Milwaukee Reads!

An update & Holiday Wishes

2010-12-20T13:33:00.001-06:00

Apologies for the lack in new material on the blog. Some things happened that pulled me away from the Internet for a bit, then Thanksgiving and Christmas just snuck right up on me! You know how that happens.

But, during my haitus, I have been batting around some ideas for reformatting how I list events. I would like to offer more content on the site, but also want to continue providing you with reading event information since it is the whole point of this site. I will use my time off for Christmas to set things up so we can kick off again in January with a bang.

In the meantime, I'm pretty active on Twitter and Facebook, so feel free to stop by and say hi to me there. I have a wealth of book recommendations is you need help with a gift idea. :-) Have a wonderful holiday!

Reading Event at Boswell tonight

2010-11-22T08:33:00.000-06:00

Douglas Armstrong, author of Even Sunflowers Cast Shadows

Monday, November 22 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Emma Starkey is a spunky little girl trying hard to be charitable and virtuous. But her calculated attempts have a way of backfiring with tumultuous consequences in Douglas Armstrong’s poignant story of small-town life in 1920s Kansas. As Emma’s grandmother wryly observes, “Even sunflowers cast shadows.”

Weaving through four years of Emma’s engaging disasters is a chaotic friendship with a transplanted Yankee whiz kid, Margaret Drummond, whose family arrives one summer burdened with a heavy secret and a flair for the dramatic. As Emma’s and Margaret’s brothers and sisters become friends, too, their lively pursuits and youthful infatuations begin to spawn rivalries that threaten to split them apart. In the end, perilous, even tragic turns await. This novel recaptures a faded moment in time when innocence could still be lost grudgingly.

Author bio: Douglas Armstrong was born in Kansas, but his memories of it are largely second hand, as his family left when he was five. The stories told to him by his mother of life in the small Kansas town where she grew up form the basis of his first novel, Even Sunflowers Cast Shadows. His short stories have appeared in a variety of magazines from Ellery Queen to Alfred Hitchcock to Boys’ Life. After thirty years as a newspaper reporter, editorial writer, columnist and film critic at The Milwaukee Journal and later the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Armstrong has recently left journalism in order to turn to writing fiction full time. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Milwaukee Press Club, and lives in Whitefish Bay with his family.

Celebration at Harley Davidson Museum

2010-11-19T10:32:00.000-06:00

Woodland Pattern 30th Anniversary Celebration!

featuring performances by Anne Waldman & John Giorno
Friday, November 19, 2010
Harley-Davidson Museum, 400 W. Canal St. Milwaukee, WI
Honoring Robert Ragir & Sally Tolan

Since 1980, with the support of the Milwaukee community, Woodland Pattern has presented thousands of readings, book arts exhibitions, music performances, films and workshops to over 250,000 children and adults. Please join us at our celebration & silent auction as we commemorate thirty years in Milwaukee.

Entire event, including reception & program, $80 individual/$150 per couple. Program only tickets, $20 in advance/$25 at the door.

5:30pm: Reception & Program
Conversation & mingling
Silent Auction
Hors d'oeuvres & cash bar

7:00pm: Program
Mayoral proclamation
Awards honoring Robert Ragir & Sally Tolan
Performances by John Giorno & Anne Waldman

Reception Registration and payment due Friday, November 12, 2010
Register online at www.woodlandpattern.org

Join us in honoring longtime friends and supporters Robert Ragir & Sally Tolan

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Reading Events & Book Club Meeting!

2010-11-17T09:50:00.000-06:00

Book discussion of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

Wednesday, November 17 @6:30pm, Bay View Library

Book club is open for all to join in the conversation!

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Will Fellows, author of Gay Bar: The Fabulous True Story of a Daring Woman and her Boys in the 1950s

Wednesday, November 17 @ 7pm, Boswell Book Company

Co-Sponsored by Bronze Optical

Vivacious, unconventional, candid, and straight, Helen Branson operated a gay bar in Los Angeles in the 1950s—America’s most anti-gay decade. After years of fending off drunken passes as an entertainer in cocktail bars, this divorced grandmother preferred the wit, variety, and fun she found among homosexual men.

Enjoying their companionship and deploring their plight, she gave her gay friends a place to socialize. Though at the time California statutes prohibited homosexuals from gathering in bars, Helen’s place was relaxed, suave, and remarkably safe from police raids and other anti-homosexual hazards. In 1957, she published her extraordinary memoir Gay Bar, the first book by a heterosexual to depict the lives of homosexuals with admiration, respect, and love.

In this new edition of Gay Bar, Will Fellows interweaves Branson’s chapters with historical perspective provided through his own insightful commentary and excerpts gleaned from letters and essays appearing in gay publications of the period. Also included is the original introduction to the book by maverick 1950s psychiatrist Blanche Baker. The eclectic selection of voices gives the flavor of American life in that extraordinary age of anxiety, revealing how gay men saw themselves and their circumstances, and how others perceived them.

Author bio: Will Fellows is the author of Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest, and A Passion to Preserve: Gay Men as Keepers of Culture, both finalists for the Lambda Literary Award. Farm Boys was named a notable book of the year by Esquire and was adapted into an off-Broadway stage play. He lives in Milwaukee.

Helen P. Branson (1896-1977) was born in Almena, Kansas and worked as a bank teller, cook, and palm-reading nightclub entertainer before taking over a Melrose Avenue tavern and opening Helen’s in 1952. Self-described as having the demeanor of “your sixth grade teacher or the librarian in the Maple Street branch library,” and at five-foot-four, Branson was a force to be reckoned with, taking on the Vice squads and unruly haters. She once said that after attending parties held by some of her patrons, she quickly became “bored stiff” at parties “held by straight people.”

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Daniel Levin, author of The Last Ember

Wednesday, November 17 @7pm, Jewish Community Center

The author of The Last Ember, Daniel Levin will talk about his compelling and thought-provoking page-turner set in the high-stakes modern worlds of archeology, religion and international terrorism, which is nothing short of a Jewish Davinci Code. Levin is a graduate of Harvard Law School. He clerked for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel and was a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome in 2004.

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Reading Event & Book Club Meeting!

2010-11-16T08:02:00.000-06:00

Book Club discusses "Wifey" by Kiki Swinson.

Tuesday, November 16 @7pm, East Library

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Tom Franklin, author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

Tuesday, November 16 @ 7pm, Boswell Book Company

Co-sponsored by the Milwaukee Public Library

Welcome to the very small town of Chabot, Mississippi, where history is long and secrets run deep. Two men, boyhood friends torn apart by social circumstances of the ‘70s, are thrust together once more when the daughter of a prominent businessman goes missing and a body is found in the woods. Eerily similar to an unsolved mystery from their past, Silas Jones and Larry Ott are set out on a path to discover if they are connected. Suspenseful and lyrical without sacrificing emotional depth, Franklin’s new novel may have a Southern voice, but its themes of friendship, class, and race—are universal.

10% of all designated sales the evening of the event will be donated to the Milwaukee Public Library, who will have volunteers on hand to assist customers in signing up for, or renewing, library cards, and to answer any questions. In addition, this kicks off the launch of the Katie Gingrass Gallery’s annual Fill-the-Shelves event where the Milwaukee Public Library puts out a request list of books that can be purchased and then donated to the library system. After tonight’s event, many of the books will be available for purchase at the Katie Gingrass Gallery.

Author bio: Tom Franklin, author of Poachers: Stories, Hell at the Breech, and Smonk, has won numerous awards, including a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship. His novella, Poachers, was recently selected for inclusion in The Best American Noir of the Century. Franklin teaches in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program and lives in Oxford, MS, with his wife, the poet Beth Ann Fennelly, and their children.

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2010-11-13T06:00:00.003-06:00

Saturday, November 13 @ 8pm, Pabst Theater, $29.50

Mike Birbiglia, author of Sleepwalk with Me: and Other Painfully True Stories. Fresh from his appearances on This American Life and Comedy Central, the comedian muses on childhood pipe dreams, life failures, and various disorders.

Murder and Mayhem in Muskego!

2010-11-12T08:30:00.001-06:00

This weekend is Murder and Mayhem in Muskego! And if you like mystery, you have to attend this event. If you've ever been to a book convention, it's a lot of waiting in lines to spend 30-45 seconds gushing to your favorite author on how awesome they are, while they sign your book and their publicist shuffles you along.

The intimacy of this particular event is what makes it so darn special. You will actually be attending panels and sitting with the other authors. Check out this post from event organizer, Jon Jordan.

Please visit their site for additional info and directions.

Tonight from 6:30pm-8:30pm is the meet and greet. Here's the line-up:

Blake Crouch, Host

Henry Perez

Jamie Preveletti

Reed Farrel Coleman

Ridley Pearson

Victor Gicshler

Victoria Huston

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Saturday is the big day! With a full day of fun:

Libby Fischer Hellmann & Tom Schreck, Toast Masters

Forensic Evidence Recovery Team Demo 9:00-9:50 AM

A. J. Marhofke, of 911BC K-9 Search & Recovery,

and Zip, forensic evidence search dog

It's All in the Setting 10:00-10:50AM

Blake Crouch

Victoria Huston

Daniel Judson

Michael Lister

Marcus Sakey

Writers' Workshop with Henry Perez, Julie Hyzy and Dana Kaye 10-11:00 AM

Character Matters 11:00-11:50AM

Brett Battles

Chelsea Cain

Sean Chercover

Reed Farrel Coleman

Brian Wiprud

LUNCH Noon - 1:00 PM

Just Can't Get Enough: Why We Keep Writing 1:00-1:50 PM

Deb Baker

Denise Swanson

Joanna Slain

Julie Hyzy

Tom Schreck

Shirley Dammsgaard

Writers' Workshop with Marcus Sakey and Blake Crouch 1-2:00 PM

RIDLEY PEARSON - Guest of Honor - 2:00-2:50 PM

interviewed by Jen Forbus

Hard Boil, Flip, Repeat: Crime Fiction on the Edge 3:00-3:50 PM

Neil Anthony Smith

Scott Phillips

Sean Doolittle

Victor Gishler

Brian Azzarello

Christa Faust

Right Time, Right Place: The Thriller 4:00-4:50 PM

Jeff Abbott

F. Paul Wilson

Shane Gericke

Julie Kramer

Kat Richardson

Today is a day of good eats!

2010-11-11T09:08:00.000-06:00

Lunch with Nigella Lawson!

Thursday, November 11@ 11:30am, co-sponsored by Next Chapter Bookshop

Online registration for Nigella Lawson event is now closed. Some tickets are still available. Call Next Chapter Bookshop at 262-241-6220 to check availability and purchase yours before today's event at Shully's Cuisine and Events in Thiensville.

Doors open to ticket-holders at 11:30 a.m.

Meet Nigella Lawson on November 11 and enjoy a delicious meal from her newest book, Nigella Kitchen, prepared by Chef Scott Shully at this special event at Shully's Cuisine & Events in Thiensville! Your ticket includes admission to the event, lunch, and a signed copy of Nigella Kitchen. Following the meal, Nigella Lawson will take part in a discussion moderated by Next Chapter Bookshop owner Lanora Hurley.

Bring at least 2 non-perishable food items to this event to benefit Hunger Task Force and you'll get a coupon good at Next Chapter Bookshop.

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Buddy Valastro, author of Cake Boss

Thursday, November 11 from 12-1pm, Boswell Book Company

Most people know Buddy Valastro as the Cake Boss, star of the TLC series of the same name. Over three seasons, his memorable Italian family has also become familiar to viewers. Now, Valastro lets us in for a more personal look at their history. With the same fire, humor and charm as the show, Cake Boss regales readers with memories and inspires home bakers to higher edible art with twenty-five recipes, straight from Carlo’s Bakery and the Valastro family.

Buddy Valastro’s appearance will be for a book signing only. Purchase of his new book gets customers a ticket into the signing line.

Author bio: Buddy Valastro, aka The Cake Boss, is a fourth-generation master baker who has been the head of Carlo’s Bakery in Hoboken New Jersey, for 16 years. His award-winning creations are legendary, and his customers range from celebrities to ordinary folks who want to feel like celebrities.

Valastro is also appearing at The Riverside Theater tonight at 7:30pm

Buddy Valastro: The Bakin’ with the Boss Tour

Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. show are available for $25.50, $35.50 and $45.50 at the Pabst and Riverside Theater box offices, or online at pabsttheater.org.

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Laurel Snyder, author of Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher

Thursday, November 11 @6pm, JCC

A Family Program -will feature Laurel Snyder, author of “Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher”. This is a PJ Library Selection. At 5:00 pm, a buffet supper will be available for purchase at special family rates. This program will also include a PJ Party with refreshments for the kids as well as interactive audience participation. Snyder also wrote, “Inside the Slidy Diner”, “Any Which Wall” and “Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains”.

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A variety of reading topics this evening!

2010-11-10T06:00:00.002-06:00

Book Club for Adults discusses Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

Wednesday, November 10 @6:30pm, Tippecanoe Library

Leif Enger's debut is an extraordinary novel—an epic of generosity and heart that reminds us of the restorative power of great literature. The story of a father raising his three children in 1960s Minnesota, Peace Like a River is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, a love story, and a haunting meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world.

Raised on tales of cowboys and pirates, eleven-year-old Reuben Land has little doubt that miracles happen all around us, and that it's up to us to "make of it what we will." Reuben was born with no air in his lungs, and it was only when his father, Jeremiah, picked him up and commanded him to breathe that his lungs filled. Reuben struggles with debilitating asthma from then on, making him a boy who knows firsthand that life is a gift, and also one who suspects that his father is touched by God and can overturn the laws of nature.

The quiet Midwestern life of the Lands is upended when Davy, the oldest son, kills two marauders who have come to harm the family; unlike his father, he is not content to leave all matters of justice in God's hands. The morning of his sentencing, Davy—a hero to some, a cold-blooded murderer to others—escapes from his cell, and the Lands set out in search of him. Their journey is touched by serendipity and the kindness of strangers—among them a free spirit named Roxanna, who offers them a place to stay during a blizzard and winds up providing them with something far more permanent. Meanwhile, a federal agent is trailing the Lands, convinced they know of Davy's whereabouts.

With Jeremiah at the helm, the family covers territory far more extraordinary than even the Badlands where they search for Davy from their Airstream trailer. Sprinkled with playful nods to biblical tales, beloved classics such as Huckleberry Finn, the adventure stories of Robert Louis Stevenson, and the westerns of Zane Grey, Peace Like a River unfolds like a revelation.

