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A Life Lesson in Climbing
When motivational speaker and expert climber Manley Feinberg sat down with Henry DeVries for UC San Diego’s Osher Author Talk, he brought more than tales of adventure—he brought a message about leadership, responsibility, and what it means to be truly anchored in life. In the conversation, Feinberg recounts a pivotal climb in 2022 on Yosemite’s…
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Author Mitch Albom Finds His Rainbow
Celebrated author Mitch Albom’s opening words on the 30th Anniversary Writer’s Symposium stage are an instant hit. Seated across from host Dean Nelson, Albom squirms in an oversized Queen Anne wingback chair. The moment sparks a memory of a particularly uncomfortable appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” when his feet dangled off the floor, leaving…
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Writing that Inspires
What obsessions do you have? What kind of stories do you recount around your dinner table? What books are currently sitting on your bedside table? In this far-reaching and insightful interview with best-selling authors Nick Hornby and Susan Orlean, we hear the stories that inspire these great writers to put pen to paper. “Writing that…
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What Would We Lose in a World Without Books?
The young, independent author and filmmaker Mason Engel is probably best known for his science fiction novel “2084.” But it might be his latest project – the ambitious documentary “Books Across America” – that will surely get him noticed for his love of literature as he travels to all 50 states, reading 50 books and…
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UCLA Historian Shines Light on the Mexican Rebels Who Shaped U.S. History
If you’re like most Americans, you probably haven’t heard of the magonistas and their role in sparking the 1910 Mexican Revolution. But for UCLA history professor Kelly Lytle Hernández, the magonistas changed the course of history and are integral to modern American life. The insurgency, led by Ricardo Flores Magón, was made up of a…
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Kim Stanley Robinson Believes We Can Solve The Climate Crisis
What does the future look like? According to Kim Stanley Robinson, the internationally acclaimed science fiction writer, his book “Ministry for the Future” takes us to the year 2025, where our climate change nightmare has become a chilling reality. But while the novel foretells of what may come, Robinson offers inspiration and hope for how…
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Nobel Laureate Barry Barish and His Imposter Syndrome
How uncommon is it for a successful scientist to encounter imposter syndrome? According to Nobel Prize-winning physicist Barry Barish, it’s a common occurrence, and one he admits to personally facing. “I think anybody, if they actually think about it, has it,” Barish said. “I have a psychoanalyst for a wife, so I can’t avoid the…
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Lighting the Way Through Literature
Anthony Doerr says his very first book, “Mollusks,” which he wrote when he was kid for a class project, was probably very unsatisfying to his readers. But that didn’t deter him. He went on to write his other ‘first’ novel, “All the Light We Cannot See,” which by all accounts was a blockbuster. It remained…
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American Literary Legend N. Scott Momaday Talks About the Sacredness of Words
The Kiowa poet and novelist Navarre Scott Momaday was 8 years old when he told his mother he wanted to be a writer. He said she was pleased, possibly because she was a writer herself. That little boy grew up to become a great American writer, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his first…
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Rex Pickett’s New Book Weaves Together Murder, Mystery and Library Archives
Best known for his Academy Award-winning adapted screenplay “Sideways,” author Rex Pickett is out with a new book. The UC San Diego alumnus, who graduated in 1976, sets his latest work in a fictional Geisel Library. “The Archivist” is a murder mystery that takes a deep dive into the inner workings of the process of…