Acclaimed Authors Bring Timely Perspectives to UC Davis

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live” goes the famous opening line in Joan Didion’s The White Album. It’s as true now as it was in 1979, when the California-born writer and journalist examined key events and figures of the era through a personal lens. Great writers help us make sense of our world. They bring unforgettable characters and stories to life in narratives that run the emotional gamut. They mine history, research and human behavior to uncover patterns and lessons. This season, the Mondavi Center presents conversations with three celebrated authors whose books offer unique perspectives on the present moment: Tommy Orange, David Sedaris, and Timothy Snyder. 

The fiction of Tommy Orange transports readers into urban Native American life. An enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, Orange’s debut novel, There There (2018), offers a multigenerational portrait of urban Native American life through the eyes of 12 interconnected characters, set in his hometown of Oakland. The book was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and won a Gold Medal for First Fiction by the California Book Awards, among other honors. Orange has described his second novel, Wandering Stars (2024), as “kind of prequel and sequel, having historical aspects as well as following up on the aftermath(s) of the culminating event in There There.”  

In both of Orange’s novels, hope is subtle yet persistent. It is buried under the weight of history in his characters’ search for connection, meaning, and a way forward. Through sweeping storytelling married to an intimate focus on interiority, Orange illuminates the richness and depth of contemporary Native American life. —MacArthur Foundation 

David Sedaris, a prolific humor writer and satirist, is beloved for his personal essays and short stories. His books include Barrel Fever, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Happy-Go-Lucky. In his newest New York Times bestseller, The Land and Its People, Sedaris reflects on what it means to be a foreigner, a brother, a lifelong friend. Culled from time spent with family and friends while traveling in New England, his ability to find unexpected humor and meaning in everyday life and encounters with readers is on full display. 

Sedaris’s droll assessment of the mundane and the eccentrics who inhabit the world’s crevices make him one of the greatest humorists writing today. —Chicago Tribune  

Timothy Snyder 

Historians aren’t usually known for short works or best-selling books, but University of Toronto historian Timothy Snyder accomplished both with On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Published in 2017, the No. 1 New York Times bestseller is a 128-page pocket-size call to action and a guide to resisting threats to democracy, drawing lessons from the rise of authoritarianism in 20^th century Europe. Snyder looks to the experiences of those who witnessed democracy give way to fascism, Nazism and communism, considering what their histories can teach us about preserving democratic freedoms in uncertain times. On Tyranny is the selection for the 2026-2027 UC Davis Campus Community Book Project, which is focusing on civil liberties this year. 

These 128 pages are a brief primer in every important thing we might have learned from the history of the last century, and all that we appear to have forgotten. —Tim Adams, The Guardian