Calendar

Sep
19
Thu
Zell Visiting Writers: Wayetu Moore: Reading and Book Signing @ U-M Museum of Art Stern Auditorium
Sep 19 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Wayétu Moore’s debut novel She Would Be King reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years. It was named a best book of 2018 by Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Entertainment Weekly & BuzzFeed.

Moore is the founder of One Moore Book, a non-profit organization that creates and distributes culturally relevant books for underrepresented readers. Her first bookstore opened in Monrovia, Liberia in 2015. Her writing can be found in The Paris Review, Frieze Magazine, Guernica, The Atlantic Magazine and other publications. She has been featured in The Economist Magazine, NPR, NBC, BET and ABC, among others, for her work in advocacy for diversity in children’s literature.

She is a graduate of Howard University, University of Southern California and Columbia University. Moore is a founding faculty member of Randolph College MFA program and a Distinguished Visiting Writer at Syracuse University.

This event is free and open to the public.

The Zell Visiting Writers Series brings outstanding writers to campus each semester. The Series is made possible through a generous gift from U-M alumna Helen Zell (BA ’64, LLDHon ’13). For more information, please visit the Zell Visiting Writers Program webpage: https://lsa.umich.edu/writers

For any questions about the event or to share accommodation needs, please email asbates@umich.edu– we are eager to help ensure that this event is inclusive to you. The building, event space, and restrooms are wheelchair accessible. A lactation room (Angell Hall #5209), reflection room (Haven Hall #1506), and gender-inclusive restroom (Angell Hall 5th floor) are available on site. ASL interpreters and CART services are available upon request; please email asbates@umich.edu at least two weeks prior to the event.

Mark Stryker: Jazz From Detroit @ AADL Downtown
Sep 19 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

From Motown to soul and rock to techno, Detroit’s contributions to American musical culture have been long celebrated. Now, Mark Stryker’s new book, Jazz From Detroit, refocuses attention on the city’s influential role as one of the most prolific breeding grounds for innovative jazz musicians and front-rank stylists, from Elvin Jones and Ron Carter to Geri Allen and Regina Carter.

Stryker will give a talk and we’ll have a signing (books will be for sale), then we can head over to Blue LLama on Main Street in Ann Arbor for a FREE set of Detroit jazz by Motor City mainstay Marion Hayden whose band is performing there at 8:30 pm as part of the A2 Jazz Fest.

Bruce Conforth: Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson @ Nicola's Books
Sep 19 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

The founding curator at Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this musician, author, archivist, and professor has made a career collecting countless items that define pop history. Bruce Conforth will be joining us to share his new book Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson. He will be jamming with some other local musicians!

About the Book

Robert Johnson is the subject of the most famous myth about the history of the blues: he allegedly sold his soul at the crossroads in exchange for his incredible talent, and this deal led to his tragic death at age 27. This single notion can be recited by everyone who has ever heard of him, but the actual story of his life remains unknown save for a few inaccurate anecdotes. Up Jumped the Devil is the result of over 50 years of research. Gayle Dean Wardlow has been interviewing people who knew Robert Johnson since the early 1960s, and he was the person who discovered Johnson’s death certificate in 1967. Bruce Conforth began his study of Johnson’s life and music in 1970 and made it his personal mission to try to fill in the gaps in what was still unknown about him. In this definitive biography, the two authors relied on every possible interview, resource and document, most of it material that no one has ever seen before. As a result, this book not only destroys every myth that ever surrounded Johnson, but also tells a very human and tragic story of a real person. It is the first book about Johnson that documents his years in Memphis, details his trip to New York, uncovers where and when his wife Virginia died and the impact this had on him, fully portrays the other women Johnson was involved with, and tells exactly how and why he died and who gave him the poison that killed him. Up Jumped the Devil will astonish blues fans who thought they knew something about Johnson—most of those things are wrong—and will be a great read for anyone interested in blues, black culture and American music..

