The Las Vegas Book Festival

The Las Vegas Book Festival, now in its 21st year, returns to Downtown Las Vegas Saturday, Oct. 22, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. The free annual event is held at the Historic Fifth Street School and is open to all ages.

The 2022 Las Vegas Book Festival features headline authors in three categories: politics, book club favorites, and diversity.

Political writer Carl Bernstein, famed journalist and author, who, in 1972, while a reporter for The Washington Post, teamed up with Bob Woodward to report on the infamous Watergate scandal, will appear at the Las Vegas Book Festival at 5:00 p.m. for a discussion moderated by Las Vegas Review-Journal political reporter Steve Sebelius. A prolific author, Bernstein’s most recent book is “Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom,” a New York Times bestseller about becoming a teenage reporter during the Kennedy era and turbulent 1960s. Other well-known Bernstein books include “All the President’s Men” (1974) and “A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton” (2007), among others.

Romance novelist Elin Hilderbrand is a favorite of books clubs across the country. A native of Nantucket, the setting for most of her books, Hilderbrand was dubbed “the queen of beach reads” by New York Magazine in 2019. She published her first novel, “The Beach Club,” in 2000. Her 2019 novel, “Summer of ’69,” was her first to debut at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Hilderbrand will appear at the festival at 3:15 p.m. for a discussion moderated by Steph from Mercedes in the Morning (MIX 94.1) and Kayla from The Chet Buchanan Show (KLUC 98.5).

Author Kiley Reid, whose debut novel, “Such a Fun Age,” was published in December 2019 and was ranked No. 3 on the New York Times hardcover fiction list within two weeks of its release, joins the festival this year. The first selection of 2020 for Reese Witherspoon’s book club, “Such a Fun Age” was critically lauded by several media outlets, including The Atlantic, which said the book was “A funny fast-paced social satire about privilege in America.” She will appear at the Book Festival at 1:30 p.m. for a discussion moderated by Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Executive Director Kelvin Watson.

A full schedule of activities, which includes panel discussions, book signings, arts and crafts for children, and musical and dance performances, can be found at lasvegasbookfestival.com.