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Dennis Lehane, author of Moonlight Mile

Wednesday, November 10 @7pm, Mystery One Bookstore

Dennis Lehane more info to follow - but do you really need any more info? Dennis Lehane! isn't that enough?

Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood twelve years ago. Desperate pleas for help from the child's aunt led investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl—only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home.

Now Amanda is sixteen—and gone again. A stellar student, brilliant but aloof, she seemed destined to escape her upbringing. Yet Amanda's aunt is once more knocking on Patrick Kenzie's door, fearing the worst for the little girl who has blossomed into a striking, clever young woman—a woman who hasn't been seen in weeks.

Haunted by their consciences, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most. Their search leads them into a world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, a mentally unstable crime boss and his equally demented wife, a priceless, thousand-year-old cross, and a happily homicidal Russian gangster. It's a world in which motives and allegiances constantly shift and mistakes are fatal.

In their desperate fight to confront the past and find Amanda McCready, Kenzie and Gennaro will be forced to question if it's possible to do the wrong thing and still be right or to do the right thing and still be wrong. As they face an evil that goes beyond broken families and broken dreams, they discover that the sins of yesterday don't always stay buried and the crimes of today could end their lives.

Dennis Lehane is the author of nine novels—including the New York Times bestsellers Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island; and The Given Day—as well as Coronado, a collection of short stories and a play. He and his wife, Angie, divide their time between Boston and the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Before becoming a full-time writer, Mr. Lehane worked as a counselor with mentally handicapped and abused children, waited tables, parked cars, drove limos, worked in bookstores, and loaded tractor-trailers. His one regret is that no one ever gave him a chance to tend bar.

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Joel Hoffman, PhD, author of And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning

Wednesday, November 10 @7pm, Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center

From Publishers Weekly: Author Hoffman, a linguist and a translator, uses his knowledge and his skills to correct some of the common errors in translating the language of the Bible from Hebrew into English. His initial three chapters are devoted to explaining linguistics and translation theory, skillfully clarifying complex concepts. The remaining five chapters ably apply these ideas to biblical phrases that, according to Hoffman, require rewording.

He begins with the important commandment, And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. He convincingly claims that the Hebrew words for heart and soul have been severely mistranslated and should be rendered as mind and body. Similarly, Hoffman effectively demonstrates errors in rendering shepherd, my sister, my bride, two of the Ten Commandments, and virgin. Attentive readers will find this book to be valuable for properly understanding the Bible. (Feb.)

Dr. Joel M. Hoffman, an expert in translation, Hebrew, and the Bible, is a much sought-after speaker who presents to dozens of popular and academic audiences each year. He holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and has served on the faculties of Brandeis University and Hebrew Union College.

Dr. Hoffman is the chief translator for the popular 10-volume series, My People's Prayer Book (winner of the National Jewish Book Award) and for My People's Passover Haggadah, both from Jewish Lights Publishing. He is the author of the critically acclaimed In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language (NYU Press).

Ticket are $5 per person. They can be purchased at the JCC or by calling Sandee Kayser, 414-967-8228. For additional information contact Dorene Paley , 414-967-8217 or dpaley@jccmilwaukee.org. or visit our web-site: www.jccmilwaukee.org.

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Linda and Allen Anderson, authors of Dogs and the Women Who Love Them

Wednesday, November 10 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Co-Sponsored by the Wisconsin Humane Society and Ecopet on Brady Street

Nobody who has lived with, loved, or been loved by a dog can deny the human-canine bond. Yet women, with their predisposition to being nurturers, seem to forge the deepest and most harmonious connections with their non-speaking furred companions.

Dogs and the Women Who Love Them looks into the lives of some inspiring women whose relationships with their dogs have had long-lasting, positive effects on not only their own lives, but those of humans and canines alike. Stories include an abused German Shepherd who saved the life of a nationally recognized, award-winning police dog trainer while serving as her partner; a rescued pit bull whose time in dog fighting pits inspired a New Orleans shelter for special needs dogs; a wheelchair-bound Dachshund who visits children in schools, teaching them how to appreciate people’s differences; and a rescued Lab who, with his human, “co-founded” a Texas non-profit that trains service dogs for disabled veterans.

10% of designated sales for this event will be donated to the Wisconsin Humane Society. Volunteers from WHS will be on hand with an information table and will be selling Mini Cooper raffle tickets, with proceeds from ticket sales going to help the many pets that pass through their doors.

Author bio: Allen and Linda Anderson are speakers and authors of a series of twelve popular books about the spiritual relationships between people and animals. They co-founded the Angel Animals Network in 1996 to increase love and respect for all life through the power of story. Their award-winning work has been featured on local, national, and international media and news outlets. They donate a portion of revenue from their projects to animal shelters and animal welfare organizations. The Andersons’ website is www.angelanimals.net.

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Have dinner with Chef David Tanis TONIGHT!

2010-11-09T06:00:00.021-06:00

Tuesday, November 9 @6:30pm

This event takes place at Bacchus

925 E. Wells St., Milwaukee, WI 53202, (414) 765-1166

Please click here for additional information.

Have dinner with David Tanis, chef of the groundbreaking Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California, where the menu consists solely of a single perfect meal that changes each evening. Tickets are $135 per person, and include one signed copy of Tanis’ new book Heart of the Artichoke.

Nobody better embodies the present-day mantra "Eat real food in season" than David Tanis, one of the most original voices in American cooking. His new soulful, fun-to-read cookbook opens with his own private food rituals, and those treats - jalapeno pancakes, beans on toast, pasta for one – to make when you are on your own in the kitchen with no one else to satisfy. Then he follows with twenty incomparable menus (five per season) that serve four to six. Tanis' recipes are down-to-earth yet sophisticated, simple to prepare but impressive on the plate.

Author bio: Six months a year, David Tanis is head chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, where he's been since the 1980s, helping to define the restaurant's wildly influential style. He spends the other half of the year in Paris, where he hosts dinners of international renown. David's French kitchen is a six-by-ten-foot galley with a rickety stove, a small sink, little counter space, and a half-dozen well-used pots and pans. Tanis has been featured in The New York Times, Gourmet, and Saveur; and is the author of A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes.

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Comic Books Are Not Just For Kids Anymore

Tuesday, November 9 @6:45pm, Washington Park Library

Batman Potpourri: Batman: Year One by Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli, The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, and The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller. Fall is in full swing. What better time to catch up with the Caped Crusader!

If you’re over the age of 18 and enjoy reading comic books and graphic novels from publishers like Vertigo and Fantagraphics, come to a meeting of Not Just for Kids Anymore, The Washington Park Comic Book & Graphic Novel Book Club. Books that will be read in this group are the equivalent of "Rated R" movies and are not appropriate for children. Intended for mature readers (18+).

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The Literature Book Club

Tuesday, November 9 @7pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

The literature book club will be discussing Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen. The club is free and open to anyone who would like to attend!

"It is rare that I literally laugh out loud while I'm reading, but Janzen's voice—singular, deadpan, sharp-witted and honest—slayed me." —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down. It was bad enough that her husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her injured. Needing a place to rest and pick up the pieces of her life, Rhoda packed her bags, crossed the country, and returned to her quirky Mennonite family's home, where she was welcomed back with open arms and offbeat advice. (Rhoda's good-natured mother suggested she get over her heartbreak by dating her first cousin—he owned a tractor, see.)

Written with wry humor and huge personality—and tackling faith, love, family, and aging—Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an immensely moving memoir of healing, certain to touch anyone who has ever had to look homeward in order to move ahead.

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My Thoughts Be Bloody...

2010-11-08T06:00:00.001-06:00

Nora Titone, author of My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth That Led to an American Tragedy

Monday, November 8 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

This sweeping family saga will rewrite our understanding of one of the most seminal tragedies in American history: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Every American knows the literal story of what happened in Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865: Lincoln was shot by a second-rate actor, John Wilkes Booth, a lunatic enraged at the Union victory and the prospect of black citizenship. But Nora Titone, a brilliant young historian, has uncovered a hidden history, buried until now in private letters, journals, and reminiscences of the Booth family, that will captivate all readers of American history and electrify the historical debate.

To recreate the lost world of Edwin and John Wilkes Booth, Titone leads readers on a tour of the 19th century, bringing forgotten landscapes to life. The action moves from the slums of 1840s Baltimore to the gold fields of California, and from the jungles of Panama to the mansions of Gilded Age New York. By the end of the journey, readers will see Abraham Lincoln’s death less as the result of the war between the North and South, than the climax of a dark struggle between two brothers.

Author bio: Nora Titone studied history at Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley. For the past decade she has worked as a historical researcher specializing in nineteenth-century America for a range of academics, authors, and artists. She lives in Chicago.

Murder and Mayhem in Muskego

2010-11-07T10:36:00.001-06:00

Jon and Ruth Jordan are known for their love of mysteries and everything related to them. Their opinions and reviews of the genre are well respected and you won't find a bigger collection of mystery books outside of the Library of Congress. They even helped out the Banned Books Event in a huge way with a donation of dozens of books (many signed) by some of the biggest and best writers of the genre.

With all the Bouchercon's and Comic-Con's under their belts, they also have a lot of amazing stories to share. The best ones coming from their hosting of Murder and Mayhem in Muskego, an event very unique to our area and featuring a bevy of amazing authors in a very friendly, casual setting. Jon joing us today to give us a little insight into what this whole event is about.

Be sure to get additional information on the event and all things mystery by following Jon and Ruth on Twitter: @CrimespreeJon and @mrscrimespree.

Murder and Mayhem In Muskego

November 12-13, 2010

Muskego Public Library

It sounds like a headline for the local paper describing an out of control event which leaves devastation in it's wake. In some ways that's not so off point.

What it really is bears more resemblance to a gathering of friends or like minded individuals, who happen to love reading about murder. Crime fiction is a hugely popular genre and the Muskego Public Library once a year celebrates it with a gathering of authors to talk to fans. Coming into year 6 next weekend Muskego's Library has become a bit of a destination for a lot of the top writers in the field. Dennis Lehane announced his new Patrick and Angie book, (Moonlight Mile) while he was there. Tess Gerritesen has been a guest, Laura Lippman, David Morrell, Robert Crais, Greg Rucka, Gregg Hurwitz, Jeffery Deaver and many more.

What brings these authors to the city outside Milwaukee?

The chance to meet a lot of fans in one place is a big part of it. The library in Muskego is run by some truly dedicated people and the one organizing this is Penny Halle. Penny is a fan herself and six years ago the friends of the Library asked her if she could put together an event to celebrate mysteries. She contacted Mystery One books to come in and make sure people could buy books by the authors who attend. She also contacted my wife and I to help track down authors.

The first year was one 2+hour session with 9 authors. The following year we program was extended into the format now being used. Single track programming guarantees the audience is not divided and each author is reaching the whole crowd. As of last year, writing workshops were added to run during the event, limited to thirty peolpe at a time.

This year has a wonderful line up: Jeff Abbott, Brian Azzarello, Deb Baker, Brett Battles, Chelsea Cain, Sean Chercover, Reed Farrel Coleman, Blake Crouch, Shirley Dammsgaard, Sean Doolittle, Christa Faust, Shane Gericke, Victor Gischler, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Victoria Houston, Julie Hyzy, Daniel Judson, Julie Kramer, Michael Lister, A. J. Marhofke, RIDLEY PEARSON - Guest of Honor, Henry Perez, Scott Phillips, Kat Richardson, Marcus Sakey, Tom Schreck, Joanna Slan, Anthony Neil Smith, Denise Swanson, Brian Wiprud, and the rescue dog Zip.

These authors write all over the genre from cozy to supernatural to thrillers to serial killers and Private eyes. So what gets these people invited to be a part of this?

The authors selected and asked to come are all outgoing and great with the fans, no divas here. They talk to the fans, have lunch with the fans and watch other panels with the fans. At heart, most of them are fans too. We also try to pick authors that people in the area might not get to see unless they travel. And while we do have some repeat authors, each year we try to bring in new faces.

The authors come because we make them feel welcome and the fans that turn out are the best.

Penny and I have already put together a line up for next year that should be tons of fun. For us at Crimespree Magazine this is our favorite event of the year and we are proud sponsors of this unique gathering of fans and authors.

I'd also like to give a shout out to some local businesses that help us keep the authors happy. Milwaukee Brewing Company, Capitol City brewery, Atomic Chocolates, Times Square Bistro, The Great Lakes Distillery, and The Iron Horse Hotel.

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A Music Class, Poetry, and a Film Chat

2010-11-06T06:00:00.002-05:00

Jennifer Murphy Damm, free music class

Saturday, November 6 @11am, Boswell Book Company

Bring your little ones out to move and groove with Ms. Jen and Music for Aardvarks-Milwaukee!

Music for Aardvarks is an interactive music program for kids, ages 0-6, and their caregivers. Classes incorporate singing, dancing, live music, storytelling, and instrumental jam sessions. The Music for Aardvarks music program began in New York City 13 years ago and can be found in many cities across the country. Aardvarks songs are also featured on Nick Jr. and Jack’s Big Music Show.

Presenter bio: Jennifer Murphy Damm is a singer/songwriter, teacher, and piano instructor. She graduated from Colorado State University with a Masters Degree in Instructional Leadership and was a middle school Science and Math teacher for seven years before having children of her own. Damm discovered the Music for Aardvarks program and has now brought this fresh and exciting musical experience to Milwaukee. Her website is www.milwaukeeaardvarks.com.

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Poet Annie Finch
Saturday, November 6 @2pm, MPLs Centennial Hall

From haiku to ode, great poetry has always connected us with earth's cycles. This program will help you rediscover how poetry attunes us to the motions of our moving and vulnerable planet. Poet Annie Finch shares some of her favorite seasonal poems, along with tips for using poetic rhythm to align yourself with the changing year.

Annie Finch is author of the poetry collections Among the Goddesses, Calendars, The Encyclopedia of Scotland, and Eve, reissued in Carnegie Mellon’s Classic Contemporaries Poetry Series. Her other works include libretti; music, theater, and art collaborations; translation; and several anthologies and books on poetry. Winner of a Black Earth fellowship and the Robert Fitzgerald Award, she is Director of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Maine.

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Nathan Rabin, author of My Year of Flops: One Man's Journey Deep Into the Heart of Cinematic Failure

Saturday, November 6 @2pm, Boswell Book Company

What if we went to a hundred movies and they all sucked? But what if, afterwards, we had a beer or two, and after some discussion, several turned out to be works of genius, and others, well, still sucked? And then one of us wrote a column about it?

