Books Take Center Stage at Raue Center with Authors Rich Benjamin, David Sedaris

Whether you love books or enjoy interesting lectures, Raue Center For The Arts has two incredible opportunities for you: The Divided States of America: Big National Transformations, Small Towns with Rich Benjamin, and Happy-Go-Lucky with David Sedaris.

On Friday, October 14th at 7:00 p.m., celebrated author, speaker, and cultural anthropologist Rich Benjamin will join Raue Center for a special presentation and Q&A (with James Knight as moderator) that will discuss his personal experiences engaging with communities in small-town America, along with his deft observations of modern society, culture, and politics with a goal of building understanding and openness.

“I believe that adaptation requires openness,” said Benjamin. “It requires a willingness to understand others, a willingness to understand oneself. And I believe in that willingness comes an openness to change.”

Benjamin’s cultural and political analyses appear regularly in The New York Times and The New Yorker, and on National Public Radio. He has a BA in English and Political Science from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University.

Bestselling author David Sedaris returns to Raue Center after the release of his latest book, Happy-Go-Lucky. On Friday, November 4th at 8:00 p.m., he will deliver a 60-minute reading, followed by 20-30 minutes of audience questions. There will be a book signing in the lobby before and after the event.

Sedaris, one of America’s preeminent humor writers, is the bestselling author of the books Calypso, Theft By Finding, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, and Me Talk Pretty One Day, among many others. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4.

In Happy-Go-Lucky, Sedaris captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all.

To purchase tickets, or for more information, please contact:

Raue Center For The Arts

26 N. Williams St.

Crystal Lake, IL 60014

Phone: 815-356-9212

www.rauecenter.org