Sold out!
Literati Bookstore and First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor were blown away by the enthusiastic response and incredibly quick sell-out for our 7pm event on 10/25, so we’ve worked to bring you this additional, same-day event opportunity at 4pm! We’re so grateful that Anne has made herself available for this additional event, and so excited to bring it to you! Programming for this event will be indentical to the 7pm event.
Tickets are general admission and include a pre-signed hardcover copy of Almost Everything, to be picked up at First United Methodist Church the evening of the event. Literati Bookstore will have additional copies of Anne’s titles available for sale.
About Almost Everything: From the bestselling author of Hallelujah Anyway, Bird by Bird, and Help, Thanks, Wow, comes a new book about the place hope holds in our lives. “I am stockpiling antibiotics for the Apocalypse, even as I await the blossoming of paperwhites on the windowsill in the kitchen,” Anne Lamott admits at the beginning of Almost Everything. Despair and uncertainty surround us: in the news, in our families, and in ourselves. But even when life is at its bleakest–when we are, as she puts it, “doomed, stunned, exhausted, and over-caffeinated”–the seeds of rejuvenation are at hand. “All truth is paradox,” Lamott writes, “and this turns out to be a reason for hope. If you arrive at a place in life that is miserable, it will change.” That is the time when we must pledge not to give up but “to do what Wendell Berry wrote: ‘Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.’” In this profound and funny book, Lamott calls for each of us to rediscover the nuggets of hope and wisdom that are buried within us that can make life sweeter than we ever imagined. Divided into short chapters that explore life’s essential truths, Almost Everything pinpoints these moments of insight as it shines an encouraging light forward. Candid and caring, insightful and sometimes hilarious, Almost Everything is the book we need and that only Anne Lamott can write.
About Anne Lamott: Anne Lamott is the New York Times bestselling author of Help, Thanks, Wow; Small Victories; Stitches; Some Assembly Required; Grace (Eventually); Plan B; Traveling Mercies; Bird by Bird; Operating Instructions, and Hallelujah Anyway. She is also the author of several novels, including Imperfect Birds and Rosie. A past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an inductee to the California Hall of Fame, she lives in Northern California.
About First United Methodist Church: At First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor, we welcome everyone of every ability! Young or old, Democrat or Republican, gay or straight, genderqueer or cisgender, filled with doubts or firm in your faith–you are invited to join us. Our congregation is grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ, which tears down walls and builds up community. We are progressive and relevant–committed to seeking peace and building hope through worship, service, social justice, and educational opportunities in our local, national, and international communities.
All writers welcome to read their own or other favorite poetry or short fiction afterward at open mic.
Hosted by Joe Kelty, Ed Morin, and Dave Jibson
see our blog at Facebook/Crazy Wisdom Poetry Series
Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room, 114 S. Main St. Free. 7346652757.info@crazywisdom.net www.crazywisdom.net
Literati is thrilled to welcome author Meghan O’Gieblyn who will sharing her new essay collection Interior States. She will joined for a discussion about her work by writer and Literati bookseller Young Eun Yook.
About Interior States:
A fresh, acute, and even profound collection that centers around two core (and related) issues of American identity: faith, in general and the specific forms Christianity takes in particular; and the challenges of living in the Midwest when culture is felt to be elsewhere.
What does it mean to be a believing Christian and a Midwesterner in an increasingly secular America where the cultural capital is retreating to both coasts? The critic and essayist Meghan O’Gieblyn was born into an evangelical family, attended the famed Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for a time before she had a crisis of belief, and still lives in the Midwest, aka “Flyover Country.” She writes of her “existential dizziness, a sense that the rest of the world is moving while you remain still,” and that rich sense of ambivalence and internal division inform the fifteen superbly thoughtful and ironic essays in this collection. The subjects of these essays range from the rebranding (as it were) of Hell in contemporary Christian culture (“Hell”), a theme park devoted to the concept of intelligent design (“Species of Origin”), the paradoxes of Christian Rock (“Sniffing Glue”), Henry Ford’s reconstructed pioneer town of Greenfield Village and its mixed messages (“Midwest World”), and the strange convergences of Christian eschatology and the digital so-called Singularity (“Ghosts in the Cloud”). Meghan O’Gieblyn stands in relation to her native Midwest as Joan Didion stands in relation to California – which is to say a whole-hearted lover, albeit one riven with ambivalence at the same time.