That's the gist of Nathan Rabin's new book, My Year of Flops, based on his twice-weekly column of the same name that began in 2007 and was so popular (his fans include the popular comic Patton Oswalt), he continued beyond the initial timeframe implied in the title. Rabin watches (in most case, re-watches) a commercial and generally critical failure, offers his critique, and puts it in cultural perspective and biographical (his) perspective.

Think Exit to Eden, Ishtar, Mame, and Battlefield Earth. It helps that Rabin has encyclopedic film knowledge and a razor sharp wit. My Year of Flops takes dozens of those columns and throws in fifteen brand-new entries as well as bonus interviews. The results are laugh-out-loud funny and, perhaps a little strangely, nostalgic.

Author bio: Nathan Rabin is the author of the acclaimed memoir, The Big Rewind, which chronicles Rabin’s tumultuous childhood and struggles with depression through a darkly comic lens of pop culture and entertainment. He attended the University of Wisconsin where he began writing for The Onion, becoming the Head Writer of its entertainment section, The A.V. Club. Rabin was, briefly, a regular critic on AMC’s short-lived “Movie Club with John Ridley.” He lives in Chicago.

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Because everybody loves a Threesome:

2010-11-05T06:00:00.001-05:00

Gina Frangello, author of Slut Lullabies with
Davis Schneiderman, author of Drain with
Zoe Zolbrod, author of Currency

Friday, November 5 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Join three fearless authors as they explore the fictional crossroads of power and control, gender and sexuality, and the deeper essence of freedom and creativity.

Slut Lullabies is a daring collection of insightfully drawn, deeply felt characters moving delicately amid the despair and wreckage of ordinary life, but always towards hope. A gay Latino man and his lover navigate their familial clashes as they plan their commitment ceremony; a young girl wanting to leave a violent home precariously balances ethical tightropes when she seduces a teacher for blackmail money; and a wealthy socialite must confront her demons when her comfortable life crumbles. Through beauty, horror, humor and chaos, Frangello digs into her understanding of human experience to write in an uplifting voice, demanding the judgmental reader to consider the power of empathy.

Drain imagines a waterless Lake Michigan in the year 2039, with the planet’s protective atmospheric fields slowly disappearing and its subsequent effect on the occupants of a desert area east of Chicago where three communities are clashing: punk pirates, ultra-wealthy closed communities, and end-times cultists. Shocking, but unwavering in its critique of modern culture, Drain walks a post-apocalyptic path in the footsteps of William S. Burroughs and Chuck Pahlaniuk.

In Currency, Robin, an American backpacker low on money but infatuated with travel and beauty, and Piv, her charismatic Thai lover who dreams of a better life, become embroiled in the dangerous world of international animal trafficking in this exotic literary thriller.

Author bios:

Gina Frangello is the author of the critically acclaimed novel My Sister’s Continent. She is the executive editor and co-founder of Other Voices Books and the editor of The Nervous Breakdown’s fiction section. She lives in Chicago with her husband, twin daughters and son, and teaches at Columbia College and Northwestern University.

Davis Schneiderman chairs the English and American studies departments at Lake Forest College in Illinois. He is the director of Lake Forest College Press/&Now Books; he also directs the Virtual Burnham Initiative, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Schneiderman is the author of the novel DIS and the co-author of the novel Abecedarium. His creative work has appeared in numerous publications, including Fiction International, the Chicago Tribune, Tri-Quarterly, Exquisite Corpse, and the Iowa Review.

Zoe Zolbrod studied at both Oberlin and the University of Illinois at Chicago, and has been a Senior Editor at Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt. She also was co-publisher of Maxine - a literate companion for churlish girls and rakish women. Currency is her first novel.

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a Mystery and some Non-Fiction for ya!

2010-11-04T06:00:00.002-05:00

Michael Ayoob, author of In Search of Mercy

Thursday, November 4 @7pm, Mystery One Bookstore

Winner of the PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Competition!

Dexter Bolzjak is an ex–hockey goalie who was abducted and tortured by perverted sports fans eight years ago. Now he's muddling along in a Pittsburgh warehouse when he meets an old, terminally ill drunk named Lou Kashon. Lou wants to see his lost love, the actress Mercy Carnahan, and offers Dexter a fortune to find her.

Dexter embarks on the search, retracing Mercy's past online and on foot. Soon, Mercy begins to haunt Dexter, appearing in his dreams while flashbacks to his own traumatic experience plague his waking hours.

Dexter persists and follows Mercy's trail to New York, where he finds a voyeuristic film of the actress recorded shortly before her disappearance. Once Dexter connects that film to its source, he finds himself trapped in the ultimate nightmare.

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Steve Paulson, author of Atoms and Eden: Conversations on Religion and Science

Thursday, November 4 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

In Atoms and Eden, the Peabody Award-winning journalist Steve Paulson explores this complex subject with a host of intellectual luminaries, including Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, E.O. Wilson, Sam Harris, Elaine Pagels, Francis Collins, Daniel Dennett, Jane Goodall, Paul Davies, and Steven Weinberg. The interviewees include Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Muslims, as well as agnostics, atheists, and other scholars who hold perspectives that are hard to categorize.

Paulson's interviews sweep across a broad range of scientific disciplines--evolutionary biology, quantum physics, cosmology, and neuroscience--and also explore key issues in theology, religious history, and what William James called ''the varieties of religious experience.'' Collectively, these engaging dialogues cover the major issues that have often pitted science against religion--from the origins of the universe to debates about God, Darwin, the nature of reality, and the limits of human reason. These are complex, intellectually rich discussions, presented in an accessible and engaging manner.

Most of these interviews were originally published as individual cover stories for Salon.com, where they generated a huge reader response. Public Radio's To the Best of Our Knowledge will present a major companion series on related topics this fall.

A feast of ideas and competing perspectives, this volume will appeal to scientists, spiritual seekers, and the intellectually curious.

Author bio: Steve Paulson is Executive Producer of Wisconsin Public Radio’s nationally syndicated radio program To the Best of Our Knowledge. He received the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship in Science and Religion. His work has been featured in Salon and Slate as well as on NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

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Reading events in every part of town tonight!

2010-11-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, November 3 @ 4pm, Weasler Auditorium

(1422 West Wisconsin Avenue)

Boswell Book Company will be on-hand to sell books.

Robert D. Putnam, author of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us and Bowling Alone. This year's Marburg Lecture at Marquette University features the great Harvard Professor whose seminal work has been one of the most cited of the last decade. This event is free.

Unique among nations, America is deeply religious, religiously diverse, and remarkably tolerant. But in recent decades the nation’s religious landscape has been reshaped.

America has experienced three seismic shocks, say Robert Putnam and David Campbell. In the 1960s, religious observance plummeted. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, a conservative reaction produced the rise of evangelicalism and the Religious Right. Since the 1990s, however, young people, turned off by that linkage between faith and conservative politics, have abandoned organized religion.

The result has been a growing polarization—the ranks of religious conservatives and secular liberals have swelled, leaving a dwindling group of religious moderates in between. At the same time, personal interfaith ties are strengthening. Interfaith marriage has increased while religious identities have become more fluid. Putnam and Campbell show how this denser web of personal ties brings surprising interfaith tolerance, notwithstanding the so-called culture wars.

American Grace is based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America. It includes a dozen in-depth profiles of diverse congregations across the country, which illuminate how the trends described by Putnam and Campbell affect the lives of real Americans.

David E. Campbell is the John Cardinal O'Hara, C.S.C. Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame as well as a research fellow with the Institute for Educational Initiatives. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of several books, and his work has also appeared in the Journal of Politics, Public Opinion Quarterly, and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. He lives near South Bend, Indiana.

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Myla Goldberg, author of A False Friend
Wednesday, November 3 @7pm, Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center (6255 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Whitefish Bay)

As part of the Jewish Book and Culture Fair 2010

From the bestselling author of Bee Season comes an astonishingly complex psychological drama with a simple setup: two eleven-year-old girls, best friends and fierce rivals, go into the woods. Only one comes out . . .

Leaders of a mercurial clique of girls, Celia and Djuna reigned mercilessly over their three followers. One afternoon, they decided to walk home along a forbidden road. Djuna disappeared, and for twenty years Celia blocked out how it happened.

The lie Celia told to conceal her misdeed became the accepted truth: everyone assumed Djuna had been abducted, though neither she nor her abductor was ever found. Celia’s unconscious avoidance of this has meant that while she and her longtime boyfriend, Huck, are professionally successful, they’ve been unable to move forward, their relationship falling into a rut that threatens to bury them both.

Celia returns to her hometown to confess the truth, but her family and childhood friends don’t believe her. Huck wants to be supportive, but his love can’t blind him to all that contradicts Celia’s version of the past.

Celia’s desperate search to understand what happened to Djuna has powerful consequences. A deeply resonant and emotionally charged story, The False Friend explores the adults that children become—leading us to question the truths that we accept or reject, as well as the lies to which we succumb.

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Wednesday, November 3 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Co-sponsored with Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast

Celebrate National Butchers week with Bolzano Artisan Meats and Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast by meeting Milwaukee’s own Scott Buer, featured as one of the top 50 butchers in the country in a new book by Marissa Guggiana, Primal Cuts, replete with profiles, recipes, practical advice with pictorial assistance and tons of insider information into the new, “slow,” meat industry. One of the farmers who provides Bolzano with hogs will also be on hand.

Scott Buer is the owner of Bolzano Artisan Meats, a Riverwest charcuterie specializing in the art of dry curing, and one of the only ones nationwide that makes its product using locally raised heirloom hogs. Bolzano meats are available around the state at various specialty food stores and online, though Buer also brings his product to area farmers markets throughout the year.

Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast is a local branch of the non-profit organization Slow Food USA/International. They offer events and programs to assist in advocating the support of family farms and cooperatives, promotion of locally grown food, support for school gardens, conservation of regional culinary traditions and the maintenance of biodiversity.

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Beth Hoffman, author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
Wednesday, November 3 @7pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

Beth Hoffman's bestseller Saving CeeCee Honeycutt is out in paperback now, and that's great news for book clubs!

At the heart of Hoffman's novel is twelve-year-old CeeCee who has been shouldering the burden of caring for her psychologically troubled mother, Camille, for much of her young life. It's 1967 and they live in Ohio, but Camille is certain that it's 1951 and she's just been crowned the Vidalia Onion Queen of Georgia.

The day CeeCee discovers her mother in the front yard wearing a tattered prom dress, she knows her mother has completely flipped. When Camille meets a tragic end, it brings CeeCee's Great Aunt Tootie into her life. CeeCee is whisked away to Savannah Georgia, a world of perfumed prosperty and Southern eccentricity. She's fascinated by the denizens of her new world and thrives on her new friendships, particularly with her aunt's cook, Oletta. Before CeeCee can bloom into a Georgia peach, she must face the fact that her mother's legacy isn't easy to escape.

Stitch 'n' Bitch TONIGHT!

2010-11-02T08:34:00.000-05:00

Debbie Stoller, author of Stitch ‘n’ Bitch Superstar Knitting: Go Beyond the Basics

Tuesday, November 2 @7pm at Boswell Book Company, Co-Sponsored with Loop Yarn Shop

The expert knitter and gifted, edgy author who introduced knitting to a new generation will host a free in-store lace workshop to launch the newest addition to the New York Times-bestselling Stitch ‘n Bitch series.

Featuring 41 cool, funky, and fabulous patterns including sexy stockings, stylish handbags, blankets, scarves, and more, all photographed in full-color, Stitch 'n’ Bitch Superstar Knitting is the only knitter's handbook to teach the full array of advanced knitting techniques and skills, such as double-knitting, knitting lace, complicated color work, beading, and more.

Writing with the clarity that makes her such an effective teacher, and the attitude that got her dubbed "knitting superstar" by the San Francisco Chronicle, Stoller explains how to "knit by the numbers;" get creative with stripes; embellish with crochet, beading, and I-cords; how to make cable patterns; and how to use color forms. There's also a whole section on DIY, which gives a tutorial on creating your own knitting patterns.

Author bio: Debbie Stoller is the bestselling author of the Stitch 'n’ Bitch series of knitting books and calendars. She comes from a long line of Dutch knitters, has a Ph.D. from Yale in the psychology of women, and is the editor-in-chief of "Bust" magazine. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Transfer of funds

2010-11-01T10:52:00.000-05:00

The final piece of the BANNED Books Event puzzle has fallen into place. Last week, my co-host, Lori Fredrich, and I dropped off the checks from our fundraising adventure. In total, we raised $1,650! Not too shabby for a first year event. We're already working to make next year's event even more spectacular for you. ;-)

(from l. to r. Lori Fredrich of Burp!, MPL foundation Executive Director Meg Diaz, MPL Director Paula Kiely, and yours truly!)

Phil Cosineau reading TONIGHT!

2010-10-29T09:14:00.000-05:00

Phil Cousineau, author of Wordcatcher

Friday, October 29 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Who knew that the great country of Canada is named for a mistake? How about “bedswerver,” the best Elizabethan insult to hurl at a cheating boyfriend? By exploring the delightful back stories of the 250 words in Wordcatcher, readers are lured by language and entangled in etymologies.

Author Phil Cousineau takes us on a tour into the obscure territory of word origins with great erudition and endearing curiosity. The English poet W. H. Auden was once asked to teach a poetry class, and when 200 students applied to study with him, he only had room for 20 of them. When asked how he chose his students, he said he picked the ones who actually loved words. So too, with this book—it takes a special wordcatcher to create a treasure chest of remarkable words and their origins, and any word lover will relish the stories that Cousineau has discovered.

Author bio: Phil Cousineau is an award-winning writer and filmmaker, teacher and editor, lecturer and travel leader, storyteller and TV host. His fascination with the art, literature, and history of culture has taken him from Michigan to Marrakesh, Iceland to the Amazon, in a worldwide search for what the ancients called the “soul of the word.”

With more than 25 books and 15 scriptwriting credits to his name, the “omnipresent influence of myth in modern life” is a thread that runs through all of his work. His books include Stoking the Creative Fires, Once and Future Myths, The Art of Pilgrimage, The Olympic Odyssey, The Hero’s Journey, and Wordcatcher.

LOCAL AUTHOR Reading Event, TONIGHT!

2010-10-28T09:38:00.000-05:00

Dennis McCann, author of Badger Boneyards...now at Boswell!

