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Town Hall Seattle: Arts & Culture Series

Town Hall’s Arts & Culture series elevates the voices of local artists while bringing world-renowned cultural icons to Seattle audiences. The series celebrates music, photography, sculpture, philosophy, heritage, and traditions around the world that enrich our lives.

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Jul 13, 2026

Headshots of Maria Semple and Ken Jennings

Have you ever reinvented yourself — even unintentionally? Bestselling author Maria Semple’s latest novel, Go Gentle, tells the story of one woman’s midlife transformation.

Adora Hazzard, a Stoic philosopher and divorcée living in New York City, believes that she has it all figured out. She’s a working mom of a teenage daughter, she’s relishing her freedom, and she regularly meets with a group of like-minded women she refers to her “coven” — a group she assembled herself and is working to expand. Adora’s carefully curated life is going as planned until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger. She begins subverting people’s expectations — perhaps most of all her own.

Soon, her normally orderly existence is upended by adventure and risk: black-market art deals, secret rendezvous, and international intrigue. If that isn’t enough, secrets from her past return to visit her in the present.

Go Gentle‘s narrative raises that age-old question: In the battle between the mind and the heart, which one will win?

Maria Semple is the bestselling author of Today Will Be DifferentWhere’d You GoBernadette, and This One Is Mine. Her novels have been translated into forty languages. Before writing fiction, Maria wrote for TV. She lives in New York.

Ken Jennings is still the Jeopardy! record-holder for his 74-game streak on the beloved quiz show back in 2004. In 2020, he was named Jeopardy!’s “Greatest of All Time” and began hosting the show following the death of longtime host Alex Trebek later that year. Ken is the author of 14 books, most recently The Complete Kennections.

Book cover for "Go Gentle: A Novel" by Maria Semple, featuring a pink background with an illustration showing the legs of a marble statue holding onto its draped skirt.

Buy the Book

Go Gentle: A Novel

Elliott Bay Book Company