Calendar

Sep
8
Sat
Booktoberfest! @ Thomson-Shore
Sep 8 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

Join us for a celebration of authors, books, art, and bratwurst.

Booktoberfest will feature industry experts from around the country, offering advice and insight for authors, as well as fun and educational activities for the whole family.

Authors can even pitch their books to a panel of experts for a chance to win a publishing package from Thomson-Shore! (Must sign up for the pitch contest ahead of time by visiting thomsonshore.com/booktoberfest.)

Enjoy a day of music, food, and fun, while learning about the ever-changing world of publishing and bookmaking. A portion of proceeds will benefit 826 Michigan.

Nov
7
Wed
Lindsay-Jean Hard: Cooking with Scraps @ Literati
Nov 7 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

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.

Dec
9
Sun
RC Drama Concentration: Uncle Vanya @ Keene Theater
Dec 9 @ 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

U-M drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff directs RC students in scenes from Uncle Vanya, Chekhov’s richly varied ensemble piece about the search for happiness–from love, achievement, or nature–at various stages of life.

Jan
9
Wed
Sid Smith: Greg Grieco’s Canio’s Secret: A Memoir of Ethnicity, Electricity, and My Immigrant Grandfather’s Wisdom @ Literati
Jan 9 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is honored to host Sid Smith who will be sharing her husband’s book Canio’s Secret: A Memoir of Ethnicity, Electricity, and my Immigrant Grandfather’s Wisdom about the life of his grandfather Canio Grieco

About Canio’s Secret:
In 1950s Chicago, a young boy hides in his bedroom closet to escape a father’s habitual rage. There he conjures up another paternal figure in his artistic Italian grandfather, Canio Grieco, his glimpse into happiness. With his wondrous tricks and stories of “Italy,” his library and drawings, his baseball and opera, Canio becomes the model of creativity for the lonely, introverted grandson.

Surviving through ingenuity and imagination, young Greg is fascinated by electricity and the world of men: he sticks his fingers in Christmas light sockets, finds unexpected mentors in a washing machine repair shop, fantasizes about the fate of missing fathers, and eventually betrays his grandfather at the billiard table.

Canio’s Secret is a coming-of-age story chronicling a boy’s poignant struggle to find consolation in his mother’s Catholicism and to break free of his father’s anger. Told through intimate portraits of parents and grandparents, nuns and janitors, friends and local characters, and their unsettling – often humorous – encounters, it is also the vibrant portrait of a multi-ethnic neighborhood soon to be scattered by white flight. And, as the older writer ponders his grandfather’s influence, the memoir becomes a meditation on Canio’s enigmatic advice, offered in the summer of 1953: “Happiness is all that’s required.”

Jan
28
Mon
Sarah Messer, Kidder Smith, and Ikkyu: Transformation, Aesthetics, and Beauty @ Literati
Jan 28 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Transformation, Aesthetics, and Beauty: Translating Zen Master Ikkyu and Classical Chinese Poetry

Translators Sarah Messer and Kidder Smith will introduce Zen Master Ikkyu, an unconventional 14th century enlightened Zen Master who wrote poems in Classical Chinese, upended gender roles, and transformed the aesthetics of medieval Japan. They will also discuss how they translated Ikkyu’s poetry since Sarah didn’t know any Chinese at the start. All of us together will then translate a poem from Chinese into English, using the same method that Sarah and Kidder employed. We will conclude by enjoying some cheese from White Lotus Farms (where Sarah works), understanding that cheesemaking also involves transformation, aesthetics, mindfulness, and beauty.

RC alumna Sarah Messer is the author of four books, a hybrid history/memoir, Red House (Viking), a book of translations, Having Once Paused: Poems of Zen Master Ikkyu (University of Michigan Press) and two poetry books Bandit Letters (New Issues), and Dress Made of Mice (Black Lawrence Press). Messer co-founded One Pause Poetry and teaches Creative Writing at the RC and is a cheesemaker at White Lotus Farms. 

For many years Kidder Smith taught Chinese history at Bowdoin College in Maine, where he also chaired the Asian Studies Program.  He is the lead translator of Sun Tzu—the Art of War (Shambhala), and (with Sarah Messer), Having Once Paused: Poems of Zen Master Ikkyu (University of Michigan Press).

Feb
18
Mon
Kate Tucker: The Joy of Reading Drama @ Literati
Feb 18 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Using contemporary plays, together we’ll explore how to read drama and why it’s important. Plays are a powerful tool to ignite conversations about issues that are often challenging to discuss and they give voice to people and experiences that might otherwise be overlooked. We’ll even try our hand at writing them!