Thursday, October 28 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

The bodies are buried, but the stories are not. From the ornate tombs of Milwaukee’s beer barons to displaced Chippewa graves and miniscule family plots, “Badger Boneyards: The Eternal Rest of the Story” unearths the stories of Wisconsin. Football great John Heisman is buried here, as is the state’s smallest man, a woman whose tombstone names her murderer, and the boy who would not tell a lie and paid the price.

Even in a graveyard, peace proves hard to come by: Wisconsin’s Native American tribes have fought for undisturbed grounds and proper burial. A patch of Belgian graves now resides beneath a parking lot while the headstones cluster nearby, and the inhabitants of a Bayfield cemetery were unearthed by a raging flood. Sometimes the dead are recalled with only a first name, and sometimes no name at all. Following the clues in tips from readers, unusual epitaphs, and well-worn stones, Dennis McCann finds the melancholy, the humorous, the tragic, and the universal in Wisconsin’s cities of the dead.

Author bio: Dennis McCann is a Wisconsin native and longtime explorer of the state’s nooks, crannies, and, yes, its burial grounds. A University of Wisconsin–Madison journalism graduate, he joined the Milwaukee Journal (later the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) in 1983 as a farm writer and state rover. His previous books include The Wisconsin Story: 150 Stories/150 Years, Dennis McCann Takes You for a Ride, and Rough Stuff, a collection of his columns from Wisconsin Golfer magazine. Now a freelance writer, he spends most of his time with his wife, Barb, a retired teacher, at their home on Lake Superior in Bayfield.

Nicole Krauss reading, TONIGHT!

2010-10-27T10:02:00.000-05:00

Nicole Krauss, author of Great House

Wednesday, October 27 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Nicole Krauss, author of The History of Love, is back with Great House, a powerful, soaring novel about a stolen desk that contains the secrets, and becomes the obsession, of the lives it passes through. For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet’s secret police; one day a girl claiming to be the poet’s daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer’s life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father’s study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944.

Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared. Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change? Nicole Krauss has written a soaring, powerful novel about memory struggling to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss.

In honor of Boswell Book Company’s 18^th month in business, Carol Grossmeyer, President of Dickens Books, Ltd, the parent company of the former Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops and current 800-CEO-READ, will introduce Ms. Krauss. We’re grateful for her help in launching the business and honoring our continuing friendship.

Author bio: Nicole Krauss is the author of Man Walks into a Room, Great House and the international bestseller The History of Love. Her books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

LOCAL AUTHOR and Other Reading Event, TONIGHT!

2010-10-26T07:55:00.000-05:00

Robert Grede, author of The Spur and the Sash

Tuesday, October 26 7@pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

Milwaukee author Robert Grede's novel, The Spur and the Sash, is inspired in part by his ancestor's life during the Civil War. Sergeant George Van Norman, a Yankee, was wounded in one of the last battles of the Civil War. While recovering, he was ordered to guard a local plantation where he fell in love with the owner's daughter. Meticulously researched using letters, diaries, and official records, The Spur and the Sash is a story of love, passion, and betrayal amidst the anarchy of post-war Tennessee.

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Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Swan Thieves

Tuesday, October 26 @ 7pm, Boswell Book Company

Nearly five years after The Historian’s instant success, Elizabeth Kostova returns with The Swan Thieves, a sweeping tale of historical intrigue spanning centuries and continents. The Swan Thieves is the story of a beautiful woman, a mysterious painting, and a secret from the depths of art history. The enigmatic Robert Oliver is a painter whose great talent is hindered by his troubled mind. When psychiatrist Andrew Marlow attempts to discover the secret behind Robert’s torment, he is led on a journey into the lives of the women closest to Oliver—and toward a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism.

From American museums to the coast of Normandy, from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth, from young love to last love, The Swan Thieves is a story of obsession, the losses of history, and the power of art to preserve human hope. With stunning prose and dramatic storytelling, Elizabeth Kostova examines both the luminous talent behind great artistry and the dark, mad existence that talent can enliven. Love, beauty, yearning, and obsession culminate in a novel that will captivate readers until the shocking revelation at its conclusion.

Author bio: The publication of Elizabeth Kostova’s debut novel, The Historian (June 2005), was a historic achievement in the world of books. The Historian brought to brilliant life the story behind the legend of Vlad the Impaler (inspiration for the myth of Dracula); it was an instant international hit—now published in forty languages—and the first debut novel to enter the New York Times bestseller list at #1. An epic tale ten years in the making, it remained on the list for nineteen weeks after it was published, amid a maelstrom of interviews and rave reviews. Elizabeth Kostova graduated from Yale and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award for the Novel-in-Progress

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Mystery Book Club & Reading, TODAY!

2010-10-25T06:00:00.001-05:00

Mystery Book Club

Monday, October 25 @7pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

The Mystery Book Club will be discussing Skinwalkers by Tony Hillerman. The club is free and open to anyone who would like to attend.

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Adam Levin, author of The Instructions

Monday, October 25 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Beginning with a chance encounter with the beautiful Eliza June Watermark and ending, four days and 900 pages later, with the events of November 17, this is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age ten: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker. Expelled from three Jewish day-schools for acts of violence and messianic tendencies, Gurion ends up in the Cage, a special lockdown program for the most hopeless cases of Aptakisic Junior High. Separated from his scholarly followers, Gurion becomes a leader of a very different sort, with righteous aims building to a revolution of troubling intensity.

(the book has been released with three different covers)

The Instructions is an absolutely singular work of fiction by an important new talent. Combining the crackling voice of Philip Roth with the encyclopedic mind of David Foster Wallace, Adam Levin has shaped a world driven equally by moral fervor and slapstick comedy—a novel that is muscular and exuberant, troubling and empathetic, monumental, breakneck, romantic, and unforgettable.

Author bio: Adam Levin’s stories have appeared in Tin House, McSweeney’s, and Esquire. Winner of the 2003 Tin House/Summer Literary Seminars Fiction Contest and the 2004 Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Prize, Levin holds an MA in Clinical Social Work from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. His collection of short stories, Hot Pink, will be published by McSweeney’s in 2011. He lives in Chicago, where he teaches writing at Columbia College and The School of the Art Institute.

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Antique Appraising & Reading, TODAY!

2010-10-24T06:00:00.003-05:00

Antique Appraisal Fair!

Sunday, October 24 from 1-4pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

Wondering if that knick-knack your great-aunt gave you for your birthday is really an authentic antique? Let certified appraiser Barbara J. Eash and Mark F. Moran, author of over 25 books on antiques and collectibles, evaluate your attic treasures. Bring up to two (2) items from any of the following categories:

Fine art

Folk art

Jewelry

Glassware

Toys

Memorabilia

Tickets to this event are required and are $10.00 per person. Tickets will be available at Next Chapter Bookshop starting September 15.

Note: If you would like to have furniture appraised, please DO NOT bring it to the event. Instead, bring a photo of your item for the appraisers to work from.

**Firearms, knives, and other weaponry will not be allowed at this event.**

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Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia

Sunday, October 24 @2pm, MPL Centennial Hall

In Travels in Siberia, Ian Frazier trains his eye for unforgettable detail on Siberia, that vast expanse of Asiatic Russia. He explores many aspects of this storied, often grim region, which takes up one-seventh of the land on earth. He writes about the geography, the resources, the native peoples, the history, the forty-below midwinter afternoons, the bugs. The book brims with Mongols, half-crazed Orthodox archpriests, fur seekers, ambassadors of the czar bound for Peking, tea caravans, German scientists, American prospectors, intrepid English nurses, and prisoners and exiles

In Travels in Siberia, Ian Frazier trains his eye for unforgettable detail on Siberia, that vast expanse of Asiatic Russia. He explores many aspects of this storied, often grim region, which of every kind—from Natalie Lopukhin, banished by the czarina for copying her dresses; to the noble Decembrist revolutionaries of the 1820s; to the young men and women of the People’s Will movement whose fondest hope was to blow up the czar; to those who met incomprehensible suffering and death in the Siberian camps during Soviet times.

More than just a historical travelogue, Travels in Siberia is also an account of Russia since the end of the Soviet Union and a personal reflection on the all-around amazingness of Russia, a country that still somehow manages to be funny. Siberian travel books have been popular since the thirteenth century, when monks sent by the pope went east to find the Great Khan and wrote about their journeys. Travels in Siberia will take its place as the twenty-first century’s indispensable contribution to the genre.

This free event takes place at the Milwaukee Public Library’s Centennial Hall, located at 733 N. Eighth Street, between Wells and Wisconsin in Downtown Milwaukee.

Author bio: Ian Frazier is the author of Great Plains, The Fish’s Eye, On the Rez, and Family, as well as Coyote v. Acme and Dating Your Mom—all published by FSG. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.

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LOCAL ILLUSTRATOR and Reading, TODAY!

2010-10-23T06:00:00.001-05:00

Bonnie Leick, illustrator of Goodnight Little Monster

Saturday, October 23 @2pm, Boswell Book Company

It’s time for Little Monster to go to bed. But not until he washes his plump pointy tail, looks under the bed for scary children, and has his bedtime snack of worm juice and baked beetle bread. Join illustrator Bonnie Leick as she reads from her latest picture book, Goodnight, Little Monster (author Helen Ketteman). Then, get your pencils and crayons ready because she is going to show you how to create your own monsters and all things Halloween!

Author bio: Bonnie Leick (pronunciation: like) grew up on a dairy farm in Central Wisconsin where, as a child, she spent her summers picking rocks in the fields and baling hay. Her artwork has sometimes been defined as quirky and humorous. Bonnie has worked for publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Marshall Cavendish, and Tanglewood Books. She has also illustrated for Highlights High Five and Highlights. Before her work in children’s books, Bonnie received a BFA in Film/Video-Character Animation from the California Institute of Art and Design. She currently resides in Milwaukee with her family.

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Linda F. Nathan, author of The Hardest Questions Aren’t on the Test: Lessons from an Innovative Urban School

Saturday, October 23 @4pm, Boswell Book Company

In 1998 Linda Nathan founded The Boston Arts Academy (BAA), a pilot school operating within the Boston Public School district, where the mission is to be a “laboratory and a beacon for artistic and academic innovation.” With students from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, BAA sends 95 percent of its graduates to college, a number in striking contrast to that of average urban districts.

This remarkable success rate, argues Nathan, is due in large part to asking the right questions and involving all constituents in the search for answers. In The Hardest Questions Aren’t on the Test, she explores how to build a school culture that takes into account the hugely complicated nature of teaching and of students’ lives—and examines how both are impacted by social inequities. Drawing on her many years as an educator and on the experiences of students and teachers at BAA, Nathan uses a “sharing our warts and wounds” approach in analyzing what her school stands for and how it lives up to, and sometimes fails to live up to, its highest goals.This event is cosponsored by Artists Rallying Together, a group dedicated to bringing artists of all kinds together to raise awareness of the importance of arts education in our schools.

Author bio: Award-winning educator Linda F. Nathan consults and speaks on educational issues nationally and internationally, and teaches a graduate course at Harvard on building democratic schools. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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LOCAL AUTHOR and Poetry Reading, TONIGHT!

2010-10-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

Mary Helen Stefaniak, author of The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia

Friday, October 22 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Narrator Gladys Cailiff is eleven years old in 1938 when a new schoolteacher turns Threestep, Georgia, upside down. Miss Grace Spivey is a well-traveled young woman who believes in field trips, Arabian costumes, and reading aloud from her ten-volume set of One Thousand and a One Nights. The real trouble begins when she decides to revive the annual town festival as an exotic Baghdad Bazaar. Miss Spivey and her project transform the lives of everyone around her: Gladys’s older brother Force (with his movie-star looks), their pregnant sister May (a gifted storyteller herself), and especially the Cailiffs’ African American neighbor, young Theo Boykin, whose creative genius becomes the key to a colorful, hidden history of the South.

The fate of a camel driver on the Arabian Peninsula in 1916, the birth of a circus in the wake of Sherman’s army, the role of an enchanted pitcher in a ninth-century war between brothers, the journey of an ingenious young Muslim from his African home to the coastal islands of Georgia—these and other surprising stories come to light as The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia rides a magic carpet from a schoolroom in the South to the banks of the Tigris (and back again) in an entrancing feat of storytelling.

Author bio: Mary Helen Stefaniak’s fiction has twice appeared in New Stories from the South: The Year’sNarrator Gladys Cailiff is eleven years old in 1938 when a new schoolteacher turns Threestep, Georgia, upside down. Miss Grace Spivey is a well-traveled young woman who believes in field trips, Arabian costumes, and reading aloud from her ten-volume set of One Thousand and a Best (2000 and 2006), and her first novel, The Turk and My Mother (W. W. Norton), won the 2005 John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many publications, and her first book, Self Storage and Other Stories, received the Wisconsin Library Association’s 1998 Banta Award, and a novella was shortlisted for the O. Henry Prize. A former commentator on Iowa Public Radio and contributing editor for The Iowa Review, she has taught in M.F.A. programs at Pacific University in Oregon and at the University of Nebraska. She divides her time between Iowa City, where she and her husband John live in a 150-year-old stagecoach inn they recently restored, and Omaha, where she teaches at Creighton University. She grew up in Milwaukee, and quite a bit of The Turk and My Mother is set in Bay View, a Milwaukee neighborhood.

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Geraldine Monk & Alan Halsey

Friday, October 22 @7pm, Woodland Pattern Book Center

Geraldine Monk is an English poet from the county of Lancashire. Her poetry was first published in the 1970's and has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies in Britain and the U.S.A. Her main collections of poetry include Interregnum, Creation Books, Noctivagations and Escafeld Hangings both published by West House Books. The Salt Companion to Geraldine Monk edited by Scott Thurston appeared in 2007. Her latest collection is Ghost & Other Sonnets, Salt Publishing, 2008.

Alan Halsey was born in London in 1949. His books include Marginalien (Five Seasons 2005), Not Everything Remotely: Selected Poems 1978-2005 (Salt Publishing 2006), Lives of the Poets (Five Seasons 2009) and Term as in Aftermath (Ahadada 2009). His reading of The Text of Shelley's Death has recently been issued on CD by Optic Nerve and his collaboration with Steve McCaffery Paradigm of the Tinctures is now available as an Argotist ebook. He ran The Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye 1979-1995 and is the editor of West House Books.

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LOCAL AUTHOR and other Readings, TONIGHT!

