\u201cPeople do read from their own experience,\u201d she said. \u201cWe tend to think of reading as kind of a passive activity \u2014 you sit there, you\u2019re reading the words that are going in and that\u2019s it \u2014 but I think of it as this incredibly active and creative thing that you\u2019re doing. As the words come off the page, they\u2019re being filtered through your whole life experience. It\u2019s a very active activity. So, for a whole community to do that and then come together, I think it\u2019s going to be really interesting and I\u2019m just really looking forward to that part of it.”<\/p>\n
One City One Book alternates between fiction and non-fiction. Last year, Hamilton read \u201cA Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II,\u201d by Sonia Purnell. In 2023, the community read \u201cLessons in Chemistry\u201d by Bonnie Garmus.<\/p>\n
See, 70, said she will be more at home with the conversational format because \u201cit\u2019s very spontaneous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what the presenter\u2019s going to be asking me, and sometimes they\u2019re questions I\u2019ve heard a million times or sometimes they\u2019re questions I\u2019ve never had before or haven\u2019t thought about something in that particular way,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are always new revelations, I think, when it\u2019s more of a conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lane Libraries is the presenting sponsor of Tuesday\u2019s conversation with See at Parrish Auditorium at Miami University Hamilton. Library spokesperson Carrie Mancuso agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know the community will enjoy the conversation facilitated by (Miami University associate professor) Kelli Johnson, diving into the themes of the book and Ms. See\u2019s inspiration for her writing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The idea for the book came by chance. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis book kind of literally fell into my lap, in a way,\u201d See said. <\/p>\n
See has leaned into her Chinese heritage, which comes from her father\u2019s side, and has written about and led cultural events emphasizing the importance of Los Angeles and Chinatown.<\/p>\n
During the height of the COVID pandemic, she thought she\u2019d be writing something else. But everything she needed \u2014 libraries, research libraries, and China \u2014 were closed. After \u201cmonths of moping\u201d around her house, in October 2020, she was in her office when the spine of a gray jacketed book \u201ckind of chunked out at me.\u201d That book was \u201cReproducing Women: Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Ming Dynasty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought to myself, well, you know, here we are in the middle of a pandemic … and we didn\u2019t know how this was going to turn out,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I was like, \u2018Well, I haven\u2019t gotten better to do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She sat down and read a book that had been on her bookshelf for the better part of a decade and See had never opened it before.<\/p>\n
Then she read the story that was the inspiration for \u201cLady Tan\u2019s Circle of Women.\u201d It was a woman doctor 500 years ago, and when she turned 50 in 1511, published a book on her medical cases. She found out it was still in print and ordered a copy. Then, Yunxian, the main character of \u201cLady Tan\u2019s Circle of Women,\u201d started to come to life.<\/p>\n
Whether it was luck, fate, fortune or destiny, See said she was obviously meant to write this story. <\/p>\n
HOW TO GO<\/b><\/p>\n
An Evening with Author Lisa See<\/b><\/p>\n
When<\/b>: 7 to 9 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025<\/p>\n
Where<\/b>: Parrish Auditorium, Miami University Hamilton, 1601 University Boulevard, Hamilton.<\/p>\n
More information<\/b>: Miami University associate professor Kelli Johnson speaks with New York Times bestselling author Lisa See about her bestselling historical novel \u201cLady Tan\u2019s Circle of Women from 7 to 8 p.m. Book sales and signings will go from 8 to 9 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cPeople do read from their own experience,\u201d she said. \u201cWe tend to think of reading as kind of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":313128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[157760,77942,157761,1022,157762,5416,6554,171,157763,79716,31033,593,157764,351,116297,1188,67,132,68,41048],"class_list":{"0":"post-313127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-anna","9":"tag-anti-semitism","10":"tag-auschwitz-concentration-camp","11":"tag-books","12":"tag-concentration-camps","13":"tag-deaths","14":"tag-empathy","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-holocaust-and-the-nazi-era","17":"tag-jews","18":"tag-judaism","19":"tag-obituaries","20":"tag-ornstein","21":"tag-paul","22":"tag-psychiatrists","23":"tag-psychiatry","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-world-war-ii"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115394622554866673","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}