About the Authors

Bruce Conforth was a longtime professor of folklore, blues, popular culture and the history of social movements at the University of Michigan. He was also the founding curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Gayle Dean Wardlow is a highly regarded blues historian who has amassed the world’s largest collection of prewar blues records. His book Chasin’ That Devil Music is a classic of blues literature. He lives in Pensacola, Florida.

Jonathan Safran Foer in Conversation @ Rackham Auditorium
Sep 19 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Please register your attendance here.

The University of Michigan School for Environtment, Sustainbale Food Systems Initiative and Literati Bookstore are thrilled to welcome Jonathan Safran Foer to Rackham Auditorium on the campus of the University of Michigan in support of his landmark book We are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast.

Join New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) to learn how saving the planet begins on our breakfast plates. With a reading and discussion of his new book, We are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, Safran Foer will highlight small behavioral changes that could help move the needle on climate change.

Literati Bookstore will be on-hand to sell copies of the book.

Debbie Gonzales: Girls With Guts: The Road to Breaking Barriers and Bashing Records @ Saline District Library
Sep 19 @ 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Meet Saline author Debbie Gonzales as she presents her new book, Girls with Guts: The Road to Breaking Barriers and Bashing Recordsan engaging picture book about women in sports through the ages. Hear about the background to writing this book. Recommended for 1st graders through adults. Registration requested.

Sep
20
Fri
Poetry at Literati: Michael Dickman: Days and Days @ Literati
Sep 20 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome acclaimed poet Michael Dickman to the store for a reading from his most recent collection, Days & Days, as part of our ongoing Poetry at Literati series. Free and open to the public, signing to follow.

About the collection: Michael Dickman’s intuitive, agile verse captures us in its unusual pulse. Image-driven and shape-driven, the poems of Days & Days touch on parenthood, childhood, local natural habitats, graffiti culture, roses, and romantic love. Dickman considers both the internal and external vistas that open before him in the course of a day, the memories and the immediate quandaries. The long centerpiece poem, “Lakes Rivers Streams,” is a reverie that picks up the flotsam of parenting days on its current. Other poems account for hotel days, or days spent watching TV, taking prescription drugs, watching butterflies. Throughout, we feel the dazzling originality of Dickman’s awareness; he meets the brutality, banality, and strange beauty of the quotidian with a level gaze, and with an urgent musicality that carries us beyond these lines and pages.

Michael Dickman is the author of three books of poems, The End of the West (2009), Flies (2011, winner of the James Laughlin Award), and Green Migraine (2015), and coauthor, with his twin brother of 50 American Plays (Poems) (2012), and Brother (2016). He lives in Princeton, New Jersey, where he is on the faculty at Princeton University.

Sep
21
Sat
Janet Douglas: A Wonderful Stroke of Luck @ Nicola's Books
Sep 21 @ 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm

Janet R. Douglas, a former occupational therapist, suffered a massive stroke and spent the next decade overcoming physical and mental challenges to emerge as a different, more authentic version of herself. Join us as she shares her memoir, A Wonderful Stroke of Luck: From Occupational Therapist to Patient and Beyond.

About the Book

Janet R. Douglas, a former occupational therapist, suffered a massive stroke and spent the next decade overcoming physical and mental challenges to emerge as a different,  more authentic version of herself. This inspired her to write her memoir, A Wonderful Stroke of Luck: From Occupational Therapist to Patient and Beyond.

Douglas addresses the effects of brain damage on personal identity and relationships, the power of faith and of the human spirit to overcome adversity and to accept that while full recovery may be beyond reach, life can still be full and rewarding. She also discusses the challenges of returning to her high-powered corporate position and navigating physical and psychological obstacles at home, work and in the community with humor and deep insight.

“When the idea of writing a book was first raised, I could neither read nor write normally,” said Douglas. “It took almost a decade of therapy to be strong enough physically and mentally to take on the challenge.”

