LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Friends of the Mendocino College Library are hosting a reading at the Soper-Reese Community Theatre, 275 S. Main St., on Sunday, Feb. 6, featuring two authors that are garnering attention with their latest books.

Admission is free to the 2 p.m. reading and book signing.

Catfish Books of Lakeport will be on hand to sell copies of the authors’ books for those who would like to obtain signed editions following the reading.

David Vann was born in Lakeport and graduated from Santa Rosa High School in Sonoma County. Roy Kesey grew up in Potter Valley and Mendocino County. They each still have family ties in Lake County.

Both authors have several books behind them, and are on the literary radar with their latest offerings. Vann has just released Caribou Island and Kesey will have his new book, “Pacazo,” released in early February.

Critics are buzzing about both of them, according to John Koetzner, Mendocino College librarian.

The two have known each other since childhood and are returning to their roots as part of a joint Northern California book tour to let readers know about their respective works.

Mendocino College and its Friends of the Library are presenting the writers in Lakeport and on the Ukiah campus the following evening at 7:30 p.m. in the Little Theatre as part of a regular series of readings, said Koetzner. The Mendocino College campus is located at 1000 Hensley Creek Road.

For those unfamiliar with Kesey or Vann, both are considered part of the new tide of younger authors who have taken literary turns that many of their fellow authors have avoided.

While Vann’s new novel is set in Alaska, Kesey’s is set in Peru, and each one takes imaginary twists that will keep readers enthralled.

Vann’s work was recently praised in the San Francisco Chronicle by author Wayne Harrison who said, “Vann's first book, the story collection Legend of a Suicide (2008), earned him the acclaim of being one of the best writers of his generation. His first novel is a worthy successor. Abounding in language that heightens our senses for the next evocative metaphor, Caribou Island gives us a climax as haunting and realized as any in recent fiction.”

In a similar vein, Kesey has been praised in advance for “Pacazo” by writers such as National Book Award finalist Don Chaon who said, “Intense, hypnotic and stunningly visceral, Roy Kesey's story of a man driven to madness by the murder of his wife grabs you from the first page and drags you into a dark, hallucinatory journey that you won't want to stop. It's one of those books that remind you of the great power of a novel to transport and transform a reader.”

Admission is free to the readings by David Vann and Roy Kesey, which also marks the seventh anniversary of the formation of the Friends of the Mendocino College Library, an affiliate of the Mendocino College Foundation.

This event is supported by Poets & Writers Inc., through a grant it has received from the James Irvine Foundation.

For more information about both readings, see www.mendocino.edu or phone 707-468-3051.