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The Book Festival is proud to present its annual Literary Feast: the Book Appétit luncheon, featuring comedian PAULA POUNDSTONE. Don’t miss this special opportunity—our 2017 event sold out. The singular fundraiser for the Book Festival, the 2018 Book Appétit luncheon will be held at the Witte Museum’s Mays Family Center.
Special thanks
Honorary Chair: Erika Prosper, First Lady of San Antonio
Event Co-Chairs: Patricia Tobin, Liecie Hollis, and Susan Hausser
Event Committee: Logan Ames, Wendy Atwell, Liz Boldrick, Catherine Comeaux, Nicole Greenberg, Belinda Nixon, Kerry Quinn, Angela Rabke, Josie Seeligson, Shannon Stephens, Julie Straus, Burgin Streetman
About Paula Poundstone
With smart, observational humor and a legendary spontaneous interaction with the crowd, Paula Poundstone is one of our country’s pre-eminent comedians. She improvises with a crowd like a jazz musician, swinging in unexpected directions without a plan, without a net. There’s a disarming ease in her craft, an immediate sense that she’s so quick on her feet you need never worry about the possibility of something going wrong.
In 1998, when NPR’s #1 show, the weekly comedy news quiz, Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me! came calling, Poundstone was the perfect fit as one of the pundits on the panel. When asked about Paula, Wait, Wait host Peter Sagal replied, “Paula Poundstone is the funniest human being I have ever known. Everything she does, thinks, or says is hilarious. If you cut her into bits, each piece would be funny. (But don’t!). Air becomes funny having been breathed by her.”
In her most recent book, The Totally Unscientific Study Of The Search For Human Happiness, Paula takes on that most inalienable of rights—the pursuit of happiness. Offering herself up as a human guinea pig, she tries out a different get-happy hypothesis in a series of “thoroughly scientific” experiments. She gets in shape with taekwondo. She drives fast behind the wheel of a Lamborghini. She communes with nature while camping with her teenaged daughter. Swing dancing? Meditation? Volunteering? Does any of it bring her happiness? And more important, can the happiness last when she returns to the daily demands of her chaotic life? Tony and Emmy Award-winner Lily Tomlin described the book as “A remarkable journey. I laughed. I cried. I got another cat.”
Paula is recognized on Comedy Central’s list of ‘The 100 Best Standup Comics of All Time,’ she won an American Comedy Award for Best Female Standup Comic, and she is included in innumerable lists, documentaries and literary compendiums noting influential standup comedians of our time. She was the first woman ever to share the stage with the President as host at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Her newest info-comedy show, Live from the Paula Poundstone Institute, is available on NPR and online.
Individual tickets are now on sale!
Nobel Sponsor ($25,000)
- One (1) premium placement table for 10 at the luncheon
- Sponsor recognition across all signage, event program and media
- Private reception with featured guest prior to program
- Ten (10) hardback and signed copies of author’s book
- Two (2) seats to a “Book It” luncheon at Club Giraud on Saturday, April 7
- Ten (10) tickets to the private Esquire Tavern’s Epilogue: Author Cocktail Party Saturday evening
Pulitzer Sponsor ($10,000)
- One (1) premium placement table for 10 at the luncheon
- Sponsor recognition across all signage, event program and media
- Private reception with featured guest prior to program
- Five (5) hardback copies of author’s book
- Five (5) tickets to the private Esquire Tavern’s Epilogue: Author Cocktail Party Saturday evening
National Book Award Sponsor ($5,000)
- One (1) preferred placement table for 10
- Sponsor recognition on event program and website
- Admission for two (2) guests to private reception with featured guest prior to program
- One (1) preferred placement table for 10 at the luncheon
- Two (2) hardback copies of author’s book
- Two (2) tickets to the private Esquire Tavern’s Epilogue: Author Cocktail Party Saturday evening
PEN/Faulkner Sponsor ($2,500)
- Recognition on event program (time permitting) and website
- One (1) table for 10 at the luncheon
- Two (2) hardback copies of author’s book
