A very special one-off event with acclaimed US writer Lauren Groff, just named on Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2024 list, and author of Fates and Furies (Obama’s favourite book 2015), and Matrix. Lauren will be discussing her profound and explosive new novel, The Vaster Wilds, with Melody Thomas. There will be book sales and signings afterwards, thanks to Unity Books.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.
'Exhilarating' GUARDIAN
'Her writing has a timeless quality' THE TIMES
'[Has] a visionary quality' OBSERVER

The Vaster Wilds is a profound and explosive novel about a spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive.

A servant girl escapes from a settlement. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief of everything that her own civilization has taught her.

The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how -and if - we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.

Lauren Groff is the author of three New York Times bestselling novels – Fates and Furies (named by Barack Obama as his favourite book of 2015), The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia – as well as the story collection Delicate Edible Birds. She graduated from Amherst College and has an MFA in fiction from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Groff’s fiction has won the Pushcart Prize and the PEN/O. Henry Award, among others, and has been shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2017, she was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. Her stories have appeared in publications including The New Yorker, the Atlantic, One Story and Ploughshares, and in several of the annual The Best New American Stories anthologies. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband and two sons.

At Verb Wellington we’re all about making space for stories, books, writers and readers to come together. We passionately believe that stories, books and ideas can change the world. Verb Community members receive discounted tickets and advance notice of sales. To find out more, please visit: verbwellington.nz/members

Lauren Groff: The Vaster Wilds

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