'The American Idea' and what it means

SALISBURY —The Lakeville Journal and Noble Horizons will co-sponsor a talk by Robert Vare, editor-at-large of The Atlantic monthly, on May 30, 7:30 p.m., in the Noble Horizons Community Room.

Vare was the editor of “The American Idea,� a collection of essays by influential writers and thinkers that celebrates the 150th anniversary of The Atlantic.

At his talk on May 30, Vare will read selections from and discuss some of the topics addressed in the book.

The 78 works range from historic works such as writings by Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr., to more contemporary work by, for example, Robert Caro, Tracy Kidder and Eric Schlosser (author of “Fast Food Nation�). There are essays, humor pieces, fiction and poetry (including work by Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov and Saul Bellow).

Before coming to The Atlantic, Vare had been an editor at The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and The New York Times Magazine, where he edited the Pulitzer Prize-winning cover story “Grady’s Gift,� in 1991.

In 2004, he was the editor of “Things Worth Fighting For,â€� a posthumously published collection of writings by Michael Kelly, the former Atlantic editor-in-chief who was killed while covering the war in Iraq.  

A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, he has taught nonfiction writing at Yale and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

He will sign books following his program. Copies of “The American Ideaâ€� are available at Oblong Books in Millerton and will be available for purchase at the event following his program.