The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books began in 1996 with a simple goal: to bring together the people who create books with the people who love to read them. The festival was an immediate success and has become the largest and most prestigious book festival in the country, attracting more than 130,000 book lovers each year.

Donna Rifkind is a book critic whose work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and other publications. She currently reviews for the Washington Post. Rifkind was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Balakian Award.

Muriel Barbery was born in Casablanca and until recently had lived most of her life in France. She studied philosophy at the Ecole Normale Superieure and worked many years as a philosophy teacher. Her second novel is The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

Vanna Marsot's debut novel, Foreign Tongue: A Novel of Life and Love in Paris, was published this month. Marsot holds an MFA in literature and creative writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She divides her time between Paris and Los Angeles.

Jonathan Rabb, who lives in New York with his wife and two children, is the author of three previous novels: Rosa, The Overseer, and The Book of Q. Rabb's latest novel, Shadow and Light is available now.

Lisa See was named the 2001 National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women. She is the author of the critically acclaimed best seller Flower Net, an Edgar award-nominee. Her new book, Shanghai Girls was published in May.