Jonathan Rudinger, RN LMT has been instrumental in developing the field of canine massage for people at home and PetMassageTM at the professional level since the mid-1990’s. PetMassage workshops draw students from all over the worlds. Jonathan has authored several books and DVD’s and taught over 300 professional level canine massage workshops.
Jonathan is often called upon for interviews in national media, invited to lecture about canine massage, and is recognized as a lobbyist supporting the rights for animal massage practitioners to practice legally. Recognized as an authority on massage for dogs, he has been featured in Whole Dog Journal, Dog Fancy Magazine, Natural Dog, Cosmopolitan, AARP, Glamour, Massage Magazine, Animal Wellness Magazine, Massage Today, Massage Therapy Journal, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Jonathan has given live demonstrations at human massage, dog training, and veterinary conferences, at the Westminster Dog Show in New York and Crufts in the United Kingdom.
This Chicago crime writer and documentary filmmaker discusses Brighton, his new thriller about 2 lifelong friends in a rapidly changing Boston who must face the sins of their youth in the midst of a series of brutal murders. In conjunction with the Ann Arbor Book Festival.
This Hobart literary journal editor reads from Stephen King’s The Body, his new book-part memoir, part literary criticism-that revolves around King’s novella, which was adapted into the film Stand By Me. Also, readings by U-M Residential College lecturer Robert James Russell and Kentucky fiction writer Leesa Cross-Smith.
Aunt Agatha’s co-owner (and BookFest president) Robin Agnew discusses the 13th annual BookFest and introduces a new AADL exhibit organized in conjunction with the BookFest that showcases entries in its 9th annual Book Cover design contest for high school students, who were asked this year to design a cover for Andrea Hannah’s debut novel, the crime thriller Of Scars and Stardust. Agnew also announces the contest winners. The exhibit also features a brief history of the contest. Also, live music by harpist Deborah Gabrion and refreshments.
We are thrilled to welcome acclaimed journalist and author Peter Kornbluh, who accompanied President Obama on his historic visit to Cuba, to Literati Bookstore. Peter will be joined in conversation by the University of Michigan’s Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof. Refreshments will be provided thanks to UM’s Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies and Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, generous co-sponsors of this event.
About Back Channel to Cuba:
History is being made in U.S.-Cuban relations. Updated to tell the real story behind the stunning December 17, 2014 announcement by President Obama and President Castro of their move to restore full diplomatic relations, this powerful book is essential to understanding ongoing efforts toward normalization in a new era of engagement. Challenging the conventional wisdom of perpetual conflict and aggression between the United States and Cuba since 1959, Back Channel to Cuba chronicles a surprising, untold history of bilateral efforts toward rapprochement and reconciliation. William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh here present a remarkably new and relevant account, describing how, despite the intense political clamor surrounding efforts to improve relations with Havana, negotiations have been conducted by every presidential administration since Eisenhower’s through secret, back-channel diplomacy. From John F. Kennedy’s offering of an olive branch to Fidel Castro after the missile crisis, to Henry Kissinger’s top secret quest for normalization, to Barack Obama’s promise of a new approach, LeoGrande and Kornbluh uncovered hundreds of formerly secret U.S. documents and conducted interviews with dozens of negotiators, intermediaries, and policy makers, including Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter. They reveal a fifty-year record of dialogue and negotiations, both open and furtive, that provides the historical foundation for the dramatic breakthrough in U.S.-Cuba ties.
Peter Kornbluh directs the Cuba Documentation Project and the Chile Documentation Project at the National Security Archive in Washington, DC, and is co-author, with William M. LeoGrande, of Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana. Kornbluh is also the author of The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountabilityand Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba. He writes regularly for The Nation.
Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof is Associate Professor of History, American Culture, and Latina/o Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author of A Tale of Two Cities: Santo Domingo and New York After 1950.
Literati is proud to be the bookseller for the United Way of Washtenaw County’s 2016 Campaign Kickoff. H. Luke Shaefer, co-author of $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, will address the growing economic disparity in Washtenaw County. Individual tickets cost $29 and can be purchased here.
H. Luke Shaefer is an associate professor of social work and public policy at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. His research focuses on the effectiveness of the United States social safety net in serving low-wage workers and economically disadvantaged families. His recent work explores rising levels of extreme poverty in the United States, the impact of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and other means-tested programs on material hardships, and barriers to unemployment insurance faced by vulnerable workers.
The Ross School of Business is excited to welcome Malcolm Gladwell to the University of Michigan! Malcolm is the author of five New York Times best-sellers and one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people. The acclaimed author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, Gladwell will present, “The Innovator’s Heart: The Social Context of Entrepreneurship,” where he will discuss business creation from his unique and often provocative point of view. Join us as we engage around Malcolm’s perspectives and a topic close to our hearts at U-M: Entrepreneurship.
This event is open to the public. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Hill Auditorium, 825 N University Ave. Free.
Literati is thrilled to launch Children of the New World by Alexander Weinstein.
Children of the New World introduces readers to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games, and frighteningly intuitive robots. Many of these characters live in a utopian future of instant connection and technological gratification that belies an unbridgeable human distance, while others inhabit a post-collapse landscape made primitive by disaster. Children of the New World grapples with our unease in this modern world and how our ever-growing dependence on new technologies has changed the shape of our society. Alexander Weinstein is a visionary new voice in speculative fiction for all of us who are fascinated by and terrified of what we might find on the horizon.
“Taken together, these stories present a fully-imagined vision of the future which will disturb you, provoke you, and make you feel alive. Weinstein is brilliant, incisive and fearless.” —Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
“In each of the gripping stories in Children of the New World, Alexander Weinstein offers a glimpse into an unnerving, not-so-distant, and all-too-possible future. Weinstein explores what-ifs with both wit and sensitivity, and his cautionary tales demand to be read (before it’s too late).” —Judy Budnitz, author of Nice Big American Baby
Alexander Weinstein is the Director of The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and the author of the short story collection Children of the New World (Picador 2016). His fiction and translations have appeared in Cream City Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Notre-Dame Review, Pleiades, PRISM International, World Literature Today, and other journals. He is the recipient of a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, and his fiction has been awarded the Lamar York, Gail Crump, Hamlin Garland, and New Millennium Prize. His stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and appear in the anthologies 2013 New Stories from the Midwest, and the 2014 & 2015 Lascaux Prize Stories. He is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and a freelance editor, and leads fiction workshops in the United States and Europe.
Sept. 14: All invited to read and discuss their poetry or short stories. Bring about 6 copies of your work to share. Hosted by local poets and former college English teachers Joe Kelty and Ed Morin.
This 2-time Olympic gold medalist soccer player discusses her new memoir, Forward. Signing.
7 p.m., Rackham. $10 ($30 includes the book) in advance at literatibookstore.com. 585-5567.
