Posted by William Nunnelley on 2007-04-18

Nathaniel Philbrick, author of New York Times bestseller Mayflower, will speak at Samford University Friday, April 27, at 6 p.m. in Brooks Hall 134. The appearance will launch the paperback tour of Mayflower, a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in History.

The program, cosponsored with The Alabama Booksmith, will be open to the public free.

Boston native Philbrick won the National Book Award for In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, published in 2000. He also wrote Sea of Glory, about the U. S. exploring expedition of 1838-42 that set out to map the Pacific Ocean and discovered Antarctica. It won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize.

Publisher's Weekly praised Mayflower, the story of the Plymouth Colony and birth of America, as a "remarkable effort . . . impeccably researched and expertly rendered."

Philbrick is himself a sailor who resides on Nantucket Island. As a collegian, he was an All-American sailor for Brown University. He later wrote four years for Sailing World magazine.

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 6,101 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.