’s Peter Mark Roget, who began working on his thesaurus in his twenties and completed it at seventy-three (because sometimes finding the right word takes time).

After the event, you will have the opportunity to ask questions and meet/take a photo with Mo, as well as get your book personalized.

From the acclaimed award-winning author of The Butler and Showdown comes this unprecedented history of Black cinema. Colorization examines 100 years of Black movies—from Gone with the Wind to Blaxploitation films to Black Panther—using the struggles and triumphs of the artists, and the films themselves, as a prism to explore Black culture, civil rights, and racism in America.

Beginning in 1915 with D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation—which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and became Hollywood’s first blockbuster—Wil Haygood gives us an incisive, fascinating, little-known history, spanning more than a century, of Black artists in the film business, on-screen and behind the scenes.

He makes clear the effects of changing social realities and events on the business of making movies and what was represented on the screen: from Jim Crow and segregation to white flight and interracial relationships, from the assassination of Malcolm X, to the O. J. Simpson trial, to the Black Lives Matter movement. He considers the films themselves—including Imitation of Life, Gone with the Wind, Porgy and Bess, the Blaxploitation films of the seventies, Do The Right Thing, 12 Years a Slave, and Black Panther. And he brings to new light the careers and significance of a wide range of historic and contemporary figures: Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Berry Gordy, Alex Haley, Spike Lee, Billy Dee Willliams, Richard Pryor, Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay, and Jordan Peele, among many others.

An important, timely book, Colorization gives us both an unprecedented history of Black cinema and a groundbreaking perspective on racism in modern America.

You will have the opportunity to ask the speaker questions after the event, purchase books, and get your books signed.

From the FBI’s former assistant director, a shocking journey to the dark side of America’s highways, revealing the FBI Highway Serial Killings Initiative’s hunt for the long-haul truckers behind an astonishing 850 murders–and rising.

In 2004, the FBI was tipped off to a gruesome pattern of unsolved murders along American roadways. Today at least 850 homicides have been linked to a solitary breed of predators: long-haul truck drivers. They have been given names like the “Truck Stop Killer,” who rigged a traveling torture chamber in the rear of his truck and is suspected to have killed fifty women, and “The Interstate Strangler,” who once answered a phone call from his mother while killing one of his dozen victims. The crisis was such that the FBI opened a special unit, the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. In many cases, the victims—often at-risk women—are picked up at truck stops in one jurisdiction, sexually assaulted and murdered in another, and dumped along a highway in a third place. The transient nature of the offenders and multiple jurisdictions involved make these cases incredibly difficult to solve.

Based on his own on-the-ground research and drawing on his twenty-five-year career as an FBI special agent, Frank Figliuzzi investigates the most terrifying cases. He also rides in a big-rig with a long-haul trucker for thousands of miles, gaining an intimate understanding of the life and habits of drivers and their roadside culture. And he interviews the courageous trafficked victims of these crimes, and their inspiring efforts to now help others avoid similar fates.

Long Haul is a gripping exploration of a violent, disordered world hiding in plain sight, and the heroes racing to end the horror. It will forever unsettle how you travel on the road.

You will have the opportunity to ask the speaker questions after the event, purchase books, and get your books signed.

Mo Rocca is a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, author of New York Times bestseller Mobituaries, host of the hit Mobituaries podcast, and host of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation. He’s also a frequent panelist on NPR’s hit weekly quiz show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!

From beloved CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Mo Rocca comes an inspiring collection of stories that celebrates the fascinating triumphs of famous people who made their biggest marks late in life.

Eighty has been the new sixty for about twenty years now. In fact, there have always been late-in-life achievers, those who declined to go into decline just because they were eligible for social security. Journalist, humorist, and history buff Mo Rocca and co-author Jonathan Greenberg introduce us to the people past and present who peaked when they could have been puttering—breaking out as writers, selling out concert halls, attempting to set land-speed records—and in the case of one ninety-year tortoise, becoming a first-time father. (Take that, Al Pacino!)

In the vein of Mobituaries, Roctogenarians is a collection of entertaining and unexpected profiles of these unretired titans—some long gone (a cancer-stricken Henri Matisse, who began work on his celebrated cut-outs when he could no longer paint), some very much still living (Rita Moreno, the EGOT who’s still got it). The amazing cast of characters also includes Mary Church Terrell, who at eighty-six helped lead sit-ins at segregated Washington, DC, lunch counters in the 1950s, and Carol Channing, who married the love of her life at eighty-two. Then there’s Peter Mark Roget, who began working on his thesaurus in his twenties and completed it at seventy-three (because sometimes finding the right word takes time).