2010-10-21T06:00:00.010-05:00

Mary Helen Stefaniak, author of The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia

Thursday, October 21 @7pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

Milwaukee native Mary Helen Stefaniak and author of The Turk and My Mother, will read from and sign her latest novel, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia. An IndieNext Pick for September, the book (set in the 1930s) is narrated by a spunky young Southern girl whose teacher, Miss Spivey, turns the small Georgia town upside-down. Miss Spivey doesn't believe black children and white children should be segregated, and aims to broaden her students' horizons by teaching them about other cultures. Though she succeeds, it is at a terrifying cost.

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Mona Simpson, author of My Hollywood

Thursday, October 21 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Click for NY Times Review!

My Hollywood tells the story of two women whose lives entwine and unfold behind the glittery surface of Hollywood. Claire, a composer and a new mother, comes to LA so her husband can follow his passion for writing television comedy. Suddenly the marriage—once a genuine 50/50 arrangement—changes, with Paul working long hours and Claire left at home with a baby, William, whom she adores but has no idea how to care for. Lola, a fifty-two-year-old mother of five who is working in America to pay for her own children’s higher education back in the Philippines, becomes their nanny. Lola stabilizes the rocky household and soon other parents try to lure her away. What she sacrifices to stay with Claire and “Williamo” remains her own closely guarded secret.

In a novel at turns satirical and heartbreaking, where mothers’ modern ideas are given practical overhauls by nannies, we meet Lola’s vast network of fellow caregivers, each with her own story to tell. We see the upstairs competition for the best nanny and the downstairs competition for the best deal, and are forced to ask whether it is possible to buy love for our children and what that transaction costs us all. We look into two contemporary marriages—one in America and one in the Philippines—and witness their endangerment, despite the best of intentions.

Author bio: Mona Simpson is the author of Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, A Regular Guy, and Off Keck Road, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and won the Heartland Prize of the Chicago Tribune. She has received a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim grant, a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, and, recently, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Santa Monica, California. She spent her formative years in Green Bay, WI.

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Nancy Pearl, author of Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers

Thursday, October 21 @7pm, MPLs Centennial Hall

Nancy Pearl will visit Milwaukee Public Library’s Centennial Hall to read from her new book, Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers.

In this new installment in the Book Lust series, Pearl writes about 120 places to read about before you go. Consider the entry “Indicative of Indonesia,” in which Nancy Pearl urges travelers to read V.S. Naipaul’s Among the Believers and Christopher J. Koch’s The Year of Living Dangerously. Wanderlust-y reading for prospective travelers to Ireland begins with the cheeky: “Let’s not start with James Joyce and just say we did, okay?” then goes on to recommend such gems as Nuala O’Faolain’s Are you Somebody? and J. P. Dunleavy’s Ireland In All Her Sins and Some of Her Graces. This enthusiastic, literary globetrotting includes stops in Korea, Sweden, Afghanistan, Albania, Parma, Patagonia, Texas, and Timbuktu.

But Nancy Pearl is a reader and a librarian, not a travel agent, so she can’t resist recommending reading for “Travel to Imaginary Places” (including Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Wizard of Earthsea and Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union) and stories of chucking it all and moving to Spain or Greece under the heading “So We/I Bought (or Built) a House In…” Book Lust to Go combines Pearl’s amazing ability to summon the perfect book with a particular interest with the art of having an adventure—whether it requires a passport or just an armchair.

This free event takes place at the Milwaukee Public Library’s Centennial Hall, located at 733 N. Eighth Street, between Wells and Wisconsin in Downtown Milwaukee.

Author bio: Nancy Pearl, author of Book Lust, More Book Lust, and Book Crush, is America’s rock star librarian. She regularly recommends books on NPR’s “Morning Edition” and lectures widely on books and reading. Pearl is librarian-at-large with the King County Library System in Seattle, where she lives. Learn more about her at www.nancypearl.com.

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Several reading events TONIGHT!

2010-10-20T08:38:00.000-05:00

Derrick Harriell, author of Cotton

Wednesday, October 20 @7pm, Woodland Pattern Book Center

Derrick Harriell was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Chicago State University and is currently a dissertator in UW-Milwaukee's English PhD program where he also teaches Creative Writing. He's worked as assistant poetry editor for Third World Press and is currently poetry editor for The Cream City Review. A 2009 Pushcart Nominee, Harriell's poems have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including The Cream City Review, Reverie, The Lamplighter Review, and is forthcoming in Main Street Rag. Cotton (Aquarius Press-Willow Books) is his first collection of poems.

"In his remarkable debut collection, Cotton, Derrick Harriell has created a mural in poems. The characters that inhabit this vivid tableau step into an active third dimension and allow us to witness the vicissitudes of their daily struggles, triumphs large and small, private desires. The community here is anchored by a specific mid-Western, African-American family which, in spite of both external and internal challenges, maintains its unity, however precarious at times. Death, passion, humor, mother wit, history, place, these are the colors that Harriell mixes and applies with such artistry that readers may not be so sure if they are watching a particular world or if that world is watching them. Harriell is among America's most exciting new voices in poetry."

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North Shore Doctors' Series with Jeanine Swenson, MD, LMFT

Wednesday, October 20 @7pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

Our series of discussions with doctors from the North Shore Center is back! This fall, the educational series on the joys and challenges of parenting is titled: Staying Ahead of the Curve: Ideas for Parenting Effectively in the Age of Facebook, Text Messaging, and Exploding Technology. Dr. Jeanine Swenson starts the solution-focused series with a talk about "The Talk" titled, " Starting the Conversation: Taking the Sting Out of The Birds and Bees." Bring your questions and go home empowered.

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John Reimringer, author of Vestments

Wednesday, October 20 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Here’s what Boswell bookseller Carl Hoffman had to say about Vestments: “Father Jim Dressler is a young Catholic priest having a very difficult time keeping his vow of celibacy. Aside from being tempted by his high school girlfriend, Father Jim meets a beautiful barmaid at a tavern in his parish and develops a relationship with her.

Reimringer does not fall back on easy, cliched descriptions of Dressler's struggles with women, and gets to the heart of how Father Jim occupies himself (prayer, poker games, drinking bouts with other priests, sports, work on the parish building) to try to stay on the straight and narrow. He also doesn’t let the story dwell on the details of the struggle for too long, injecting hilarious scenes of Dressler with his working-class family, which is portrayed with striking clarity. The story of Father Jim's growth from a young boy to a newly ordained priest is also cleverly told in flashback scenes that are interwoven with the contemporary. The city of St. Paul and surrounding areas are shown in loving detail. All-in-all, this is truly a masterful and flawless first novel.”

Author bio: A former newspaper editor and a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Arkansas, John Reimringer lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with his wife, the poet Katrina Vandenberg.

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Poetry this evening!

2010-10-19T16:42:00.000-05:00

Hartford Avenue Poets with Marilyn Taylor and Friends

Tuesday, October 19 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Just down the street on scenic Hartford Avenue, a group of supremely talented local poets—facilitated by Wisconsin Poet Laureate Marilyn Taylor—has been workshopping monthly for upwards of five years.

At long last, their premiere public reading is about to take place. Come hear all ten of these widely published, highly original voices read from their own work—poems that will challenge you, amuse you, persuade you, and generally knock your socks off. You’ll be glad you did.

The (10) Hartford Avenue Poets: Thomas J. Erickson, Mary Lux, Helen Padway, Kim Parsons, Barbara Prendergast, Sheryl Slocum, Marilyn L. Taylor, Phyllis Wax, Ed Werstein, and Mark Zimmerman.

Reading Event, TONIGHT!

2010-10-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

Sheila Bender, author of A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief

Monday, October 18 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Sheila Bender, poet, author and publisher of WritingItReal.com, reads from her prose memoir, A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief.

In shock and sorrow and full of questions, those who have lost someone dear need stories and the company of others who are living through grief and taking measures to remember the loved ones who are gone. There are few truly welcome resources out there for those in the midst of grief, but Sheila Bender’s A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief fulfills this need by tracing Bender’s experience after her son died suddenly.

Bender tells the story of her family and the family of her son’s fiancée coming together, understanding Seth would be taken off life support, and moving together to face the upcoming day that would have been a wedding day. At the time of Seth’s death, Sheila was lucky to be a trained writer, with years of writing poetry and teaching others to write poetry under her belt. The tools she needed were there for her, and she realized she would have to use them, and in using them continue on with her life.

In her accessible, absorbing, and beautifully crafted memoir, Bender brings peace to those who mourn by telling the story of using poetry to write her way out of grief and of finding a way to carry her son’s life in her own. Today, proceeds from her book benefit her hometown marine science center, where children learn to love the coastal waters as her son did.

Author bio: Sheila Bender has provided teacher training in WA, AZ, and CA. In 2002, she developed and launched www.writingitreal.com as a vehicle to help others foster their best writing.

the ROOM Reading Event

2010-10-17T06:00:00.007-05:00

With the Banned Book Event I was working on, followed by a Devil's Lake camping trip last weekend and our D.C. trip this weekend, I haven't had a chance to post on the Emma Donoghue reading I attended at Next Chapter on September 23. Also, September was very reading event heavy, so I've barely had a free date to post, anyway!

Ok. Onto the ROOM reading! It. Was. Awesome. I mentioned previously that I was given an ARC after I saw the editor of the book speak on a panel at Book Expo America in May. I read a lot of books and they don't always stay with me. Perhaps a description may linger, or nuances of plot, but often times I devour and move on, continuously looking to add to the small stack of titles that truly intrigue me. And this was one of 'em. You should check it out.

And here is a video of Emma speaking. Check out the 'ROOM' that Next Chapter created in honor of the book's release! They did a really amazing job with it.

Reading Event, TODAY!

2010-10-16T06:00:00.001-05:00

Rebecca Johns, author of The Countess

Saturday, October 16 @2pm, Boswell Book Company

In January 1611, one of the highest-born members of the Hungarian nobility, Countess Erzsebet Bathory, was walled inside her castle tower and imprisoned for the rest of her life. Her crime: the brutal torture and murder of at least 35 women and girls, mostly servants in the countess’s employ. Nicknamed the “Blood Countess,” Bathory is the first and one of the most prolific female serial killers in history. While her story is horrific, her legend has nevertheless persisted in the popular imagination—inspiring a well-established cult following intrigued by her strange gothic legacy.

The real-life countess was one of Bram Stoker’s two inspirations for Dracula, and her character has appeared in film, video games, classic and contemporary literature, and was even referenced on a recent episode of True Blood.

The Countess re-creates Bathory’s story in her own words, detailing how this daughter of a noble family is betrothed at age ten but rebels against her mother-in-law by bearing an illegitimate child. She is forced to marry Count Nadasdy, a man she barely knows, and resorts to spells and potions to give him a child. While the Count toils on the battlefield, the Countess wages a constant war in her household, relying on strict discipline and severe punishments to keep her servants in line. After the count’s death she conducts an ardent love affair with the man who would eventually imprison her. After he spurns her love she turns to the vicious torture and murder of her servants. The Countess offers an intimate, strangely sympathetic, and ultimately disturbing portrait of one of the most reviled women in history—a woman who was capable of gruesome acts of torture, but also intensely passionate love.

Author bio: Rebecca Johns is an assistant professor of English at DePaul University and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her first novel, Icebergs, was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Hemingway Award.

Reading Event, TONIGHT!

2010-10-15T06:00:00.013-05:00

James Dashner, author of The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials

Friday, October 15 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

The Scorch Trials is James Dashner’s much-anticipated sequel to the young adult novel The Maze Runner, which was released in October 2009 to critical acclaim. It picks up a mere four hours after The Maze Runner ends. Thomas wakes up in a strange room with the rest of the Gladers feeling safe—but his relief doesn’t last long.

Soon the Gladers realize that things aren’t as they appear and that they’re about to be tested again, this time with an even harder mission. They must make their way across the Scorch, a forbidding, barren land inhabited by Cranks—people driven mad by a disease called the Flare. Will they survive lightning storms, crazed Cranks, and even worse, betrayal? Dashner’s fans and new converts will be utterly riveted by this dystopian page-turner.

Who built the Maze? What is WICKED? And why do Thomas and Theresa have such strange memories? The Scorch Trials will shed light on some questions, but that same, searing light will unearth plenty of new ones.

Author bio: James Dashner is also the author of the 13th Reality series. James was born and raised in Georgia, but now lives in the Rocky Mountains with his family. After several years working in finance, he is now a full-time writer. Visit him at www.jamesdashner.com or follow him on Twitter (@jamesdashner).

Reading Event, TONIGHT!

2010-10-14T06:00:00.015-05:00

Peter Geye, author of Safe From the Sea

Thursday, October 14 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Set against the powerful lakeshore landscape of northern Minnesota, Safe from the Sea is a heartfelt novel in which a son returns home to reconnect with his estranged and dying father thirty-five years after the tragic wreck of a Great Lakes ore boat—a wreck that the father only partially survived and that has divided them emotionally ever since. When his father, for the first time, finally tells the story of the horrific disaster he has carried with him so long, it leads the two men to reconsider each other. Meanwhile, Noah’s own struggle to make a life with an absent father has found its real reward in his relationship with his sagacious wife, Natalie, whose complications with infertility issues have marked her husband’s life in ways he only fully realizes as the reconciliation with his father takes shape.

Peter Geye has delivered an archetypal story of a father and son, of the tug and pull of family bonds, of Norwegian immigrant culture, of dramatic shipwrecks, and of the business and adventure of Great Lakes shipping, all in a setting that simply casts a spell over the characters as well as the reader.

Author bio: Peter Geye received his MFA from the University of New Orleans and his PhD from Western Michigan University, where he was editor of Third Coast. He was born and raised in Minneapolis and continues to live there with his wife and three children. This is his first novel.

Reading Event, TONIGHT!

2010-10-13T06:00:00.028-05:00

Peter Geye, author Safe From the Sea

Wednesday, October 13 @7pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

(Please note that the author is also signing at Boswell Books tomorrow, October 14, if you are unable to make this event.)

SAFE FROM THE SEA is a Midwest Connections Pick & an IndieNext Pick for October.

Peter Geye's Safe From the Sea is one of our favorite books out this fall. The powerful lake-shore landscape of Northern Minnesota and the rich traditions of its Norwegian immigrant culture bring this story of a father and son to life. When Noah's father finally reveals truths about a traumatic disaster at sea, it leads the men to reconsider each other and offers a last chance at reconciliation. Fans of Great Lakes fiction won't want to miss this event.

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Reading Event & Book Club Meeting!

2010-10-12T06:00:00.002-05:00

Literature Book Club

Tuesday, October 12 @7pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

The literature book club will be discussing Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. The club is free and open to anyone who would like to attend!

