UT Humanities Center (UTHC) and Union Ave Books will host a free Public Books Circle book discussion and a conversation with UTHC Director Amy Elias and author Ann Pancake about her critically acclaimed novel, “Strange As This Weather Has Been.” Called by the New York Times Book Review “powerful, sure-footed and haunting,” the book is set in 1990s West Virginia in the midst of a coal boom. It tells the story of a family plagued by poverty and the effects of the mountaintop removal mining that destroys the land around them.

Pancake teaches at West Virginia University and lives near Morgantown. Elias is Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Tennessee.

The Public Books Circle meets online twice a month and is free and open to the public. Each session is led by a UT professor, and discussion is welcome. Get a copy of the book to read before the event – Union Ave Books in downtown Knoxville can handle your order – and register online to receive a link.