As part of our ongoing Fiction at Literati Series, we welcome celebrated author and poet Ocean Vuong in support his debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
About the book: Named one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Vulture, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Oprah.com, Huffington Post, The A.V. Club, Nylon, The Week, The Rumpus, The Millions, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and more, poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.
With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.
About the author: Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His writings have also been featured in The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is his first novel.
Mandy McGovern is joining us to share her debut cookbook, My Little Michigan Kitchen. After collecting cookbooks on her travels Mandy noticed Michigan was missing its own signature cookbook. She will be sharing little taste of some Michigan classics with us along with the stories behind the recipes.
Event Details
Seating at the event will be first-come first-served. This event will be a standing-room crowd, so if you require a seat for medical reasons, please contact us in advance to make arrangements.
About the Book
My Little Michigan Kitchen by Mandy McGovern features over 100 tried-and-true homestyle recipes, including Michigan classics: “Secret Ingredient” Tart Cherry Pie, UP North Pasties, Detroit Coney Dogs, Mackinac Island Fudge, Detroit Deep Dish Pizza, Boston Coolers, Smoked Whitefish Chowder, Hot Fudge Cream Puffs, and MANY more!
About the Author
Mandy McGovern is the creator of Kitchen Joy, her blog where she shares her own tried-and-true recipes that her family loves. She strives to live by the motto that “Homemade is better than store-bought”, and it rarely lets us down. She has a love for learning more about food every day and sharing her excitement with anyone who will listen. Her favorite way to spend a weekend is with her husband and two daughters at their cabin in Northern Michigan.
After a successful career as a historian, author, and advocate for Racial Amity, Richard W. Thomas is returning home to his poetic roots. His new book Going Home to My Soul: Collected Poems and Narratives is a retrospective of his poetry from the ‘60s, full of the fire, passion and pain of that era. He was drawn to poetry and to the great tradition of speaking hard truth to a world in peril. His work was noticed by some notable poets of that era including Margaret Danner, Amiri Baraka and Langston Hughes.
This is part of a monthly series on the 2nd Thursday of most months in partnership with Les Go Social Media Marketing and Training. The event begins with an Open Mic session when area poets can read their own work or share a favorite poem by another author in a welcoming atmosphere.
We welcome journalist and professor in the School of Communications at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Julien Gorbach, in support of his latest book The Notorious Ben Hecht.
About the book: In 1932, Hecht solidified his legend as “the Shakespeare of Hollywood” with his thriller Scarface, the Howard Hughes epic considered the gangster movie to end all gangster movies. But Hecht rebelled against his Jewish bosses at the movie studios when they refused to make films about the Nazi menace. Leveraging his talents and celebrity connections to orchestrate a spectacular one-man publicity campaign, he mobilized pressure on the Roosevelt administration for an Allied plan to rescue Europe’s Jews. Then after the war, Hecht became notorious, embracing the labels “gangster” and “terrorist” in partnering with the mobster Mickey Cohen to smuggle weapons to Palestine in the fight for a Jewish state.
The Notorious Ben Hecht: Iconoclastic Writer and Militant Zionist is a biography of a great twentieth-century writer that treats his activism during the 1940s as the central drama of his life. It details the story of how Hecht earned admiration as a humanitarian and vilification as an extremist at this pivotal moment in history, about the origins of his beliefs in his varied experiences in American media, and about the consequences.
About the author: Julien Gorbach spent most of his 10 years as a daily newspaper reporter on the police beat, covering drive-by shootings and murder trials, and publishing an investigative series on killings that remained unsolved because gangs had intimidated witnesses into silence. As a freelancer, he contributed to the Boston Phoenix, Time Out New York, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and the New Orleans Gambit, among other publications. He covered Hurricane Katrina for the Boston Globe. Gorbach earned a doctorate in media history at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2013 and is now an assistant professor in the School of Communications at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
We welcome Nebula Nominated author Ferrett Steinemetz in support of his new novel, The Sol Majestic, a big-hearted and delightful intergalactic adventure for fans of Becky Chambers and The Good Place, as part of our ongoing Fiction at Literati series. The event is free and open to the public.
About the book: Kenna, an aspirational teen guru, wanders destitute across the stars as he tries to achieve his parents’ ambition to advise the celestial elite.
Everything changes when Kenna wins a free dinner at The Sol Majestic, the galaxy’s most renowned restaurant, giving him access to the cosmos’s one-percent. His dream is jeopardized, however, when he learns his highly-publicized “free meal” risks putting The Sol Majestic into financial ruin. Kenna and a motley gang of newfound friends–including a teleporting celebrity chef, a trust-fund adrenaline junkie, an inept apprentice, and a brilliant mistress of disguise–must concoct an extravagant scheme to save everything they cherish. In doing so, Kenna may sacrifice his ideals–or learn even greater lessons about wisdom, friendship, and love.