Kate Tucker Fahlsing is a Chicago-based playwright, screenwriter, educator and founder of WhizBang Writers Workshop. She holds an MFA in Writing for the Screen + Stage from Northwestern University. Her plays have been featured in Chicago and Off-Broadway in New York City. For more visit: www.whizbangwriters.com

$25. 7pm.

Apr
9
Tue
Mary Stockwell: Unlikely General: ‘Mad’ Anthony Wayne and the Battle for America @ 150 Blau Hall
Apr 9 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

With the young republic in crisis, President Washington chose as general an aging brigadier whose private life was mired in scandal. Follow the story of General Anthony Wayne, drawn from his own passionate letters where he vividly confessed his deepest thoughts. Writer and historian Mary Stockwell was an Earhart Foundation Fellow at the Clements Library. Her book “Unlikely General: ‘Mad’ Anthony Wayne and the Battle for America” was published by Yale University Press in 2018. She has a B.A. in history from Mary Manse College and holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Toledo. Register online.

Apr
15
Mon
Chloe Preedy: The Bishop, the Devil, and the Playwright: Responding to Air Pollution in Early Modern England @ Angell Hall, Rm 3154
Apr 15 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

DR. CHLOE PREEDY, UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Hosted by the Animal Studies & Environmental Humanities RIW. Please RSVP to lageiger@umich.edu or cvfair@umich.edu

 

Apr
16
Tue
Anthony DeBenedet: Playful Intelligence @ Literati
Apr 16 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is excited to welcome author and physician Anthony DeBenedet to discuss his book Playful Intelligence.

About Playful Intelligence:
As adults, we have more responsibilities than we could have ever imagined growing up. Learning the work of marriage. Navigating the bumpy terrain of parenting. Maintaining social relationships. Facing grave hardship. Finding contentment in our career.

As the years pass by, we sense how the good things in life are so often eclipsed by stress. We find ourselves doing everything we can just to endure adulthood, all the while wondering whether we are actually enjoying it. This is exactly why Dr. Anthony T. DeBenedet decided to write Playful Intelligence: The Power of Living Lightly in a Serious World, to show readers how playfulness helps us counterbalance the seriousness of adulthood.

“Five years ago, my life was becoming more intense and stressful,” DeBenedet says. “My relationships, clinical work as a physician, and basic interactions with the world were blurring into a frazzled mosaic. Going through the motions became my norm, and every day brought busyness and exhaustion. I thought about whether I was depressed. I didn’t think I was. Anxious? Sure, but aren’t we all anxious on some level? I also thought about the lifestyle factors that could be making me feel this way. Was I getting enough sleep? Was I exercising regularly? Was I eating healthy? Was I playing and remembering to be playful?”

Today, we live in a taxing world. The endless pressure to keep up with our responsibilities and the daily headlines swarming around us can be overwhelming. DeBenedet’s work comes at a time when stress, uncertainty, and intensity levels are high. Playful Intelligence shows adults that there is a way to live lighter–and smarter–as we navigate the seriousness of adulthood. It’s not about taking life less seriously; it’s about taking ourselves less seriously.

The book’s core chapters are devoted to exploring the effects and benefits of five playful qualities: imagination, sociability, humor, spontaneity, and wonder. By examining playfulness as a sum of its parts, readers will gain a working awareness of its power and be able to apply playful principles to their own lives, bringing the magic of childhood back into their day-to-day existence. The book also offers practical suggestions on how to make life more playful in nature.

Anthony T. DeBenedet, M.D. is a practicing physician and behavioral-science enthusiast. His interviews and writings have run in various media outlets, including the New York Times, the Today show, the Washington Post, and TIME Ideas. He also co-authored The Art of Roughhousing: Good Old-Fashioned Horseplay and Why Every Kid Needs It (Quirk Books, 2011), a parenting book about the importance of parent-child physical play. DeBenedet has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering, a Master of Science Degree in Health and Healthcare Research from the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School, and a Doctor of Medicine Degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency and gastroenterology fellowship at the University of Michigan Health System. DeBenedet lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he enjoys spending time with his family, connecting with friends, and playing a little basketball.

Apr
17
Wed
Assya Humesky: Ukrainian Literary Evening: A Life Devoted to Studying Slavic Languages and Literature @ Rackham East Conference Room
Apr 17 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREES) at the University of Michigan cordially invite you to join us for Dr. Assya Humesky’s talk about her and her family’s contributions to Ukrainian culture through published works, art, and teaching in higher education.

Light refreshments will be served.

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