Best-Selling Author David Baldacci Celebrates Books, Ideas At Festival

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — Best-selling author David Baldacci, a long-time advocate of libraries, was the featured speaker on Saturday at Chantilly Regional Library, where he kicked off the Fairfax County Public Library’s inaugural Local Author Book Festival.

About 40 local writers participated in the festival, where they met with hundreds of attendees to talk about their books and writing styles and sell copies of their books.

The Fairfax Library Foundation hosted a Beyond the Books VIP event that featured Baldacci prior to the start of Saturday's Local Author Book Festival.

"This was a great fundraising opportunity for the Foundation. We hosted 62 VIPs and raised money for FCPL programs," Lisa Bryant, executive director of the Fairfax Library Foundation, said in an email to Patch. "Additionally, we were able to meet and greet new donors and Baldacci fans had a chance to meet and have a book signed for their personal memories."

The Fairfax Library Foundation is a nonprofit charitable and educational organization that provides supplementary support to the Fairfax County Public Library.

In his speech on Saturday, Baldacci, who lives in Oakton, noted how books are increasingly coming under attack. He also called libraries the last bastion of democracy.

Baldacci described efforts to ban books as contrary to American ideals. “We fight wars against countries that do that kind of thing,” he said. “Banning books is banning ideas.”

“That’s not what America stands for,” he said. “We stand for the opposite of banning books and censorship.”

As a child in Richmond, Baldacci recalled how libraries were important to him and how they changed his life. “I grew up as a library rat,” he said.

Richmond in the 1960s and 1970s was a very different place than it is today, Baldacci told the audience. “It was a heavily segregated society, and I could have grown up with a certain perspective on it,” he said.

Reading books saved him from this type of worldview and provided him with a way to experience other places without having to travel.

Baldacci received his undergraduate degree in political science from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1983, followed by a law degree from the University of Virginia. He practiced law for a decade in Northern Virginia and published his first novel, “Absolute Power,” in 1996.

He continued to practice law for a short while after “Absolute Power” was published. After a discussion with his wife, he decided to give up practicing law and try to make a living writing novels.

Since then, he has published more than 50 books, with more than 150 million copies in print. Baldacci’s latest novels include “Simply Lies,” “The 6:20 Man” and “Long Shadows.”

Bryant said the Fairfax Library Foundation is "grateful for Mr. Baldacci and his support and love for the library and the Fairfax Library Foundation."

Planning has already started for FCPL's 2nd annual Local Author Book Festival in 2024. Local writers who want to be invited to participate in next year's festival can email FCPL at LibAdultEvents@fairfaxcounty.gov.