Irish novelist and scholar Emma Donoghue, now based in Canada, has made several appearances at Elliott Bay, none more eagerly anticipated than this for her new novel, Room (Little, Brown). A longlist nominee for this year's MAN Booker Prize, Room is a story told form the point of view of a five-year-old who has never left the room in which he—and his mother—are imprisoned. It's a tale of resilience and the mother/child bond. Room has been read with enthusiasm and early readers around the country. This is one not to miss. "Talented, versatile Donoghue relates a searing tale of survival and recovery, in the voice of a five-year-old boy ... Donoghue brilliantly shows mother and son grappling with very different issues as they adjust to freedom ... In the story's most heartbreaking moments, it seems that Ma may be unable to live with the choices she made to protect Jack. But his narration reveals that she's nurtured a smart, perceptive, and willful boy—odd, for sure, but resilient, and surely Ma can find that resilience in herself ... Wrenching, as befits the grim subject matter, but also tender, touching, and at times unexpectedly funny." - Kirkus Reviews. Emma Donoghue's novels include Hood, Landings, Life Mask, and the Lambda Award-winning The Sealed Letter, which was also longlisted for Canada's Giller Prize. She is also the author, earlier this year, of Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature (Knopf).

Co-presented with the TOWN HALL CENTER FOR CIVIC LIFE. Twenty years after eminent scholar and author Mary Catherine Bateson's Composing a Life appeared—a book which has had readership and relevance ever since—she is here with Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom (Knopf). More than taking up where its predecessor left off, Composing a Further Life is a serious, informed, lively exploration of what can be made of later stages of adult life, what Dr. Bateson calls 'Adulthood II.' She draws from an array of conversations/portrayals of others who have lived more deeply and fully as they've aged, as well as developing research. Mary Catherine Bateson's numerous other books include With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, Peripheral Visions, and Willing to Learn. She is presently a Visiting Scholar at the Center on Aging & Work/Workplace Flexibility at Boston College, and until recently was president of the Institute of Intercultural Studies. $5 tickets are available at the door starting at 6:30 p.m., or in advance via www.brownpapertickets.com (1-800-838-3006). Preferred seating for Town Hall members. evening, please call Elliott Bay at (206) 624-6600, Town Hall at (206) 652-4255, or see www.townhallseattle.org.