Anyone paying attention to what’s going on here, there, and everywhere—and Wordfest audiences are known for paying deep attention—recognizes that we are (as the kids say) hooped. Who better to make sense of the chaos, political and personal, than Canada’s voice of reason, Carol Off (True Patriot Love), and authoritarian Turkey’s nemesis, Ece Temelkuran (Nation of Strangers)? As an ever-more cruel and divisive world attempts to alienate us, these deep thinkers and their books bring us together—and move us forward.