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Feisty National Book Award winner Timothy Egan writes about some of the most pressing issues of American life. He speaks at the Lincoln Theatre March 2 to raise funds for the new Mount Vernon library.

Egan, a Pacific Northwest native, New York Times correspondent and best-selling author, will share his views on the importance of libraries.

In an email last week, Egan responded, "Importance of libraries? Where do I start? They're gateways to citizenship for thousands of people learning about our laws, our customs, our governing documents, our culture, what makes us tick. They're fire starters for the brain – from finding out about your ancestors to finding a recipe that warms a cold Sunday afternoon to stumbling on a poem or portrait. They're warehouses for wonder. They're the reason that Andrew Carnegie, when he decided to give away his fortune more than a hundred years ago, decided to build libraries – and now those wonderful monuments are everywhere, especially in underserved areas."

Writer Tom Robbins had this to say about Egan's first book "The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest:" "When it comes to this spectacularly mildewed corner of the American linoleum, Timothy Egan gets it right. Then he fords another rain puddle, throws another clam on the fire and gets it right again."

Egan won a National Book Award in 2006 for "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl." Ken Burns based a documentary series on it.

The 2023 title "A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America and the Woman Who Stopped Them" is itself the shortest book review and parallels the MAGA movement.

A spiritual crisis in 2017 triggered partly by his dwindling Catholic faith challenged Egan to a pilgrimage of over 1,200 miles across the Via Francigena while practicing deep-walking – meditating while walking.

One foot after another, Egan plodded along this medieval trail, starting in Canterbury in England, shuffled through searing heat in France, hiked over mountain tops, endured blizzards and injuries and on to Rome. For comparison, the better-known Camino de Santiago in Spain is 500 miles long. In "A Pilgrimage to Eternity," the fruit of this endeavor, he wrote he hoped to find "a stiff shot of no-bullshit spirituality."

"I found that mindful walking, even with the distraction of blisters, sore muscles and feral French dogs, was a great way to force my thinking into the spiritual realm," he noted.

Instead of that stiff shot, he found, "amazement and surprise in ways... never allowed before."

Asked about the country's present dysfunction, he replied: "Future of democracy? I'm very, very worried, more so than I ever have been and I'm an optimist by nature. Why? The primary reason is misinformation, which has spread far and deep through social media and has allowed many mistruths and much hateful bile, to fester. We need to teach media literacy in high school, so that every young citizen can tell crap from truth. Otherwise, we'll be doomed to Babel. And all of that is another reason why we need these citadels of truth and documentation and authenticity – aka, libraries.

"Best book? As my mother used to say, I love all my children equally. And she had seven children! I loved doing the first book, 'The Good Rain,' because it was so exciting and a great creative experience to look at my native Pacific Northwest through fresh eyes. I loved doing the research for 'Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher' because it took me to all the places in Indian Country where Edward Curtis went. I also loved the research for 'The Immortal Irishman' because it took me home, to my deep family Celtic roots in Ireland and an appreciation of what my ancestors went through over 800 years of English oppression. And I loved walking the pilgrimage trail, through time and magnificent terrain."

His talk is 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March. 2. A question-and-answer period and book signing will end the evening. All his books will be available at the event, courtesy of La Conner's own Seaport Books.

A few tickets are available at lincolntheatre.org.

I am so excited!