Hooked on Books: Dashing the February doldrums with potential literary sunshine 

While February tends to be the dreariest month of the year for me, there appear to be some sunny spots on the horizon: two of my favorite authors will be in the Bay Area to talk about their new work. Novelist Lauren Groff explored the complexities of a long-enduring marriage in “Fates and Furies” in 2015, conjured up a fascinating study of female empowerment in medieval Europe with “Matrix” in 2021 and plunged readers into the forests of colonial America with a terrified escapee in “The Vaster Wilds” in 2023. Those of her five novels were utterly absorbing; the most recent was both chilling and unforgettable. Groff, who recently opened an independent bookstore with her husband in Gainesville, Florida that emphasizes challenged or banned books, is also an accomplished short story writer, and she has a new collection coming out on Feb. 24. “Brawler” (Riverhead Books, $29, 288 pages) takes its title from a story about a teenage girl diver with a temper, among other problems, and the other eight pieces in the collection also deal with humans in the throes of emotion or conflict, with a character in one story even remarking, “In every human there is both an animal and a god wrestling unto death.” Groff is on a book tour in late February, with a San Francisco appearance at 7 p.m. March 5 sponsored by Bookshop West Portal at the Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Ave., where she will be featured in conversation with author R.O. Kwon. Tickets are $45.98 through Eventbrite and include a copy of the book; access them through www.bookshopwestportal.com. 

Just as eagerly anticipated are upcoming Bay Area appearances by acclaimed short story writer George Saunders, who will be plugging his second novel, “Vigil” (Random House, $25, 192 pages), which was published on Jan. 27. As revered as he is for short stories and nonfiction, Saunders captured the Booker Prize in 2017 for his first novel, the riveting “Lincoln in the Bardo.” Narrated by a host of disembodied spirits flitting about the cemetery where our mourning 16th president was visiting the tomb of his young son, the novel also is grounded in astonishingly detailed historical facts and reminiscences of real figures of the day. This time, however, Saunders appears to have opted for full-blown fantasy: “Vigil” begins as a long dead woman is plummeting to Earth for the 343rd time to usher a dying person into the afterworld. The object of her caretaking duty is an oil company CEO on his death bed who is surrounded by specters both animal and human all seeking reckoning or recompense. Book Passage welcomes Saunders at Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco at 7 p.m. Feb. 2 for a conversation with author Vendela Vida. The $34 admission includes a signed copy of the book; to register, visit bookpassage.com. He appears the following night, also at 7 p.m., with author Parini Shroff in a Bookshop Santa Cruz-hosted event at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz. Admission is $34, also including a signed copy; sign up through bookshopsantacruz.com. 

Some literary grand jetés: Fine works of literature set to music, leaping to the ballet stage have long been a welcome transformation. Who doesn’t love Prokofiev’s lush and lovely adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”? San Francisco Ballet’s production of “Eugene Onegin,” now winding up world premiere performances at the War Memorial Opera House, is but the most recent shining example. Choreographed by Yuri Possokhov, a longtime admirer of the 1833 novel written by his fellow Russian Alexander Pushkin (entirely in verse, we might add!), the ballet will travel to Chicago in June to be performed by the co-commissioning company, the Joffrey Ballet. It’s not the first time the Pushkin work has become a dance production; choreographer John Cranko staged it for the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany in 1965, set to piano pieces by Tchaikovsky rather than the composer’s own famous opera score. San Francisco Ballet’s composer Ilya Demutsky collaborated with Possokhov before on Leo Tolstoy’s classic “Anna Karenina,” a Joffrey Ballet production presented by Berkeley-based Cal Performances in 2024. The Tolstoy work was also set by choreographer John Neumeier for the Hamburg Ballet in 2017. Other revered novels that have become dance productions include Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” and Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre,” a Cathy Marston premiere for England’s Northern Ballet in 2016, performed since by the Hamburg Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre. 

Here are a half-dozen more well-known literary works you might never have suspected would be turned into vehicles for classic dancers: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s “Frankenstein” (Liam Scarlett for London’s Royal Ballet in 2016); Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice” (John Neumeier for the Hamburg Ballet in 2003); Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (Christopher Wheeldon for the Royal Ballet in 2011); Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” (Lila York for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 2013); John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” (Marston for the Joffrey Ballet in 2022) and, most amazingly (to me), Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” which Italian choreographer Davide Bombana created for Switzerland’s Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2003 and partially set to fittingly eerie music by György Ligeti. 

What those cranky critics loved: The nonprofit National Book Critics Circle, an assortment of working critics, editors and book bloggers founded at New York’s Algonquin Hotel in 1974, gathers its annual award nominees not from hopeful publisher’s submissions but from the dogged dedication of search committees. In late January, it announced its winnowed-down shortlist nominees in fiction, nonfiction, autobiography, biography, criticism and poetry, with special awards going to a first work and work in translation in any of the categories. Here are the contenders in the first three categories – find the others at www.bookcritics.org: In fiction, Karen Russell’s “The Antidote” is vying against Katie Kitamura’s “Audition,” Solvej Balle’s “On the Calculation of Volume (Book III),” Han Kang’s “We Do Not Part” and Angela Flournoy’s “The Wilderness.” Nonfiction nominees are Greg Grandin’s “America, America,” Barbara Demick’s “Daughters of the Bamboo Grove,” Karen Hao’s “Empire of AI,” Scott Anderson’s “King of Kings” and Gardiner Harris’ “No More Tears.” Contenders in autobiography are Geraldine Brooks’ “Memorial Days,” Arundhati Roy’s “Mother Mary Comes to Me,” Beth Macy’s “Paper Girl,” Hanif Kureishi’s “Shattered” and Miriam Toews’ “A Truce That Is Not Peace.” The awards, for works published in 2025, will be announced on March 26 at the New School in New York, with the finalists reading from their works the night before in a live-streamed event. The ceremony also will stream live on NBCC’s YouTube channel. 

Hooked on Books is a monthly column by Sue Gilmore on literary buzz and upcoming book events. Look for it on the last Thursday of the month.