Special Event
Harvard Book Store presents
Mentors, Muses & Monsters Panel
6:00 PM  
($5 tickets on sale now at www.harvard.com, at Harvard Book Store, and over the phone with a credit card (617.661.1515). Special Event: No passes or discounts.)

ELIZABETH BENEDICT delves into Mentors, Muses & Monsters: Thirty Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives with contributors Chris Castellani, Margot Livesey, Jay Cantor, Julia Glass, and Jim Shepard

Harvard Book Store, Cambridge Center for Adult Education and Grub Street are excited to welcome award-winning novelist and editor ELIZABETH BENEDICT for a conversation about the new collection of essays Mentors, Muses & Monsters: Thirty Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives, along with contributors Christ Castellani, Margot Livesey, Jay Cantor, Julia Glass and Jim Shepard.

In Mentors, Muses & Monsters, thirty of today's brightest literary lights turn their attention to the question of mentorship and influence, exploring the people, events, and books that have transformed their lives.

In her communications with contributors, Benedict noticed a longing to thank the people who had changed their lives, and to acknowledge them the best way a storyteller can, by revealing the intricacies of their connection. These writers look back to when something powerful happened to them at an unpredictable age, a moment when a role model saw potential in them, or when they came to understand they possessed literary talent themselves. As most of these encounters occurred when the writers were young — unsure of who they were or what they could accomplish — several pieces radiate a poignant tenderness, and almost all of them express enduring gratitude.

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(1948) dir Vittorio de Sica, w/Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola [93 min]
After several years of being out of circulation, we welcome back this classic of Italian neo-realism. Vittorio de Sica’s Academy Award–winning BICYCLE THIEVES (Ladri di biciclette) defined an era in cinema. In postwar, poverty-stricken Rome, a man, hoping to support his desperate family with a new job, loses his bicycle – his main means of transportation for work. With his wide-eyed young son in tow, he sets off to track down the thief. Simple in construction and dazzlingly rich in human insight, BICYCLE THIEVES embodies all the greatest strengths of the neo-realist film movement in Italy: emotional clarity, social righteousness, and brutal honesty. Hailed around the world as one of the greatest movies ever made, the Brattle is thrilled to reintroduce Boston to this immortal work of cinematic art.