Woman of Letters Nina Sankovitch to Sign, Seal, and Delivers at the Westport Library

You could call any author a man or woman of letters, but Nina Sankovitch has literally earned the title by writing a book on the joy of letter writing. Inspired by finding an old trunk full of handwritten letters, Sankovitch decided to research the history of letter writing, and the rest, well, the rest is history.

The old trunk could have been full of rubbish like the rest of the backyard connected to an old house that Westporter Nina Sankovitch bought with her husband years ago. But it wasn't. It was full of treasures—hand-written letters from a young man in college to his mother a hundred years ago. Hear Sankovitch talk about her book Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Celebrating the Joys of Letter Writing on Sunday, May 4, at 2 pm in the Westport Library's McManus Room. Books will be available for purchase and signing at the program, which is free and open to the public.

Sankovitch, author of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, will discuss her process of discovering the value of letters through her research of the history of letters and her own personal correspondence. The book was inspired by her discovery of the old trunk of letters written by a Princeton freshman to his mother in the early 1900s. Sankovitch's son was headed off to Harvard University, and she wanted him to write to her as well. Thus began her journey into understanding exactly what makes letters special.

She set off on a quest through the history of letter writing—from the ancient Egyptians to the medieval lovers Abelard and Heloise, from the letters received by President Lincoln after his son's death to the correspondence of Edith Wharton and Henry James. In the process, she uncovered and defined the qualities that make letters unique, examining not only historical missives but also the letters in epistolary novels, her husband's love letters, and dozens of more sources, including her son's brief reports from college on the weather and his allowance. The book is a reminder that letters offer proof and legacy of what is most important in life: love and connection. In the end, she finds, the letters we write are even more important than those we anticipate from others.

"Perfect for devotes of pen and paper, Sankovitch's new book examines her personal correspondence with family and friends and the letters of strangers, famous and obscure, and shows the reading of letters to be a pleasurable form of discovery and connection...an enjoyable, if sentimental read and will likely inspire both old-fashioned letter reading and letter writing," said Publishers Weekly.

Nina Sankovitch'sTolstoy and the Purple Chair was selected by Oprah Winfrey as a "book to read now." Author of the blog readallday.org, she is a contributing writer for the Huffington Post.

For further information, phone 203-291-4800, or check www.westportlibrary.org.