Virginia Arts of Book plans two workshops

Hallowed Ground leads right through Monticello

Baldacci returns to sign his latest bestseller

David Baldacci will be at Barnes and Noble at 7 p.m. Monday to discuss and sign copies of his new book, “The Whole Truth.”

Baldacci’s new book, which is No. 2 on the best-seller’s list this week, is a thriller surrounding Mathew Pender, who works for an organization that specializes in managing seemingly impossible situations for its clients. Sometimes, those services extend to managing and creating armed conflict.

Baldacci was born in Richmond and lives Northern Virginia with his family. He has a bachelor’s in political science from Virginia Commonwealth University and a law degree from the University of Virginia.

For more information, call 984-0461.

Historian discusses
Gandhi and Churchill
Local author Arthur Herman will be at New Dominion Bookshop at 5:30 p.m. Thursday to sign copies of his new book, “Gandhi and Churchill.”
In “Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age,” Herman offers a look at the rivalry between Winston Churchill and Mohandas Gandhi, set against the backdrop of World War I, World War II, the coming of apartheid to South Africa, the partition of India and the decline of the British Empire.
Herman also is the best-selling historian of “How the Scots Invented the Modern World.”
For details, call 295-2552.

Scout’s visit marks end of this year’s Big Read
This week marks the grand finale of the Big Read, with two events on tap.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” will be shown at the Paramount Theater at 3 and 7 p.m. Thursday.
Mary Badham, who played Scout, will be on hand for a panel discussion following the 7 p.m. screening. Badham will be joined by Denise Lunsford, Cornelia Johnson, Stephanie Commander and Sarah McConnell. Tickets may be purchased at the Paramount box office.
The Brown Bag Book Group at Nelson Memorial Library will discuss “To Kill a Mockingbird” at noon Monday. Piedmont Virginia Community College professor Ben Sloan will lead the discussion.
In other events, the Book Discussion Group at the Greene County Library will meet at 8 p.m. Thursday to discuss “The World is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman.
Call 979-7151, Ext. 211.

Ganeshananthan looks inside war and marriage
Novelist V.V. Ganeshananthan, the author of “Love Marriage,” will be at New Dominion Bookshop at 5:30 p.m. Thursday for a book signing and discussion.
Sri Lanka has been plagued by more than 25 years of warfare between minority Tamil separatists and the majority Sinhalese government, and was ravaged by the 2004 tsunami.
One of the first novelists to deal with Sri Lanka and its ongoing war, Ganeshananthan examines decades of families suffering from war and displacement. At the novel’s core, a young Sri Lankan-American woman feels trapped between arranged marriages and love marriages and the judgments of her ancestors and the modern world in which she lives.
She received her BA in 2002 from Harvard, where “Love Marriage” began as her senior thesis, directed by Jamaica Kincaid. She graduated from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in 2005, served for a year as the Bennett writer-in-residence at Philips Exeter Academy, and is pursuing an MA in journalism at Columbia University. She lives in New York City.
For details, call 295-2552.

Big Read programs
continue at the library
Two talks are on tap this week at branches of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library as part of the Big Read.
M.Thomas Inge will be at the Louisa County Library at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, and Nick Patler will speak at the Greene Country Library at 7 p.m. Thursday.
Inge, a professor of humanities at Randolph-Macon College, will speak on “To Kill a Prejudice: Race Relations in Twain, Faulkner and Harper Lee.” Patler, and author and historian, will discuss “Killing the Mockingbird: Historical and Contemporary Efforts to Ban to Kill a Mockingbird.”
The library also will host two book discussions.