Jordan Tannahill + Emily St. John Mandel: The Living Realm
About this Event
Moderating this discussion is bestselling author Emily St. John Mandel. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.
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ACCESSIBILITY:
Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator.
ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at [email protected] by Aug. 27 to request.
Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.
For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact [email protected]
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In this slim but expansive novel from the acclaimed author Jordan Tannahill, a British archaeologist living in Berlin begins to see his dead lovers in a cruising forest on the city’s outskirts.
While cruising one evening by Teufelssee, a small glacial lake in the Grunewald forest on the edge of Berlin, a man spots a handsome stranger who bears an uncanny resemblance to his former lover. Only, Lukas died nearly thirty years ago. Yet the man cannot shake the feeling that it was really Lukas he saw.
Along with his friends Gabor and Birgit, the man spends the long, hot summer by the lake, observing the comings and goings of their fellow nudists, as well as their beloved Elsa, a boar who lives along its fringes. He also continues to encounter Lukas, and then other lost lovers as well. As he attempts to make sense of the strange occurrences and learns more of Teufelssee, he finds himself venturing deeper into the mystery of the forest, leading him to question not just his sanity but the nature of time itself.
Written with the lyricism and erudition that have made Jordan Tannahill an internationally celebrated playwright, The Living Realm is a dreamlike novel of epic feeling, and an elegy to the ways our lives become entangled with history, the natural world, and those we love.
Photo credit: Laura Barisonzi
Jordan Tannahill is a playwright and a novelist. His debut novel, Liminal, received France’s 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires. His second novel, The Listeners, was short-listed for the 2021 Giller Prize and adapted into a limited series for the BBC. His most recent play, Prince Faggot, ran off-Broadway for seven months in 2025. He has twice won Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, and his work has been presented at venues including the Young Vic and Sadler’s Wells in London, the Kitchen and Lincoln Center in New York City, the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, and elsewhere. He lives in New York City with his husband.
Photo credit: Laura Barisonzi
Emily St. John Mandel is the author of six novels, most recently Sea of Tranquility, which has been translated into 25 languages and was selected by President Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of 2022. Her previous novels include The Glass Hotel, which was also on Obama’s list, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and has been translated into 26 languages; and Station Eleven, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, won the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award among other honors, has been translated into 36 languages, and aired as a limited series on HBO Max. She lives in New York City and Los Angeles.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 13.61 to USD 31.03
