Book event in our area...and it's in the gorgeous Valley Forge Park. (Click here to read my recent post about another book that involves the park). What could be better? (Well, if it wasn't happening at 4 p.m. on a workday...) But for those of you who can go, enjoy a little historial fiction.

Below is from the press release sent by Valley Forge:

Best-Selling Author Ray Raphael to speak at Valley Forge National Park

VALLEY FORGE – Renowned author, Ray Raphael, launches his newest book, “Founders: The People Who Brought You a Nation” with a lecture at Valley Forge National Historical Park next Thursday, May 21, at 4:00 p.m.

Raphael examines how to call back a distant time, to view it more fully and accurately. “The reality of our nation’s founding has narrowed in the decades and centuries since. Actual events have been simplified, and the truth diminished,” says Raphael.

In this new book, Raphael examines seven lead characters:

General George Washington
Joseph Plumb Martin, a private in his army
Mercy Otis Warren, the most political woman of the Revolutionary generation
Robert Morris, the most powerful civilian in Revolutionary America who was strangely forgotten
Timothy Bigelow, a small-town blacksmith who helped engineer the first overthrow of British authority in 1774
Henry Laurens, South Carolina’s most unlikely rebel
Thomas Young, a country doctor turned revolutionary

Using each of these unique stories, Raphael leapfrogs past centuries of mythology and filtrations of the historical record to explore the American Revolution as it was known by those who lived it. His previous award-winning works include “A People’s History of the American Revolution,” “The First Revolution – Before Lexington and Concord,” and “Founding Myths.”

Copies of “Founders” will be available for sale in the Encampment Store. The author will be available to sign copies after the lecture. This free, public event is sponsored by Valley Forge National Historical Park, The Friends of Valley Forge Park, The Encampment Store at Valley Forge and The New Press. Call 610-783-1006 or e-mail maher@valleyforge.org for more information or to register.