Austin is ready to celebrate reading and literature.

Thursday marks the 13th annual culmination to the Austin Pageturners citywide read. Rochester author P.S. Duffy will first speak to students at Austin High School from 10:40 to 11:30 a.m. in Christgau Hall, then she’ll hold a public lecture at Austin Public Library at 7 p.m. with a 6:30 p.m. reception.

“I am really thrilled about this Austin program,” Duffy said. “I think it’s going to be fun; it’s just a terrific event.”

Several Austin book clubs have read Duffy’s first novel, “The Cartographer of No Man’s Land.”

The book is set during World War I, both on the Western Front and in a Nova Scotian fishing village. The book centers on both Agnus MacGrath and his 13-year-old-son, Simon Peter. Agnus leaves Nova Scotia for the Western Front in search of his missing brother-in-law. Having been raised a pacifist, he thinks he can find work as a cartographer, but he instead is enlisted in the infantry. The book transitions between Agnus and Simon Peter, who is at home with the family.

“It’s really a story about surviving … a shifting landscape of war and its effects, and it’s really about forgiveness and healing broken bonds,” Duffy said.

The Page Turners are excited to continue the tradition of the citywide read.

“There’s something very exciting about reading a book and being able to ask the author questions,” said Page Turners Planning Committee Chairwoman Bonnie Rietz said.