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Tucker Max, author of Assholes Finish First

Tuesday, October 12 @7pm (signing only), Boswell Book Company

Signing only. He’s not talking.

And why is this a signing only? Have you read this book? Let’s just say it’s about drunken, sexual misadventures that are rather amusing. To some. Maybe you. Maybe not.

And now, a short question-and-answer session:

Q: Can I get my old copy of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell signed?

A: Yes. If you purchase a copy of Assholes Finish First from Boswell.

Author bio: Tucker Max received his BA with highest honors from the University of Chicago in 1998, and attended Duke Law School on an academic scholarship, where he graduated with a JD in 2001. His first book, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, is a #1 New York Times Best Seller, has spent over 150 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List over five calendar years, and has sold over 1 million copies. He has also been credited with being the originator and leader of the literary genre, “fratire,” and was nominated to Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential List in 2009. He currently lives in Austin, Texas.

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Reading Event, TONIGHT!

2010-10-11T08:22:00.000-05:00

Joseph Skibell, author of A Curable Romantic

Monday, October 11 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

This event takes place at Boswell Book Co., and is a preview of the JCC Jewish Book and Culture Fair. Jody Hirsh of the JCC will introduce Mr. Skibell. A percentage of the evening’s sales will go to the JCC.

As far as romance goes, Dr. Jakob Sammelsohn is fairly incurable. Twice married, once divorced, once widowed—all by the tender age of twelve—he finally flees his small village and his pious, vengeful father. Young Dr. Sammelsohn wanders optimistically through history, pursued by the amorous ghost of his dead wife. Arriving in Vienna in 1890, a chance encounter with Sigmund Freud leads our hero into the arms of Emma Eckstein, one of Freud’s most famous patients. Later he romances the beautiful and wealthy Loe Bernfeld, who carries him into the world of Esperanto and the universal language movement. Finally, Dr. Sammelsohn finds himself in the Warsaw ghetto in 1940, only to become a pawn in a battle over the path to heaven.

For more information on the JCC Book & Culture Fair, visit http://www.jccmilwaukee.org/.

Author bio: Joseph Skibell is the author of A Blessing on the Moon, which received the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Turner Prize for First Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters. He has received a Halls Fiction Fellowship, a Michener Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, among other awards. He teaches at Emory University and is the director of the Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature.

Hangin with Ben Percy and tonight's reading event!

2010-10-06T12:48:00.001-05:00

(sorry for the lack of quality on that photo. It was taken with my phone!) I went to Boswell last night for Benjamin Percy's reading from his novel, The Wilding. It was awesome. You should have been there.

The selection he chose to read took my breath away, it was so raw and visceral. It actually left me a bit speechless and I couldn't think of one question at ask when he finished. And if you know me, that's pretty rare! The passage concerned an Iraqi vet experiencing a flashback. If, like me, you know someone who has done a tour or two over there, they don't speak much about it. This reading gave me more insight into a returning vets psyche than I will probably ever get from my brother.

And he reignited my desire to dedicate more to my writing again. Thanks for all of it, Ben.

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Prize Winners from the Council of Wisconsin Writers

Wednesday, October 6 @7pm, Boswell Book Company

Paul Salsini, author of the A Tuscan Trilogy series, will introduce the following recent CWW prize winners:

Barbara Manger of Milwaukee, Winner of the Kingery/Derleth Book-Length Nonfiction Award.

For: Mary Nohl: Inside & Outside—A Biography of the Artist (Greater Milwaukee Foundation, 2009).

Valerie Laken of Milwaukee, Winner of the Anne Powers Book-Length Fiction Award.

For: Dream House (Harper, New York City, 2009).

Angela Sorby of Milwaukee, Winner of the Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award.

For: A group of five poems in various literary journals.

Kathy Borkowski, director of the Wisconsin Historial Society Press, Winner of the Christopher Latham Sholes Award for outstanding encouragement and support of Wisconsin writers.

For more on the Council of Wisconsin Writers, visit /www.wisconsinwriters.org/.

TONIGHT! Benjamin Percy at Boswell

2010-10-05T06:00:00.001-05:00

Benjamin Percy, author of The Wilding

Tuesday, October 5 @7pm Boswell Books

Ben Percy was a writing professor of mine, as well as a huge writing inspiration to me at Marquette. I highly encourage you to attend this reading!

Echo Canyon is a disappearing pocket of wilderness outside of Bend, Oregon, and the site of conflicting memories for Justin Caves and his father Paul. It’s now slated for redevelopment as a golfing resort. When Paul suggests one last hunting trip, Justin accepts, hoping to get things right with his father this time, and agrees to bring his son Graham along. As the weekend unfolds, Justin is pushed to the limit by the reckless taunting of his father, the physical demands of the terrain, and the menacing evidence of the hovering presence of a bear. All the while, he remembers the promise he made to his skeptical wife: to keep their son safe.

Author bio: Benjamin Percy is the author of The Language of Elk and Refresh, Refresh. He has been awarded the Plimpton Prize and a Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been included in Best American Short Stories. He teaches at Iowa State University. He previously taught at Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point.

BANNED wrap-up Part Deux

2010-10-04T12:11:00.000-05:00

I'm back with a few final mentions that I missed in the first post I created about the BANNED event that took place last week.

Some of you know I'm upset with SPiN Milwaukee. Here's why: they promised a sweet donation certificate with a value of $1,000 that could be used toward a private room rental at their establishment. I was thrilled and excited with their generosity. Until...they blew me off after several email follow-ups with, 'it's on our To-Do list' and let all of the pick-up deadlines pass. I don't want to make this a negative post, the fun stuff follows, but I had to get that off my chest. It was a perfect opportunity for this new business to get some free PR and generate good will as a sponsor of this fundraiser. And now, instead of singing their praises, I've decided to spend my money at local businesses whose generosity lead to a very successful event.

Alright, negative feelings behind, let's get to the good stuff! I have pictures from the BANNED event! Our photographer was Joseph Laedtke, and his pics are gorgeous. I can't thank him enough for spending time and his great eye with us. :-)

Steve Ehler, president of Larry's Market, did such an incredible job putting together the oddball baskets we presented them with. I'm not sure whether Steve knew what he was getting into or not, but when given a pile of books, gift certificates, jewelry and other odds & ends, they performed beautifully, creating stunning displays. And my apologies to those who received the baskets I put together. Mine were, uh, not as well formed! lol. But it's all about the contents, right?

Check out these cute book loving, ladies! And I promised one attendee to find out what the berries are that were featured in several of the displays and Laurel from Bloom is getting back to me with that. I will update this post as soon as I know!

Say CHEESE!! And there it is. The mustard seed gouda raw milk cheese that we devoured. Joseph must have been fighting people back with a stick to get this shot before we nom nommed it all up!

Mmmmm, absinthe. Did you tipple a sample while you were there?

To view all the pics from that night, check 'em out here. I'm working on finding out about purchasing options. If you're interested in purchasing some of the pics, please let me know and I will keep you in the loop with that info.

Banned Books recovery

2010-10-01T17:36:00.000-05:00

Well, it finally happened. The Banned Books Event was last night! In the month we spent planning it, I never thought it would get here and now I can't believe how quickly it came and went! So today is being spent reflecting and relaxing. Cleaning the house that's been neglected recently was supposed to be on that list as well, but, eh, I suppose I have all weekend to do that! ;-)

So on to the reflecting. The event went off so much better than I ever could have hoped for! Especially when, at the start, a wardrobe malfunction forshadowed a whole different tone.

I bolted out of the house, with the zip on the back of my super cute polka dot dress halfway down. It was hopelessly stuck. I figured my co-host, Lori, would help me get it once I arrived at Great Lakes Distillery. After her attempt, the joint attempt between her and her husband, a donated alligator clip, and some rough work with a stapler, I gave in and accepted that I was going to be sharing that tattoo I keep hidden with all the lucky event attendees! Luckily, while in the bathroom, I decided to try taking the dress off and working on it that way. It worked! And that little tattoo continues to remain a mystery...

The set-up was great: a huge silent auction table with 21 stuffed baskets of goodies, banned books on display, a plethora of raw milk cheese platters from WI Milk Marketing Board (that mustard seed gouda never stood a chance!), and a banned book themed catering table from Mel and Mangia Mangia.

We talked books, we discussed volunteering for the literacy center, and we embraced our freedom to read. Ryan gave an awesome tour of the distillery and I learned that Doug, the master distiller, hand zests the lemons for the citrus honey vodka. Morgan, a bookseller with Next Chapter Bookshop, spoke about the history of Banned Books Week. Jeremy Lowther, the illustrator who designed Thesaurus Rex for the event was in attendance as well as another of our sponsors, Kati Hatfield. Boris and Doris of the Shepherd Express stopped by as well.

In the end, I had an amazing time and I hope everyone else did as well. I met so many wonderful people We raised more than $1,200 (I still have to go add up advanced ticket sales), which will be donated to the MPL Foundation and raised awareness on the scope and breadth of book challenging and banning.

Several people asked if we would do it again next year and I'm here to say: Absolutely! Stay tuned for information on the Second Annual Banned Event as well as photos from this year's. Thank you again for those who donated, participated, attended, bid, spoke, shared, and supported this event. We couldn't have done it without you. ;-)

WI Book Festival & 2 Reading Events TONIGHT!

2010-09-29T10:11:00.000-05:00

Don't forget to grab your tickets for tomorrow night's event: BANNED: Taboo Books, Bites & Libations. It will be the book event of the season! More information may be found here.

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Wisconsin Book Festival and Book Sale starts today!

September 29-October 3 in Madison, WI

The Festival begins today at 3:00pm and a complete list of events may be found here.

Fall 2010 Book Sale Hours today:
Preview Sale ($5 entry)
Wednesday, September 29, 5 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Full Book Sale schedule can be found here.

Friends of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries Book Sale
The largest used book sale in Wisconsin will be held Wednesday, September 29 through Saturday, October 2, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Memorial Library. The sale includes more than 15,000 books covering a wide range of subjects.

The semiannual sale, organized by the Friends of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library, helps to support the Friends and the Libraries. Among other things, the sales help fund an annual lecture series and other special events, special purchases for the library collections, preservation of special materials, and grants for a visiting scholar support program.

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Lan Samantha Chang, author of All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost

Wednesday, September 29 @7pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

Lan Samantha Chang, author of Hunger, and Inheritence, explores art, ambition, love, and friendship in her latest novel, All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost.

At a renowned writing school known as Bonneville, students are simultaneously terrified of and attracted to the charismatic, mysterious poet and professor Miranda Sturgis. As two students, Roman and Bernard, strive to win her admiration, the lines between mentorship, friendship, and love are blurred. Roman's star rises early, and his first book wins a prestigious prize. Meanwhile, Bernard labors for years over a single poem. Secrets of the past begin to surface, friendships are broken, and Miranda continues to cast a shadow over their lives.

Lan Samantha Chang is the director of the prestigious University of Iowa Writer's Workshop.

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Clare O'Donohue, author of The Double Cross and A Drunkard's path and A Lover's Knot, all quilting mysteries.

Wednesday, September 29 @7pm, Mystery One Bookstore

Welcome Clare to Milwaukee and get her tips on writing and quilting and the White Sox. Come for some fun. Ask her if she's been to Irishfest. Visit her site to learn more about her and her other works.

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Sponsor Spotlight

2010-09-27T20:43:00.002-05:00

BANNED: Taboo Books, Bites & Libations is just a couple of days away! So in the excitement and anticipation, I wanted to give you a taste of what's in store. Below is a list of pretty much everything that will be included in the auction at the event. I may still have a couple of things around here that haven't made it on here yet, so there may be more!!

They're in no particular order, most were entered into a spreadsheet as they came in the door, others were loosely grouped together for one reason or another. This list represents a variety of items: Signed copies, Hardcover, Pbk, and ARCs in a variety of genres, gift cards and other gifts from area businesses.

What are you most excited about from the list?

