Soirée for Saunders

Leslie Bhutani opened the doors of her stunning Montecito aerie to host a dinner for Texan novelist George Saunders, a New York Times best selling writer and Man Booker Prize winner, before he spoke at Campbell Hall, part of the UCSB Arts & Lectures series.

Saunders, whose books include Lincoln in the Bardo, Pastoralia, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, and Tenth of December, was interviewed on stage by fellow Old Etonian author Pico Iyer, who studied at Oxford and Harvard and is now Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, whose books have been translated into 23 languages.

Among the guests were Rich and Luci Janssen, John and Patty MacFarlane, Jeff and Nancy Gates, Chris and Dori Carter, and Bill and Jill Shanbrom.