Nov. 9, 2006 -- New York Times best-selling author and University of Virginia graduate Daniel Mendelsohn will discuss and read from his newest best seller, “The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million,” at the U.Va. Bookstore on Sunday, Nov. 12, at 4 p.m.

Mendelsohn is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine and The New York Times Book Review. His first book, “The Elusive Embrace,” was named a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. He’s often interviewed by national media about his work. Yesterday, he talked about his new book on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6456070.

“The Lost” is a rich and riveting narrative depicting the author’s search for the truth behind his family’s tragic past in World War II. It begins as the story of a young boy who grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust. Decades later, spurred by discovery of a cache of desperate letters from 1939 and by fragmentary tales of a terrible betrayal, the man the boy has become sets out to find the remaining eyewitnesses to his relatives’ fate, a quest that takes him to a dozen countries on four continents and forces him to confront the wrenching discrepancies between the histories we live and the stories we tell.

Mendelsohn, who earned a B.A. in classics from U.Va. in 1982, will be available for phone interviews with the media this Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He’ll also be available for in-person interviews on Saturday and Sunday.

This event is free and open to the public and sponsored by the U.Va. Bookstore, U.Va. Hillel and the U.Va. Jewish Studies program. After the reading, Mendelsohn will sign copies of the book.