Author Erik Larson speaking at College of DuPage

The best-selling author of "The Devil in the White City," Erik Larson, will talk about his latest work and answer questions during an appearance Tuesday evening at the College of DuPage's McAninch Arts Center in Glen Ellyn.

Larson, who has written five New York Times best-sellers, is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. with a preshow discussion at 5:30 p.m. Tickets start at $38 and are available at www.atthemac.org/events/erik-larson/.

His appearance is sponsored by the MAC in collaboration with the Daily Herald Author's Circle Book Club and the College Lecture Series. He'll be focusing on his new book, "Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania."

A master of narrative nonfiction, Larson tells the story of the 1915 sinking of the luxury ocean liner during World War I by a German U-boat. "Lusitania" switches between the ocean liner and the U-boat that stalks her, leading to one of the great maritime disasters of all time and America's entry into the war.

During a recent email exchange with the Daily Herald, Larson said he's looking forward to his appearance.

"What I most love is when a reader comes up to me and tells me that he or she was, for a brief time, transported into the past," he said. "That's my goal as a writer - to create as rich a historical experience as I possibly can, in hopes the reader will sink into the past and emerge with a visceral sense of what that past was really like."

Readers can join the Author's Circle Book Club for free at events.dailyherald.com. Members get a 20 percent discount on tickets to all Author's Circle events and a chance to win VIP tickets to meet the authors.