“A Wonderful Stroke of Luck” presents the unique perspective of both therapist and patient as Douglas discusses the impact of a stroke, how it makes even the simplest tasks difficult, and how the noticeable disabilities it causes are only part of the struggle.

About the Author

Janet R. Douglas, an occupational therapist, specialized in the treatment of hand injuries at Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in London and worked with the World Health Organization before moving to the US. She was director of occupational therapy education at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago before earning a master’s degree in public health. Douglas then joined the world’s largest human resources and risk management consulting firm where she served as a Managing Director and Global Practice Leader. In semi-retirement, she works in refugee resettlement.

David Small and Sarah Stewart: This Book Is Mine @ AADL Westgate
Sep 21 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Award-winning Michigan authors Sarah Stewart and David Small return to AADL to discuss their latest picture book, This Book of Mine, a celebration of the power of reading and the ways in which books launch our adventures, give us comfort, challenge our imaginations, and offer us connection.

Husband-and-wife duo Sarah Stewart and David Small have worked together on several picture books, including The Gardener, which was named a Caldecott Honor Book, among many other awards. They live in a historic home filled with thousands of books on a bend of the St. Joseph River in Michigan.

This event is in partnership with Literati Bookstore. It includes a signing and books will be for sale.

 

Jim DeRogatis: Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly @ Nicola's Books
Sep 21 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

**Warning** The following description and the content of this event contains information and discussions of sexual abuse which some readers may find triggering.

In November 2000, after receiving an anonymous fax alleging that singer R. Kelly had a “problem with young girls,” journalist Jim DeRogatis broke the story wide open. DeRogatis thought his investigative journalism would have an impact; instead Kelly’s career flourished. Now, close to twenty years later, the full story will finally be told. Soulless is the only book to tell this complete story, as well as the story behind the story, by the only person to tell it  – Jim DeRogatis.

About the Book

In November 2000, after receiving an anonymous fax alleging that singer R. Kelly had a “problem with young girls,” journalist Jim DeRogatis broke the story wide open, publishing the shocking allegations that the R&B superstar had groomed girls, sexually abused them, and paid them off. DeRogatis thought his investigative journalism would have an impact; instead Kelly’s career flourished.

Now, close to twenty years later, the full story will finally be told. Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly (Abrams Press; June 4, 2019; U.S. $26.00; Hardcover) by Jim DeRogatis is a darkly riveting account of the life and actions of R. Kelly, and their horrible impact on dozens of girls. A work of tenacious journalism and powerful cultural criticism, the book tells the story of Kelly’s career and DeRogatis’s investigations, including in-depth interviews with a number of key figures who have never spoken publicly before, and brings the story up to the moment when things finally seem to have changed.

This past January, the docuseries Surviving R. Kelly reignited the public interest in Kelly. Later that month, RCA Records dropped him from their label. In February, he was indicted in Chicago on ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. However, before the recent outcry from the docuseries, no one seemed to care: not the music industry, not the culture at large, not the parents of numerous other young girls. But DeRogatis stayed on the story. He was the one who was given the disturbing videotape that led to Kelly’s 2008 child pornography trial, the one whose window was shot out, and the one women trusted to tell their stories—of a meeting with the superstar in a classroom, a mall, a concert, or a McDonald’s that forever warped the course of their lives.

Soulless is the only book to tell this complete story, as well as the story behind the story, by the only person to tell it.

About the Author

Jim DeRogatis is an associate professor of instruction at Columbia College Chicago and the host, with Greg Kot, of the nationally syndicated public radio show Sound Opinions. DeRogatis spent fifteen years as the pop music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times. He lives in Chicago.

Sep
22
Sun
Ann Arbor Storytellers Guild @ AADL Downtown (3rd floor, Freespace)
Sep 22 @ 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

All invited to listen to guild members swap stories or bring their own to tell, at the AASG monthly meeting.

 

 

 

 

 

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