Books+Bites Featuring Sara A. H. Butler

On August 22, DeKalb Library Foun­da­tion and Callan­wolde Fine Arts cen­ter fea­tured author Sara A. H. But­ler at Books+Bites. Butler’s nov­el For­tune and Fol­ly: The Weird and Won­der­ful Life of the South’s Most Eccen­tric Mil­lion­aire high­lights the life of Asa ​“Bud­die” Can­dler, Jr. and his great suc­cess­es as well as his even greater fail­ures. But­ler enter­tained the audi­ence with provoca­tive sto­ries of the poi­son pen let­ters from Onez­i­ma de Bouchelle to Asa Can­dler, Sr., her seem­ing­ly out­ra­geous alle­ga­tions of their affairs, and Buddie’s con­tin­u­al­ly foiled plans to stop it all.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Past Event: Books+Bites Fea­tur­ing Lynn Cullen

The DeKalb Library Foun­da­tion and Callan­wolde Fine Arts Cen­ter teamed up this year to host Books+Bites events at the Callan­wolde man­sion. The first pro­gram occurred June 27 and fea­tured author Lynn Cullen.

Cullen’s nov­els high­light sto­ries told from a woman’s per­spec­tive. At the event, Lynn dis­cussed her book The Woman with the Cure which recounts the life of Dr. Dorothy Horstmann and her often over­looked role in the race to devel­op the polio vac­cine. Although The Woman with the Cure is fic­tion, it accu­rate­ly fol­lows Dr. Horstmann’s career and her sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to polio research. When ques­tioned about the role of embell­ish­ment in her sto­ry­telling, Lynn empha­sized the impor­tance of stay­ing true to the facts. ​“If you do embell­ish, it is just to illus­trate the fact,” Cullen said. ​“If you are read­ing about real peo­ple, you want to learn about those peo­ple.” She referred to meet­ing min­utes and researched geneal­o­gy records to accu­rate­ly por­tray Dr. Dorothy Horstman­n’s sto­ry. Fol­low­ing her pre­sen­ta­tion, Lynn chat­ted indi­vid­u­al­ly with audi­ence mem­bers and signed copies of her books.