Literati Bookstore is pleased to be on hand to booksell as James Poniewozik visits the Ann Arbor District Library’s downtown branch. The event will take place in the lobby and is free and open to the public.
About the book: In his new book Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America, New York Times’s James Poniewozik argues that what made Donald Trump isn’t simply business or politics or populism. To understand President Trump, Poniewozik states, we need to understand modern television itself. In this new book, he breaks down the medium in fresh, piercing ways, finding the parallels between television’s forty-year fracturing and Trump’s ascendancy from gossip item to reality star. Poniewozik traces the culture’s growing fascination with antiheroes and celebrity and demonstrates just how far that has extended into Trump’s presidency.
James Poniewozik has been the chief television critic of the New York Times since 2015. He was previously the television and media critic for Time and a media columnist for Salon. This event includes a signing with books for sale.
AADL hosts best-selling YA author Nic Stone to discuss her latest title, Jackpot. What would winning the lottery mean to you? Nic Stone provides a close view at this thought through the eyes of teenager Rico in Jackpot. Taking care of her little brother, working every day to help her mother with the bills, and keeping up with her schoolwork is Rico’s life these days, and she is feeling anything but lucky. But can a winning lottery ticket change everything?
Nic Stone is the author of the New York Times bestselling Dear Martin. Her second novel, Odd One Out, was hailed as “essential reading” in a starred review from Booklist. Jackpot, her third novel, is a life-affirming story about the humanity in people, no matter how little or how much is in their bank account. In January 2020, Nic will debut in the middle grade arena with Clean Getaway.
This event is in partnership with Literati Bookstore and includes a signing with books for sale.
Clara Parkes, best-selling author on knitting and wool, comes to AADL to discuss her new book Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool, a fast-paced account of the year Parkes spent transforming a 676-pound bale of fleece into saleable yarn, and the people and vanishing industry she discovered along the way. Vanishing Fleece is a travel guide seen through the lens of wool, while telling an inspiring story about American culture.
Author of six books, including the New York Times bestsellingKnitlandia, Clara Parkes has dedicated her life to figuring ourt what makes yarn tick and finding the right words to write about it. Through her writings, workshops and appearances, Clara champions the notion of paying closer attention to what you knit and where it came from. She lives in Portland, Maine.
This event includes a signing with books for sale.
Skazat! is back, and have we got a season lined up for you! Join us at Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea Washington St. on September 24 to celebrate with fabulous poetry and tasty treats. Whether you’re a page poet, slammer, performance artist or refuse a label, we want to hear your new stuff on our open mic. We look forward to sharing great poetry (and great coffee) with you and invite you to join this free open mic and monthly reading series!
Sign up! 7:00 p.m.
7:15 p.m. – Open mic
8:00 p.m. – Featured Reader
This month’s feature: BRYAN THAO WORRA
Charles Eisendrath, retired University of Michigan Knight-Wallace journalism fellows director
Professor Eisendrath discusses his new book “Downstream from Here: A Big Life in a Small Place”, a series of essays about the loves of a place inhabited temporarily, but which shape a person permanently. “Prepare to be inspired.” –JEFF DANIELS
Literati Bookstore is pleased to be on hand to sell books for the Clements Library’s ongoing lecture series. This event features Jason S. Lantzer presenting his lecture Torn Asunder: Faith, Higher Education, Politics and the Davidson family during the Civil War. Literati will have copies of Jason’s related book, Rebel Bulldog, available for purchase.
About the lecture: The Davidson family of Indianapolis is a near-perfect microcosm of the United States during Civil War. With roots in the South, but living in the North the family’s ties to religious, education, and political leaders and institutions cast new light on the loyalties Americans felt towards their region, nation and the institution of slavery.
Central to the story is Preston Davidson, a Hoosier by birth, who fought for the Confederacy alongside his Virginian cousins. On the other side, stands his brother Dorman, who fought to preserve the Union. How these two ended up on opposing sides of the greatest conflict in American history is the story of how familial expectations, faith, higher educational opportunities, and political loyalties all played into the struggle over if the nation would be divided or united and whether or not slavery would flourish or be abolished.
Jason S. Lantzer holds a BA, MA, and PhD all from Indiana University. His research and writing interests center on the intersection of religion, politics, and law in American History. His book, “Rebel Bulldog: The Story of One Family, Two States, and the Civil War” was published in 2017. Dr. Lantzer serves as the Assistant Director of the Butler University Honors Program.
