When was the last time you wondered what your life would be like if just one decision in the past had been different? When you had that thought, did you decide to make changes going forward? This compellingly human experience has launched many of our best literary stories over generations and in all settings.

Books that explore this universally human dream of alternate lives, only imagined or made real, include:

Fiction
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
The Razor’s Edge – W. Somerset Maugham
Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee

Non-Fiction
Seven Years in Tibet – Heinrich Harrer
Into the Wild – John Krakauer
This Boy’s Life – Tobias Wolff
Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert

BOOKS ‘n’ BOTTLES™ is thrilled to introduce booklovers to author Jessica Chiarella and her haunting debut Speculative Fiction novel And Again (Simon & Schuster, 2016) at our August 29th event in Chicago and August 30th event in Northbrook, IL.

And Again asks the question: Would you live your life differently if you were given a second chance? How much of your identity rests not just in your mind, but in your body and heart? The story, told with Chiarella’s keen imagination and soaring prose, examines the consequences when four ordinary individuals with terminal illnesses are given a chance to continue their lives in genetically perfect versions of their former bodies. Drawing from today’s headlines about advances in genetics and cloning, Chiarella develops four memorable characters who need to contemplate what it means to be human.

U.S.A. Today calls the book “haunting” and awarded it 3.5 out of 4 stars. As always, the author conversations and book signings will be complemented with equally stellar wines.