Two of UC Davis’ most prominent authors will offer personal insights and take questions about their latest books during appearances this month on campus.

History professor Alan Taylor, a 1996 Pulitzer Prize winner, will talk about “The Civil War of 1812” from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 12, in The King Lounge on the second floor of the Memorial Union. Taylor’s new book offers a vivid narrative of an often brutal and sometimes comic war that reveals much about the tangled origins of the United States and Canada.

Two weeks later, on Oct. 26, English professor Yiyun Li will discuss her novel, “Gold Boy, Emerald Girl,” from noon to 1 p.m. in the Bookstore Lounge, also in the Memorial Union. Li, recently named one of the nation’s top 20 writers under age 40 by editors of The New Yorker magazine, was just awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, widely known as a “genius” grant.