We welcome award-winning poet and novelist Ben Lerner in support of his latest, The Topeka School, as part of our ongoing Fiction at Literati series. A Book signing will follow. Free and open to the public.
About the book: From the award-winning author of 10:04 and Leaving the Atocha Station, a tender and expansive family drama set in the American Midwest at the turn of the century: a tale of adolescence, transgression, and the conditions that have given rise to the trolls and tyrants of the New Right
Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting “lost boys” to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak. Adam is also one of the seniors who bring the loner Darren Eberheart–who is, unbeknownst to Adam, his father’s patient–into the social scene, to disastrous effect.
Deftly shifting perspectives and time periods, The Topeka School is the story of a family, its struggles and its strengths: Jane’s reckoning with the legacy of an abusive father, Jonathan’s marital transgressions, the challenge of raising a good son in a culture of toxic masculinity. It is also a riveting prehistory of the present: the collapse of public speech, the trolls and tyrants of the New Right, and the ongoing crisis of identity among white men.
Ben Lerner was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1979. He has received fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, Howard, and MacArthur Foundations. His first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, won the 2012 Believer Book Award, and excerpts from 10:04 have been awarded The Paris Review‘s Terry Southern Prize. He has published three poetry collections: The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw (a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry), and Mean Free Path. Lerner is a professor of English at Brooklyn College.
Crazy Wisdom Poetry Series hosted by Joe Kelty, Ed Morin, and David Jibson • Second and Fourth Wednesdays, 7-9 p.m. in the Crazy Wisdom Tea Room • Second Wednesdays are poetry workshop nights. All writers welcome to share and discuss their own poetry and short fiction. Sign up for new participants begins at 6:45 p.m.
Fourth Wednesdays have a featured reader for 50 minutes and then open mic for an hour. All writers welcome to share. Sign up begins at 6:45 p.m. Free. Contact Ed at 668-7523; eacmorso@sbcglobal.net or cwpoetrycircle.tumblr.com.
October 23 – Dennis Hinrichsen served as the first Poet Laureate of the Greater Lansing area from May 2017 to April 2019. His poetry collection, Skin Music, won the 2014 Michael Waters Poetry Prize from Southern Indiana Review Press. His most recent work is [q / lear], a chapbook from Green Linden Press.
We are excited to welcome Kelly Fordon in support of her first full-length poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House. Her work has appeared The Florida Review, The Kenyon Review, and other journals, as well as three poetry chapbooks. On the Street Where We Live won the 2012 Standing Rock Chapbook Award, and The Witness won the 2016 Eric Hoffer Award for the Chapbook. Her novel-in-stories, Garden for the Blind, was chosen as a Michigan Notable Book. She teaches at the College for Creative Studies, Springfed Arts, and InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit.
Ann Arbor’s Zilka Joseph has an MFA in Poetry from University of Michigan, and she teaches workshops, works as a manuscript coach and editor, and mentors writers in the Ann Arbor community. She has written several books of poetry including her most recent, Sharp Blue Search of Flame.
Signing to follow.
“With words as effective and as cunningly crafted as newly sharpened knives, a relentless insistence, and stunning wordplay, Fordon gives voice to those trapped behind the idyllic façade.”
–Gloria Whelan, author Homeless Bird, National Book Award winner
“Rich with the scents and sounds and colors of her native Kolkata, Zilka Joseph’s poetry is also haunted: by the real and imagined violence of the world, by the losses entailed in migration, by the loved ones left behind. Deeply felt and lushly rendered, these poems weave a tapestry of sorrow and celebration, tenderness and outrage, bodily longing and bodily vulnerability. A book as searching as its title.” –Linda Gregerson
Crazy Wisdom Poetry Series hosted by Joe Kelty, Ed Morin, and David Jibson • Second and Fourth Wednesdays, 7-9 p.m. in the Crazy Wisdom Tea Room • Second Wednesdays are poetry workshop nights. All writers welcome to share and discuss their own poetry and short fiction. Sign up for new participants begins at 6:45 p.m.
Fourth Wednesdays have a featured reader for 50 minutes and then open mic for an hour. All writers welcome to share. Sign up begins at 6:45 p.m. Free. Contact Ed at 668-7523; eacmorso@sbcglobal.net or cwpoetrycircle.tumblr.com.