After the event, you will have the opportunity to ask questions and meet/take a photo with Mo, as well as get your book personalized.

The Devil’s Berries is book two of The Last Favorite's Page trilogy, inspired by the true life of Louis-Benoit Zamor. His mother told him he was God’s greatest thing. Then he was stolen, sold, shipped to France, and re-named Louis-Benoit Zamor. Stripped of his esteem as efficiently as a fox’s coat in a royal hunt, Zamor has been reared by Madame du Barry—with a love as false as her smile.

Serving Madame du Barry by day and rubbing shoulders with revolutionaries at night, Louis-Benoit Zamor is ready to find his greatness. During his time in the sun, he will lend his voice to the revolutionary movement and love like he’s never dared. But the Ancient Régime isn’t done with him yet. Much like the deadly devil’s berries, Madame’s bitter anger takes root at the chateau. Zamor will discover that when facing the devil in disguise, only one thing is for sure: every fox must survive its own hunt.

You will have the opportunity to ask the speaker questions after the event, purchase books, and get your books signed.

Lola and the Troll is a debut picture book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Connie Schultz about a young girl named Lola who decides to be brave and stand up to a bully.

Lola is a happy kid who loves recess and her imaginary dog, Tank. There’s just one problem: the neighborhood bully. He hides behind a troll costume and says mean things to everyone who walks by, including Lola. Soon she starts wearing her hair differently, walking on her tippy toes to add a few extra inches to her height, and even putting cornstarch in her shoes because he said her feet stink! But when Lola’s mom takes her to her favorite place, The Bee’s Sneeze bookstore, the owner, Ms. Sneesby, reminds Lola that she LOVES her curly hair, her bright smile, and her big eyes. And most importantly, Ms. Sneesby reminds Lola that she is brave.

Lola and the Troll is about remembering how to be brave, even when it’s hard, and realizing that sometimes all a bully really needs is a little kindness.

You will have the opportunity to ask the speaker questions after the event, purchase books, and get your books signed.

Paul Landis was a twenty-eight-year-old Secret Service agent in President John F. Kennedy’s Dallas motorcade on November 22, 1963. Landis is only one of two Secret Service agents still alive who accompanied Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, on that fateful day. Though Landis was a witness to the events that day, he was never interviewed by the Warren Commission, and has kept his recollections private until now, including details surrounding a key piece of evidence.

Dallas, Texas. November 22, 1963. Shots ring out at Dealey Plaza. President John F. Kennedy is struck in the head by a rifle bullet. Confusion reigns.

Special Agent Paul Landis is in the follow-up car directly behind JFK’s and is at the president’s limo as soon as it stops at Parkland Memorial Hospital. He is inside Trauma Room #1, where the president is pronounced dead. He is on Air Force One with the president’s casket on the flight back to Washington, DC; an eyewitness to Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office.

What Agent Paul Landis saw is indelibly imprinted upon his psyche. He writes and files his report. And yet … Agent Landis is never called to testify to the Warren Commission. The one person who could have supplied key answers is never asked questions.

By mid-1964, the nightmares from Dallas remain, and Landis resigns from the Secret Service. It isn’t until the fiftieth anniversary that he begins to talk about it, and he reads his first books on the assassination. Landis learns about the raging conspiracy theories—and realizes where they all go wrong.

You will have the opportunity to ask the speaker questions after the event, purchase books, and get your books signed.

From the bestselling author of The Kindness of Strangers comes a poignant and life-affirming novel about our connections to the past, and the promise for the future during the least promising of times.

Grieving but feisty widow Vivian Laurent is at a late-in-life crossroads. The man she loved is gone. Their only daughter is estranged and missing. And the assisted-living facility where her husband died is going into quarantine. Living in lockdown with only heartache and memories is something Vivian can’t bear. Then comes a saving grace.

Luna, a compassionate nursing assistant and newly separated mother, is facing eviction. Vivian has a plan that could turn their lives around: return to her old home and invite Luna and her two children to move in with her. With the exuberant eleven-year-old Wren in her hot-pink motorized wheelchair and Wren’s troubled older brother, Cooper, the new housemates make for an unlikely pandemic pack, weathering the coming storm together.

Now it’s time to heal old wounds, make peace with the past, find hope and joy, and discover that the strongest bonds can get anyone through the worst of times.

You will have the opportunity to ask the speaker questions after the event, purchase books, and get your books signed.

Growing up in Columbus, Ohio in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren’t. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling. “Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father’s jump shot,” Abdurraqib writes. “The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.”

There’s Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus—whether it’s basketball, or music, or performance—Hanif Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.

You will have the opportunity to ask the speaker questions after the event, purchase books, and get your books signed.