On Earth Day 2020, writer Margaret Lazarus Dean and astronaut Scott Kelly "Zoom in" to discuss their 2017 national bestseller Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery. On Wednesday April 22nd @ 6pm on Zoom, join Union Ave Books and University of Tennessee Humanities Center for a new Public Books Masterclass series. 

About the Book

The book details Kelly's life, as well as that of his twin brother Mark, as they became naval aviators and test pilots and then were both selected for NASA Astronaut Group 16. The book has been called “A stunning, personal memoir [and] a message of hope for the future that will inspire for generations to come.”

Jaroslav Kalfar of The New York Times Book Review wrote that the book is “Captivating, charming.... Endurance offers brilliant insight into the human aspect of space travel.”

Step 1 - Purchase a Book: Union Ave Books is offering curbside and home delivery of books. You can order online at www.unionavebooks.com (book link at the bottom of THIS page), or call the store at 865-951-2180.

Step 2 - RSVP: After you purchase your book, RSVP for the online masterclass discussion at RSVP@unionavebooks.com and you will be sent a link to the Zoom discussion. Please note, attendance is limited to the first 250 people who log in to the Zoom link. The hosts cannot provide technical assistance for the online event and will not provide book refunds if the broadcast experiences technical difficulties. 

About the Authors

Margaret Lazarus Dean is an associate professor of English at UT, where she teaches fiction writing and nonfiction writing. She is the author of the novel The Time It Takes to Fall (Simon & Schuster, 2007) and Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight (Graywolf Press, 2015), a work of creative nonfiction that documents the final year of the space shuttle program, won the 2013 Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, and was reviewed by Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times Book Review.  

Scott Joseph Kelly is a former military fighter pilot and test pilot, an engineer, a retired astronaut, and a retired US Navy captain. A veteran of four space flights, Kelly commanded the International Space Station (ISS) on three expeditions and was a member of the yearlong mission to the ISS. In October 2015, he set the record for the total accumulated number of days spent in space, the single longest space mission by an American astronaut. He retired from NASA in 2016. He is the author of Endurance: My Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery (2017), the children's book My Journey to the Stars (2017), and Infinite Wonder: An Astronaut's Photographs from a Year in Space (2018). 

This event is part of the UT Humanities Center’s Public Books Masterclass series. For more information about the series, visit their website.  https://uthumanitiesctr.utk.edu/public/reading.php