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I’ll be talking with Bruce Holsinger about his latest novel, Culpability (an Oprah pick) at the Southern Festival of Books on Saturday, October 18th, at 2:00. Please come join the conversation!

Culpability begins with a family of 5 in a minivan on their way to the beach, doing the usual things: texting, working, napping, listening to music, chatting. The oldest son, 17 years old, sits behind the wheel of the self-driving vehicle. The car crash that follows invites an intensive police investigation, as one might expect, but the questions of moral responsibility go beyond the accident itself. Families do tend to keep secrets.

Set in the world we’ve begun to live in and the world that seems to lie just ahead, the novel imagines a future increasingly shaped by chatbots, autonomous cars, drones, and artificial intelligence.

No matter how advanced the technology, some things never change. There is always the question, when something goes wrong: who is to blame?

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Other authors and books I’ve got my eye on at this year’s Festival…

 

 

 

 

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And here are some things I have my eye on at home…

For the first time all summer, I’ve got monarchs in the yard! They cocooned, I think, on the swamp milkweed. Monarchs born in August and September are part of the “methuselah generation” each year, who live for 8 or 9 months and travel to Mexico for the winter. Most generations of monarchs live for only 5 to 7 weeks. For the most extraordinary short video explaining the mystery and wonder of this migration, click here.

The Chinese fringe flower has a late, last bloom,

likewise the pincushion flower,

and trolls dance as the days diminish.

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Fiction

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