MEGHAN O’GIEBLYN is a writer who was raised and still lives in the Midwest. Her essays have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, n+1, The Point, The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, Best American Essays 2017, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. She received a B.A. in English from Loyola University, Chicago and an MFA in Fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband.
Young Eun Yook is a singer/writer born in Korea and New Jersey. She is a recipient of the Lucille Clifton memorial scholarship from Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and The Paul Mariani Fellowship at The Glen Workshop. You can find her work in the anthology, Goodbye Mexico: Poems of Remembrance and elsewhere. Young Eun received her MFA from the University of Michigan where she won The Meader Family Award and the Se-AH Haiam Scholarship. She is a Kundiman fellow.
Literati is thrilled to welcome Harvey Ovshinksy who will be here to talk with us about the life of his father and the new book The Man Who Saw Tomorrow: The Life and Inventions of Stanford R. Ovshinsky. This event is co-sponsored by the Jewish Community Center of Ann Arbor and JCC members will receive 15% off the price of the book!
About The Man Who Saw Tomorrow:
The first full-length biography of a brilliant, self-taught inventor whose innovations in information and energy technology continue to shape our world.
The Economist called Stanford R. Ovshinsky (1922–2012) “the Edison of our age,” but this apt comparison doesn’t capture the full range of his achievements. As an independent, self-educated inventor, Ovshinsky not only created many important devices but also made fundamental discoveries in materials science. This book offers the first full-length biography of a visionary whose energy and information innovations continue to fuel our post-industrial economy.
In The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, Lillian Hoddeson and Peter Garrett tell the story of an unconventional genius with no formal education beyond high school who invented, among other things, the rechargeable nickel metal hydride batteries that have powered everything from portable electronics to hybrid cars, a system for mass-producing affordable thin-film solar panels, and rewritable CDs and DVDs. His most important discovery, the Ovshinsky effect, led to a paradigm shift in condensed matter physics and yielded phase-change memory, which is now enabling new advances in microelectronics. A son of the working class who began as a machinist and toolmaker, Ovshinsky focused his work on finding solutions to urgent social problems, and to pursue those goals, he founded Energy Conversion Devices, a unique research and development lab. At the end of his life, battered by personal and professional losses, Ovshinsky nevertheless kept working to combat global warming by making solar energy “cheaper than coal”—another of his many visions of a better tomorrow.
Harvey Ovshinsky is an American writer, story consultant, media producer, and teacher, and has been described as “one of this country’s finest storytellers” by the Detroit News. The Metro Times called Ovshinsky’s career chronicling life in Detroit during the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s “a colorful and fantastic voyage, at times brave and visionary,” spanning the universe of print, broadcast television and radio, and digital storytelling.
Literati is pleased to welcome sports reporter Tom VanHaaren who will be sharing his new book about the University of Michigan football program, The Road to Ann Arbor: Incredible Twists and Improbable Turns Along the Michigan Recruiting Trail.
About The Road to Ann Arbor:
Why did Desmond Howard spurn Nick Saban to play in Ann Arbor? How did Michigan really find All-American offensive lineman Reggie McKenzie? What did Bo Schembechler do that surprised Mark Messner and his family? And why was Tom Brady recruited so late in the process? The Road to Ann Arbor reveals how many Wolverines greats became just that. ESPN’s Tom VanHaaren takes fans back to the start and behind the scenes of the college recruiting process, showing that the path to The Big House is not always straight and narrow.
Tom VanHaaren is a college football and recruiting reporter for ESPN, which he joined in 2011.
Literati Bookstore is thrilled to welcome Lindsay-Jean Hard who will be sharing her new cookbook Cooking with Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, and Stems Into Delicious Meals
About Cooking with Scraps:
“A whole new way to celebrate ingredients that have long been wasted. Lindsay-Jean is a master of efficiency and we’re inspired to follow her lead!” –Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, cofounders of Food52
In 85 innovative recipes, Lindsay-Jean Hard shows just how delicious and surprising the all-too-often-discarded parts of food can be, transforming what might be considered trash into culinary treasure.
