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.
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.
Sept. 28:Readings by Leah Zazulyer, author of a recent collection of translations of Yiddish poems by Soviet refugee Israel Emiot, and Mitzi Alvin, a veteran Detroit poet whose poems have been described as “jewels of loss and renewal.” Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
Oct. 12: 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.
• Panel discussion about the present and future of research in bipolar disorder
• Reception
The signed book will be available for purchase at the event.
This event is free and open to the public, but we kindly ask you to pre-register:http://www.prechterfund.org/lecture/
“Baird’s lonely, angry, grief-stricken, and occasionally grandiose account of his illness and its shattering costs is the reason we can’t put [this book] down. His sharply detailed recollections are sometimes sane and sometimes not, but his writing is lucid even when his thinking isn’t. His manuscript is a plea to understand his experience and, by extension, others.” – The Boston Globe
University of Michigan, Kahn Auditorium, A. Alfred Taubman Biomedical Science Research Building, 109 Zina Pitcher Place. Free. kbergman@umich.edu http://www.prechterfund.org/lecture/ [map]
Historian and author, Andy Robertshaw will examine the nature of trench warfare on the Western Front using the example of the trenches around Ypres, Belgium, in early 1917. His research is based on a reconstruction of trenches near Railway Wood which he built in 2012 as research for his book 24 Hour Trench. Andy will begin the evening with a meet and greet, which will then segway into his presentation on trench warfare, followed by a book signing. During the book signing you’ll be able to spend more time getting to know the author.
This event begins at 7:00pm, doors open at 6:30pm.
Admission: Members are $5/Non-members $10
Tickets are on sale now!
Yankee Air Museum, 47884 D Street, Belleville. $5. 734-483-4030.megan.dziekan@yankeeairmuseum.org http://yankeeairmuseum.org/events/ [map]