*Signed* Quicker Than the Eye (ARC) by Ray Bradbury

Registration to Bouchercon 2011
"Life is too short to read bad books" T-shirt
The Deputy by Victor Gischler
Guns: The Bloody Hunt Is On by Phil Bowie
Stein, Stoned: A Harry Stein Soft-Boiled Murder Mystery
Needle: A Magazine of Noir with New Fiction from Ray Banks, Chris F. Holm, David Cranmer, Sarah Weinman, Stephen Blackmoore, Frank Bill, Nolan Knight, and more…
Down in the Zero by Andrew Vachss
*Signed* Murder in the Rue de Paradis by Cara Black
Reckless by Andres Gross
Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir Edited by Duane Swierczynski Introduced by James Crumley
Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint
Even: A Novel by Andrew Grant
The Good Thief's Guide To Vegas by Chris Ewan
Shadows Still Remain by Peter De Jonge
*Signed* The Color of Blood: An Irish Novel of Suspense by Declan Hughes
*Signed* Welcome to Yesterday by Ian Spiegelman
The 5 Greatest Warriors by Matthew Reilly
A Darker Domain by Val McDermid
Rolling Thunder, A John Ceepak Mystery by Chris Grabenstein
The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith
Naked Heat by Richard Castle (from the ABC Hit Show)
Silver Lake by Peter Gadol
Tolteca by K. Michael Wright
A Bad Day for Pretty by Sophie Littlefield
Final Stroke by Michael Beres
*Signed First Edition* By A Spider's Thread by Laura Lippman
*Signed First Edition* No Good Deeds by Laura Lippman
Print the Legend by Craig McDonald
*Signed* Wild Thing, An Eddie Dancer Mystery by Mike Harrison
*Signed* Expletive Deleted by Jen Jordan
*Signed First Edition* The Amateurs by Marcus Sakey
*Signed First Edition* Monkey Man: A Bubba Mabry Mystery by Steve Brewer
*Signed First Edition* All the Dead Voices by Declan Hughes
Walking Dead by Greg Rucka
In the Dark by Mark Billingham
Death Message by Mark Billingham
Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly
*Signed* Ruby Tuesday, An Eddie Dancer Mystery
So Cold the River by Michael Koryta
When Death Intervenes by L.C. Hayden
One Year Subscription to Crimespree Magazine
Crimespree Magazine Issue #31
Crimespree Magazine Issue #36
Sara Paretsky T-Shirt
The Executor by Jon Evans, Art by Andrea Mutti
Dark Entries by Ian Rankin, with Werther Dell'edera
Filthy Rich by Brian Azzarello & Victor Santos
*Signed First Edition* The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton
Bug Butts by Dawn Cusick
*Signed* Refresh, Refresh by Benjamin Percy
*Signed* The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle
*Signed* The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle
Dr. Colton's High-Stakes Fiancée by Cindy Dees
At the Billionaire's Beck and Call? By Rachel Bailey
Mesmerizing Stranger by Jennifer Greene
Dante's Temporary Fiancée by Day Leclaire
Covert Christmas with stories by Marilyn Pappano, Linda Conrad & Loreth Anne White
Protector's Temptation by Marilyn Pappano
Cavanaugh Reunion by Marie Ferrarella (Author's 200th book)
The Librarian's Secret Scandal by Jennifer Morey
Stand-In Bride's Seduction by Yvonne Lindsay
The Bride's Bodyguard by Beth Cornelison
Profile for Seduction by Karen Whiddon
What a Westmoreland Wants by Brenda Jackson
The Secret Child and the Cowboy CEO by Janice Maynard
Expecting the Rancher's Heir by Kathie Denosky
Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron by Stephanie Barron
Love Songs from a Shallow Grave by Colin Cotterill
A Bad Day's Work by Nora McFarland
Bleed A River Deep by Brian McGilloway
Why Our Decisions Don't Matter by Simon Van Booy
Why We Need Love by Simon Van Booy
Why We Fight by Simon Van Booy
The Secret Lives of People in Love by Simon Van Booy
Love Begins in Winter by Simon Van Booy
Commuters by Emily Gray Tedrowe
Hangman by Faye Kellerman
Burn by Nevada Barr
*Signed* First Edition Torchwood Comic #1
I Am What I Am by John Barrowman with Carole E. Barrowman
Safe From the Sea by Peter Geye
In Hovering Flight by Joyce Hinnefeld
An Unfinished Score by Elise Blackwell
Eleanor's Story by Eleanor Ramrath Garner
Suspect by Kristin Wolden Nite
The Brain Finds a Leg by Martin Chatterton
Gaff by Shan Correa
The Everlasting Now by Sara Harrell Banks
Loveykins by Quentin Blake
The Drowning River by Christobel Kent
The Last Lie by Stephen White
The Detroit Electric Scheme by D.E. Johnson
*Signed* Picture the Dead by Adele Griffin & Lisa Brown
Long Fuse, Big Bang by Eric Haseltine
A Place for Delta by Melissa Walker
Creative Community Organizing by Si Kahn
Living on Wilderness Time by Melissa Walker
The Handy Answer Book for Kids (and Parents) by Gina Misiroglu
*Signed* The Thousand by Kevin Guilfoile
*Signed* Selling to Zebras by Jeff & Chad Koser
*Signed* Got Murder? By Martin Hintz
*Signed* Italian Milwaukee by Martin Hintz
*Signed* The Lives of the Saints and Everything by Susan Firer
*Signed* The Laugh We Make When We Fall by Susan Firer
*Signed* Milwaukee Does Strange Things To People by Susan Firer
*Signed* Justice by Larry Watson
*Signed* Orchard by Larry Watson
*Signed* Sundown, Yellow Moon by Larry Watson
*Signed* All Saints by Liam Callanan
The Secret Sentinel by Alison Chambers
*Signed* Judge by Dwight Allen
*Signed* The Typewriter Satyr by Dwight Allen
Frozen by Morgan Q. O'Reilly
Coming of Age by Cat Grant
Chronicles of Surrender by Roxy Harte
Triad: The Courtland Chronicles Book Five by Cat GRant
Fallen: Coyote Moon Series Book One by Ann Simko
Me and My Ghoulfriends by Rose Pressey
Lion Tamers: Traveling Circus-Book One by Sutton Fox
Le Club d'Esclavage: A Print Compilation by Jennifer Cole
The Arrangement by Cat Grant
Moonlight and Shadows by Candice Gilmer
Beans & Barley gift pack
Handcrafted Jewelry by Sarah B. Flanagan
Jewelry from Lorena Sarbu
Gift Certificate from groom
Make-up Party from Blush
Wallet and Scarf from Bangles & Bags
Cigar Gift Pack from Uhle's
2 tickets to the Skylight Opera
Rishi Tea Gift Pack
Rishi Tea Tins
$25 Gift Card from Next Chapter Bookshop
Leaving Before It's Over by Jean Reynolds Page
Knit in Comfort by Isabel Sharpe
What I Would Tell Her Edited by Andrea N. Richesin
Queen of Your Own Life by Kathy Kinney & Cindy Ratzlaff
A Homemade Christmas by Tina Barseghian
The Dog Who Healed a Family by Jo Coudert
Good Girls Don't Get Fat by Robyn J.A. Silverman, PhD
The Happy Baker by Erin Bolger
Your Best Body Now by Tosca Reno
*Exclusive* Hunger Games Bag Clip
The Zombie Chasers by John Kloepfer
Raised by Wolves by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson
Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
Chaos Walking, Book Three: Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner
Runaway: An Airhead Novel by Meg Cabot
Starting from Scratch by Susan Gilbert-Collins
Ape House by Sara Gruen
The Emperor's Tomb by Steve Barry
The Wake of the Lorelei Lee by L.A. Meyer
The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney
Beautiful Maria of my Soul by Oscar Hijuelos
The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale
The Hope Gift Pack
Lela After Hours Shopping Experience
$30 Aala Reed Gift Certificate
$20 gift certificate to Chartreuse
$25 Gift Card from Cempazuchi
Sprout! Gift Pack
Large Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese
Alterra gift basket

*Signed* dream House by Valerie Laken

Gift Basket of Martita's Mixers

Case of beer from Lakefront Brewery

Gift Certificates to Milwaukee Food Tours

Gift Cards and goods from Outpost Natural Foods

Gift Basket from Yan Hair Salon

Not to mention the amazing baskets Larry's Market is putting together for us, the floral arrangements donated by Bloom and the custom designed art piece from Jeremy Lowther:

Reading Events & Book Club Meeting!

2010-09-27T06:00:00.002-05:00

Nancy Holder & Debbie Viguié, authors of Crusade

Monday, September 27 @7pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer may recognize Nancy Holder as the author of dozens of books set in the Buffy universe. With Crusade, she and collaborator Debbie Viguié (the pair also worked together on books in the Wicked series for teen readers) take vampire hunting to San Francisco where Jenn, a young woman who has trained at Spain's Sacred Heart Academy Against the Cursed Ones, discovers that the city is now a vampire stronghold. As a lone hunter apart from her team, Jenn is isolated and at risk. To survive, she must find the courage to trust herself, and her heart.

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Mystery Book Club

Monday, September 27 @7pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

The Mystery Book Club will be discussing Snapshot by Garry Disher. The club is free and open to anyone who would like to attend!

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Pat Dillon and Lynne Diebel, authors of Green Travel Guide to Southern Wisconsin: Environmentally and Socially Responsible Travel

Monday, September 27 @7pm at the Urban Ecology Center, free and open to the public

Boswell Book Company and the Urban Ecology Center are pleased to present Pat Dillon and Lynne Diebel, authors of Green Travel Guide to Southern Wisconsin. This event now takes place at the Urban Ecology Center, 1500 E. Park Pl., Milwaukee, WI 53211. (414) 964-1084.

Green Travel Guide to Southern Wisconsin surveys the best green restaurants, lodgings, shops, and activities southern Wisconsin has to offer. Dine at independent, locally owned eateries that serve up delicious fare grown and raised by farmers right down the road. Overnight at peaceful inns that sponsor workshops on topics ranging from cheesemaking to sustainability. Scour markets that sell locally foraged mushrooms, berries, and syrups as well as arts and crafts created by local artisans. Bicycle through southern Wisconsin, stopping at small-scale farms where travelers are not only welcome but encouraged to visit.

Author bios: Pat Dillon and Lynne Diebel are independent writers. Dillon formerly wrote a regional travel column and worked in advertising in Milwaukee and Chicago. Diebel previously taught English at Stoughton High School and is coauthor of ABCs Naturally, Paddling Northern Minnesota, and Paddling Southern Minnesota.

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Julia Glass at Next Chapter, TODAY!

2010-09-26T06:00:00.002-05:00

Julia Glass, author of The Widower's Tale

Sunday, September 26 @2pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

Join the author of Three Junes, The Whole World Over, and I See You Everywhere for a special, catered Sunday afternoon event!

In The Widower's Tale, Julia Glass plumbs the depth of the human heart, spinning a captivating tale about the loyalties, rivalries and secrets of a very particular family. In his historic farmhouse outside Boston, seventy-year-old Percy Darling is settling into retirement. His relaxing routines are interrupted, however, when he is persuaded to let a locally beloved preschool take over his barn.

As his refuge is filled by children, parents and teachers, he realizes he must reexamine th esolitary life he has made for hiimself in the decades since the death of his wife. No longer can he remain aloof from his family, his community, his children, or even the precarious joy of falling in love.

Tickets ($5.00 each) are required for this event, and include admission and light refreshments. Tickets are available now at Next Chapter Bookshop, by phone at (262) 241-6220, or online.

2010-09-25T06:00:00.001-05:00

Lorine Niedecker Wisconsin Poetry Festival

Saturday, September 25

Lorine Faith Niedecker was born and lived most of her life on Blackhawk Island along the banks of the Rock River, south and west of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, not far from where the river flows into Lake Koshkonong. She is described as a "poet of place", but never as a "regional poet" because of the universality of her themes.

Among poets and critics her reputation has soared since her death.

Basil Bunting, the late Northumbrian poet: "Lorine Niedecker is the best living poetess. No one says so much with so few words." In an interview, Bunting once compared her with Emily Dickinson: "Dickinson is good much of the time, but Niedecker is good all of the time."

See the Poetry Festival page for complete information.

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Joshua Ferris, author of The Unnamed with Patrick Somerville, author of The Cradle

Boswell Book Company @ 2pm

The Unnamed: Tim Farnsworth is a handsome, healthy man, aging with the grace of a matinee idol. His wife Jane still loves him, and for all its quiet trials, their marriage is still stronger than most. Despite long hours at the office, he remains passionate about his work, and his partnership at a prestigious Manhattan law firm means that the work he does is important. And even as his daughter, Becka, retreats behind her guitar, her dreadlocks, and her puppy fat, he offers her every one of a father's honest lies about her being the most beautiful girl in the world. He loves his wife, his family, his work, his home. He loves his kitchen. And then one day he stands up and walks out. And keeps walking.

The Unnamed is a dazzling novel about a marriage and a family and the unseen forces of nature and desire that seem to threaten them both. It is the heartbreaking story of a life taken for granted and what happens when that life is abruptly and irrevocably taken away.

The Cradle: Early one summer morning, Matthew Bishop kisses his pregnant wife and sets out in search of the antique cradle that used to be hers. Although the cradle has been missing for many years, she is determined that Matt find it before the arrival of their first child. A decade later, Renee Owen, a successful writer of children's books, prepares for her only son's deployment to Iraq, and his departure brings to the surface memories of a lost love, an old truth, and a long-hidden life.

This widely acclaimed novel radiates with wry wisdom as it takes the reader on a surprising journey into the heart of marriage, parenthood, and what it means to be a family.

Author bios: Joshua Ferris's first novel, Then We Came to the End, won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, the Barnes and Noble Discover Award, and was a National Book Award finalist. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, the Guardian, and Tin House, among other publications. He lives in New York.

Patrick Somerville grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and later earned his MFA from Cornell University. He is also the author of the story collection Trouble. He lives with his wife in Chicago, where he teaches creative writing at Northwestern University.

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Poetry Festival & 2 reading events!

2010-09-24T06:00:00.004-05:00

Lorine Niedecker Wisconsin Poetry Festival

Friday, September 24 & Saturday, September 25

Among poets and critics her reputation has soared since her death.

See the Poetry Festival page for complete information.

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Alexandra Adornetto, author of Halo

Friday, September 24 @7pm, Next Chapter Bookshop

There are a lot of YA novels out there these days, but there aren't many YA novels written by people who are YA themselves. Until now. Now eighteen, Alexandra Adornetto published her first book when she was just fourteen years old!

Halo is the Australia-native's first U.S. release and is the first in a trilogy that follows a group of angels sent down to bring good to the world. There's Gabriel the warrior; Ivy the healer; and Bethany, the youngest and least-experienced of the trio. But, she is also the most human, and, when she is romantically drawn to a mortal boy, the angels fear she will not be strong enough to save anyone, especially herself, from the Dark Forces. Plot-driven, and exciting, Halo is also a romantic, heartfelt story about hope, love and redemption.

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Eric Puchner, author of Model Home: A Novel

Boswell Book Company @7pm

Warren Ziller moved his family to Southern California in search of a charmed life, and to all appearances, he found it: a gated community not far from the beach, amid the affluent splendor of the 1980s. But the Zillers' American dream is about to be rudely interrupted. Warren has squandered their savings on a bad real estate investment, which he conceals from his wife, Camille, who misreads his secrecy as a sign of an affair. Their children, Dustin, Lyle, and Jonas, have grown as distant as satellites, too busy with their own betrayals and rebellions to notice their parents' distress. When tragedy strikes, the Zillers are forced to move to Warren's abandoned housing development in the desert. In this comically bleak new home, each must reckon with what's led them there and who's to blame-and whether they can summon the forgiveness needed to hold the family together.

With penetrating insights into modern life and an uncanny eye for everyday absurdities, Eric Puchner delivers a wildly funny, heartbreaking, and thoroughly original portrait of an American family.

Daniel Goldin will join this book club discussion to talk about some of his favorite books of the fall.

Author bio: Eric Puchner is an assistant professor of literature at Claremont McKenna College. He has received a Pushcart Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His short story collection, Music Through the Floor, was a finalist for the NY Public Library's Young Lions Award. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, novelist Katharine Noel, and their children.

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Emma Donoghue reading, TONIGHT!

2010-09-23T08:37:00.004-05:00

Emma Donoghue, author of ROOM
Next Chapter Bookshop @7pm

Emma Donoghue's Room is an unforgettable reading experience, and we are thrilled to welcome her to Next Chapter Bookshop for this special ticketed, catered event. The book, which has been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, tells the story of five-year-old Jack and his Ma.

Jack's entire world is the room he shares with his mother. He was born there, and has grown up there. It's where he learns, reads, eats, sleeps and plays. At night, Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. It's home to Jack, but to Ma, it's a frustrating existence that differs wildly from the life she used to have and longs for once again. (this is an edited description, please see below to learn why I did this)

Don't miss out on this incredible book and what's sure to be an unforgettable event with author Emma Donoghue.