Here’s how to put those seeds, stems, tops, rinds to good use for more delicious (and more frugal) cooking: Carrot greens–bright, fresh, and packed with flavor–make a zesty pesto. Water from canned beans behaves just like egg whites, perfect for vegan mayonnaise that even non-vegans will love. And serve broccoli stems olive-oil poached on lemony ricotta toast. It’s pure food genius, all the while critically reducing waste one dish at a time.
“I love this book because the recipes matter…show[ing] us how to utilize the whole plant, to the betterment of our palate, our pocketbook, and our place.” –Eugenia Bone, author of The Kitchen Ecosystem
“Packed with smart, approachable recipes for beautiful food made with ingredients that you used to throw in the compost bin!” –Cara Mangini, author of The Vegetable Butcher
Lindsay-Jean Hard received her Master’s in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan. Her education and passion for sustainability went on to inform and inspire her work in the garden, home, and community. The seeds of this book were planted in her Food52 column of the same name. Today she works to share her passion for great food and great communities as a marketer at Zingerman’s Bakehouse. She lives, writes, loves, and creates in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Ann Arbor Storytellers Guild members host a storytelling program. Audience members are encouraged to bring a 5-minute story to tell.
7-9 p.m., Crazy Wisdom Tea Room, 114 S. Main. Free. 665-2757.
Literati is thrilled to welcome authors Bill Shapiro and Naomi Wax who will be sharing their new book What We Keep.
About What We Keep:
With contributions from Cheryl Strayed, Mark Cuban, Ta-Nahesi Coates, Melinda Gates, Joss Whedon, James Patterson, and many more–this fascinating collection gives us a peek into 150 personal treasures and the secret histories behind them.
All of us have that one object that holds deep meaning–something that speaks to our past, that carries a remarkable story. Bestselling author Bill Shapiro collected this sweeping range of stories–he talked to everyone from renowned writers to Shark Tank hosts, from blackjack dealers to teachers, truckers, and nuns, even a reformed counterfeiter–to reveal the often hidden, always surprising lives of objects.
Bill Shapiro co-wrote What We Keep. He is the former editor-in-chief of LIFE magazine, and his previous books include Other People’s Love Letters, and Gus & Me, which he co-wrote with Keith Richards. He serves on the Art Advisory Board of SXSW.
Naomi Wax co-wrote What We Keep. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Iowa Review, and many other publications. She works on the communications team at the Ford Foundation.
Literati is thrilled to welcome back author R.J. Fox who will be sharing his new novel Awaiting Identification.
About Awaiting Identification:
Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office, Detroit, Michigan: October 31, 1999.
Five unidentified bodies lie in the Wayne County morgue on Halloween night. Although each character was on a separate journey, fate leads each of the five victims to cross paths on the streets of Detroit en route to their tragic demise. Set against the backdrop of a Devil’s Night party at legendary Detroit concert venue and nightclub, Saint Andrew’s Hall, Awaiting Identification details the final night on earth for five lost souls. NYC Girl: a former dancer arrives back home from New York City to make amends with her mother and begin to rebuild her life. Leaf Man: a musician and part-time DJ is on the cusp of his big break with one final, unexpected drug deal to complete before he can go totally straight. R.I.P.: a career criminal must come up with a large sum of money to pay for his father’s medical expenses, despite his yearning for a crime-free life. The Zealot: a religious fanatic on a mission from God to rid the city of filth. Cat Man: a kind and trusting homeless man wanders the city looking for new friends. Like the city in which it takes place, Awaiting Identification is a story of hope, identity, and above all, redemption.
R.J. Fox is an English and video production teacher who uses his own dream of making movies to inspire his students to follow their dreams. He has previously worked in public relations and as a journalist. He is the author of Love & Vodka. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
All invited to read and discuss their poetry or short stories. Bring about 6 copies of your work to share.
7-9 p.m., Crazy Wisdom, 114 S. Main. Free. 665-2757