Tickets ($5.00 each) are required for this event and include admission and light refreshments. Tickets are available now in person at Next Chapter Bookshop, by phone at (262) 241-6220, or online.

I scored an ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) of ROOM from Book Expo America earlier this year. I attended a panel where editor's were all revved up to discuss the book they were most excited to pub this year.

The editor of ROOM was so passionate about this book that at times, she was lost for words and repeated 'incredible' a lot. She gave us a quick glimpse into the world of ROOM and described the narrator as 5-year-old Jack.

I truly appreciated that she didn't divulge too much, affording me the opportunity to discover the details on my own. I gobbled it up within a few days of coming back home from the Expo. And I haven't stopped gushing about it since. It's a story of hope and fear, risk and reward. This book was so emotionally powerful for me and I'm not even a mother, so I imagine it's even more powerful for someone who has a mother/child connection.

This is the perfect book to allow to happen to you. With such a young narrator, you're forced to take bits of info as they're given. This is why I edited the description above. Because if you haven't read ROOM, you deserve to approach it with the perspective of an untainted concept of the storyline. And if you haven't read this book, I can't recommend it enough! Come out to Next Chapter and pick a copy up tonight. I'll be sitting in the front row, giddy and thrilled to have the opportunity to meet Emma. :-)

NYT Bestselling Author reads TODAY!

2010-09-22T06:00:00.001-05:00

Gwen Cooper, author of Homer's Odyssey
Next Chapter Bookshop @ 10:16am

Animal lovers will definitely not want to miss this event with Gwen Cooper, author of the heartwarimg memoir, Homer's Odyssey: A Fearless Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat.

The last thing Gwen wanted was another cat. She already had two, not to mention a phenomenally underpaying job and a recently broken heart. Then Gwen's veterinarian called with a story about a three-week-old eyeless kitten who ahd been abandoned. It was love at first sight.

Little Homer quickly grew into a three-pound dynamo who eagerly made friends with the people who crossed his path. He scaled tall bookcases, survived being trapped alone for days after 9/11 in an apartment near the World Trade Center, and even saved Gwen's life when he chased off a home intruder. Homer's unswerving loyalty, capacity for love, and joy in the face of obstacles transformed Gwen's life. By the time she met the man she would marry, she realized the little cat had taught her the most valuable lesson of all: love isn't something you see with your eyes.

Hear more about Homer and Gwen's life together when you attend this free event!

NYT Bestselling Author and Opera!

2010-09-21T06:00:00.001-05:00

Jennifer Crusie, author of Maybe This Time

Next Chapter Bookshop @ 7pm

Meet bestselling author Jennifer Crusie when she visits Next Chapter in support of her latest novel, Maybe This Time. The book is packed with meddlesome ghosts, ex-husbands, spooky houses, troubled kids, and second chances.

Andie Miller is ready to marry her fiancé and leave her past behind, especially her ex-husband, Archer North. But, before they go their separate ways forever he asks a favor of her. A very distant cousin has made him the guardian of two orphans who have driven away three nannies already. He needs strong-willed Andie to help whip them into shape, but when she meets them she quickly realizes that things are much worse than she feared. What's worse, Andie's fiancé thinks it's al a plan by North to get Andie back, and he may be right!

Our booksellers are already loving this book, and we think you will too! Here's what Next Chapter bookseller Anne W. had to say:

The over-the-top plot and characters were so charmingly quirky that you don't care if it could never happen--this book has you belieiving it could (and every day, too). I kept picturing the kids as versions of Wednesday and Pugsly from "The Addams Family." I found them lovable in the same way--odd and wise beyond their years. To me, one of the signs of a great story is when even the secondary characters are so well-drawn that they stay with you just as much as the "stars." Southie, Flo, and even Isolde were unforgetable. Definitely a keeper!

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Florentine Opera Company presents "Opera Insights: Rio de Sangre"

Boswell Book Company @ 7pm

Corliss Phillabaum (Professor Emeritus of Theater at UW-Milwaukee's Peck School of the Arts) presents entertaining and interesting perspectives on each opera the Florentine Opera Company presents. Join us as he enlightens opera enthusiasts and newcomers alike about the world premiere of "Rio de Sangre."

In a story conceived by Los Angeles author and librettist Kate Gale and featuring a vibrant, Latin-inspired score by Emmy-award winning composer Don Davis, Río de Sangre depicts love and war against the backdrop of the twenty-first century, where all kinds of violence are possible, and the inevitable consequence of death, revenge and madness follow. The opera, which will be performed in Spanish with English translations projected above the stage, tells the story of the overthrow of a dictatorship in a fictional South American country. As plots, earthquakes and rumors give way to kidnapping, uprisings and treachery, the new leader realizes that the good of his country and the protection of his own family may be more than he can achieve.

"Rio de Sangre" will be performed by a new cast of Florentine Opera Studio members. Visit florentineopera.org/current-season/rio-de-sangre-world-premiere.html for tickets and more information.

LOCAL AUTHOR Reading Event, TONIGHT!

2010-09-20T06:00:00.001-05:00

Niraj Nijhawan, MD, author of Modern Medicine is Killing You: Start Your Healthcare Revolution Now!

Boswell Book Company @ 7pm

Corruption in big drug companies. The obesity pandemic. Hospital horror stories. Skyrocketing healthcare costs. People going bankrupt from their medical bills. Questions about government-sponsored healthcare.

These are issues plaguing every American. However, until now, ordinary people really did not know what they could do to transform their own health and financial situation. A new set of ideas introduces a real plan for real people. Learn how to avoid the landmines of modern medicine, intelligently tap into alternative approaches to health and healing, harness "Life Ecology Factors" to stay healthy, and truly understand the healthcare reform debate.

In Modern Medicine is Killing You, Dr. Nijhawan presents a toolkit of ideas for reforming and revolutionizing the health care industry. He guides healthcare consumers at every level to personal and societal healthcare revolutions with radical yet practical solutions to our current healthcare crisis.

Author bio: Niraj Nijhawan, is a 1992 graduate of the University of Wisconsin Medical School. Dr. Nijhawan completed his medical residency in anesthesiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin; acquired a Master's Degree in clinical research; has conducted and constructed multiple clinical trials; and has held several healthcare leadership roles. For over a decade, Dr. Nijhawan has passionately pursued, researched, and presented solutions to many fundamental and frequently misperceived matters related to healthcare reform. Nijhawan practices at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee.

LOCAL AUTHOR Double Reading & a YA Book Club

2010-09-19T06:00:00.008-05:00

Today is the LAST DAY for the LSW Book Sale! 9am-6pm
4093 North Oakland Avenue

Join us again this year in Shorewood
for our annual Book Sale.

The proceeds from this sale benefit Literacy Services of Wisconsin.

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Jean Reynolds Page, author of Leaving Before It's Over and Isabel Sharpe, author of Knit in Comfort
Boswell Book Company @ 2pm

Leaving Before It's Over is a deeply compelling novel that explores the true meaning of family. When Roy Vines married his wife, Rosalind, he traded his family and his inheritance for love-a painful choice that has blessed them with years of joy nestled in rural North Carolina with their beautiful daughters, sixteen-year-old Lola and little Janie Ray. But their happiness is threatened when Rosalind suddenly falls ill. Desperate to get her the help she needs, Roy does the one thing he swore he'd never do-turn to his heartless and bitter identical twin brother, Mont, for help. The price is steep-and includes opening their home to a teenage boy who believes Roy is the father who abandoned him.

Jean Reynolds Page is the author of The Last Summer of Her Other Life, The Space Between Before and After, A Blessed Event, and Accidental Happiness. She grew up in North Carolina and graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was a dance critic for more than ten years before turning full-time to fiction in 2001. In addition to North Carolina, she has lived in New York, Boston, Dallas, and Seattle. She and her family recently moved to Madison, Wisconsin.

Knit in Comfort is about the women of Comfort, North Carolina, who come together to knit and make lace-and find that the intricacies of both echo the complexities of their own lives. A story that combines the popular pastime of crafting and a richly realized cast of unforgettable characters, Knit in Comfort is a heartwarming tale of love and friendship.

Isabel Sharpe is the author of As Good As It Got. In addition to her novels from Avon, she is a prolific writer of Harlequin romances, the most recent of which is Blaze #539 : Surprise Me. Sharpe lives in the Milwaukee area.

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YA Book Club discusses Notes From the Midnight Driver by Jordan Sonnenblick
Next Chapter Bookshop @ 4pm

The YA Book Club will be discussing Notes from the Midnight Driver by Jordan
Sonnenblick. The club is free and open to any fans of YA literature who would
like to attend.

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Reading Event, TODAY!

2010-09-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

Paul Buhle, author of Comics in Wisconsin and FDR and the New Deal for Beginners
Boswell Book Company @ 2pm

Who knew? Wisconsin comic artists, editors, and publishers have made both central and fringe contributions to the language, form, and content of comic strips, comic books, and other forms of this popular art.

Paul Buhle traces this history, illustrated by more than two hundred reproductions, from "The Gumps" and "Gasoline Alley"-which introduced the continuity of daily life into newspaper "funnies"-to comic book histories of Students for a Democratic Society and the Industrial Workers of the World, alternative press comics that fostered talents like Lynda Barry and James Sturm, and comic adaptations of totemic figures like Howard Zinn and Studs Terkel. Specialists and collectors will treasure this volume, and readers will find themselves educated and vastly entertained.

Paul Buhle is also the author of a newest installment in the series, FDR and The New Deal For Beginners, a profusely illustrated volume with original comic art, which sheds new light upon a story now regaining visibility thanks to the recent economic crisis and prominent reformer, President Obama, in the White House. The late comic book writer and author Harvey Pekar is a contributor.

Author bio: Paul Buhle teaches American Civilization at Brown University. His many previous books include Taking Care of Business: Samuel Gompers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and The Tragedy of American Labor.

Book Sale & a Reading

2010-09-17T06:00:00.001-05:00

The LSW Book today through Sept. 19, 9am-6pm
4093 North Oakland Avenue

Join us again this year in Shorewood
for our annual Book Sale.

The proceeds from this sale benefit Literacy Services of Wisconsin.

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Neal Pollack, author of Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude

Boswell Book Company @ 7pm

This event takes place at Boswell and is cosponsored by Invivo Wellness, located at 2060 N. Humboldt Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53212. Visit invivofitness.com/wellness for more information.

Stretch is the hilarious true account of an overweight, balding, skeptical guy's unexpected transformation into a healthy, blissful yoga fiend. Neal Pollack was out of shape. The hair on his head was thinning and the hair on his face was pretentious-traits a New York Times critic gleefully pointed out while panning his second book. Combined with the predestined failure of his punk rock band, it was almost too much for Pollack to bear. He was willing to try anything to get his life back on track . . . even yoga.

While struggling to master difficult poses without kicking other yogis in the face, Pollack actually, remarkably, began to feel better, both in body and mind. Soon he found himself immersed in the "weird and circuslike" world of yoga. He participated in a 24-hour yogathon, attended yoga conferences and Asian retreats, went to yoga rock shows, started getting regular assignments for Yoga Journal magazine, and, finally, began teaching yoga classes himself.

Stretch mercilessly lampoons the bizarre, omnipresent culture of yoga, but it's also a story of profound personal transformation. Pollack started off mocking yoga. Now he's become one of its most enthusiastic proponents.

Author bio: Neal Pollack is the author of the bestselling memoir Alternadad and several books of satirical fiction, including The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature and the rock novel Never Mind the Pollacks. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son.

Milwaukee Reads!

An update & Holiday Wishes

Reading Event at Boswell tonight

Celebration at Harley Davidson Museum

Reading Events & Book Club Meeting!

Reading Event & Book Club Meeting!

Murder and Mayhem in Muskego!

Today is a day of good eats!

A variety of reading topics this evening!

Dr. Joel M. Hoffman, an expert in translation, Hebrew, and the Bible, is a much sought-after speaker who presents to dozens of popular and academic audiences each year. He holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and has served on the faculties of Brandeis University and Hebrew Union College.

Have dinner with Chef David Tanis TONIGHT!

My Thoughts Be Bloody...

Murder and Mayhem in Muskego

A Music Class, Poetry, and a Film Chat

Because everybody loves a Threesome:

a Mystery and some Non-Fiction for ya!

Reading events in every part of town tonight!

Stitch 'n' Bitch TONIGHT!

Transfer of funds

Phil Cosineau reading TONIGHT!

*LOCAL AUTHOR* Reading Event, TONIGHT!

Nicole Krauss reading, TONIGHT!

*LOCAL AUTHOR* and Other Reading Event, TONIGHT!

Mystery Book Club & Reading, TODAY!

Antique Appraising & Reading, TODAY!

*LOCAL ILLUSTRATOR* and Reading, TODAY!

*LOCAL AUTHOR* and Poetry Reading, TONIGHT!

*LOCAL AUTHOR* and other Readings, TONIGHT!

Several reading events TONIGHT!

Poetry this evening!

Reading Event, TONIGHT!

the ROOM Reading Event

Reading Event, TODAY!

Reading Event, TONIGHT!

Reading Event, TONIGHT!

Reading Event, TONIGHT!

Reading Event & Book Club Meeting!

Reading Event, TONIGHT!

Hangin with Ben Percy and tonight's reading event!

TONIGHT! Benjamin Percy at Boswell

BANNED wrap-up Part Deux

Banned Books recovery

WI Book Festival & 2 Reading Events TONIGHT!

Sponsor Spotlight

Reading Events & Book Club Meeting!

Julia Glass at Next Chapter, TODAY!

Poetry Festival & 2 reading events!

Emma Donoghue reading, TONIGHT!

NYT Bestselling Author reads TODAY!

NYT Bestselling Author and Opera!

*LOCAL AUTHOR* Reading Event, TONIGHT!

*LOCAL AUTHOR* Double Reading & a YA Book Club

Reading Event, TODAY!

Book Sale & a Reading

LOCAL AUTHOR Reading Event, TONIGHT!

LOCAL AUTHOR and Other Reading Event, TONIGHT!

LOCAL ILLUSTRATOR and Reading, TODAY!

LOCAL AUTHOR and Poetry Reading, TONIGHT!

LOCAL AUTHOR and other Readings, TONIGHT!

LOCAL AUTHOR Reading Event, TONIGHT!

LOCAL AUTHOR Double Reading & a YA Book Club