Utterly charming and out of this world, Ferrett Steinmetz’s The Sol Majestic will satisfy the appetites of sci-fi aficionados and newcomers alike.
About the author: Ferrett Steinemetz s a graduate of both the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and Viable Paradise. He was nominated for the Nebula Award in 2012 for his novelette Sauerkraut Station, and for the Compton Crook Award in 2015. He is the author of The Sol Majestic for Tor Books, as well as the ‘Mancer trilogy and The Uploaded. He has written for Asimov’s Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Ferret lives in Cleveland with his very clever wife, a small black dog of indeterminate origin, and a friendly ghost.
Tickets on sale now, click here to purchase.
Literati Bookstore is delighted to welcome Jennifer Weiner to the Jewish Community Center of Greater Ann Arbor in support of her latest novel, Mrs. Everything. The program will feature a conversation with Cynthia Canty, host of Stateside on Michigan Radio. A book signing will follow. Light refreshments will be provided, courtesy of the JCC.
Tickets are general admission and include a hardcover copy of Mrs. Everything, to be picked up at the event. Literati will have additional copies of Jennifer Weiner’s previous titles available for purchase. Limited parking will be available on the premises of the JCC, but additional street parking is available on Pebble Creek Dr. and Birch Hollow Dr. surrounding the JCC.
About the book: Jo and Bethie Kaufman were born into a world full of promise. Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect “Dick and Jane” house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life.
But the truth ends up looking differently than what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and Women’s Lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture, and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, or has a life that feels authentic, or brings her joy. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?
In her most ambitious novel yet, Jennifer Weiner tells a story of two sisters who, with their different dreams and different paths, offer answers to the question: How should a woman be in the world?
About the author: Jennifer Weiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of sixteen books, including Good in Bed, In Her Shoes, and her memoir, Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing. A graduate of Princeton University and contributor to the New York Times Opinion section, Jennifer lives with her family in Philadelphia. Visit her online at JenniferWeiner.com.
Questions about the event? Email John@LiteratiBookstore.com
ONE PAUSE POETRY SALON is (literally) a greenhouse for poetry and poets, nurturing an appreciation for written art in all languages and encouraging experiments in creative writing.
We meet every Weds in the greenhouse at Argus Farm Stop on Liberty St. The poems we read each time are unified by form (haiku, sonnet, spoken word), poet, time / place (Tang Dynasty, English Romanticism, New York in the 70s) or theme / mood (springtime, poems with cats, protest poems). We discuss the poems and play writing games together, with time for snacks and socializing in between.
Members are encouraged to share their own poems or poems they like – they may or may not relate to the theme of the evening. This is not primarily a workshop – we may hold special workshop nights, but mostly we listen to and talk about poems for the sake of inspiring new writing.
Whether you are a published poet or encountering poetry for the first time, we invite you to join us!
$5 suggested donation for food, drinks and printing costs.
8-10 p.m., Argus Farm Stop greenhouse, 325 W. Liberty. $5 suggested donation. onepausepoetry.org, 707-1284.
Join us for a Night Time Story Time to meet author-illustrator Emmy Kastner as she shares Nerdy Babies: Space. Cookies and milk will be served to all—and don’t forget to wear your pajamas!
About the Book
In Nerdy Babies: Space, follow our intrepid infants into the great unknown. Check out the moon and the sun and all the planets in our solar system. Plus, learn about gravity and orbits in this simple text written in question and answer format.
With bright artwork by Emmy Kastner, this will be a book that the very littlest nerds will want to return to again and again.
Stay curious. There’s more to learn about everything!
About the Illustrator
Emmy Kastner is a former classroom teacher and the co-founder of Read and Write Kalamazoo (RAWK), a nonprofit devoted to cultivating reading and writing for youth pre-K through high school. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband and three young kids. Emmy’s books include Nerdy Babies: Ocean and Nerdy Babies: Space.
Local writer (and Observer contributor) Patti Smith hosts a story time for adults, with Ken MacGregor, Callie Feyen, John Hritz, Morgan Hoeffel, Kelly Rowlands. Pajamas encouraged. For adults only.
Join us for a Night Time Story Time to meet author-illustrator Emmy Kastner as she shares Nerdy Babies: Space. Cookies and milk will be served to all—and don’t forget to wear your pajamas!
About the Book
In Nerdy Babies: Space, follow our intrepid infants into the great unknown. Check out the moon and the sun and all the planets in our solar system. Plus, learn about gravity and orbits in this simple text written in question and answer format.
With bright artwork by Emmy Kastner, this will be a book that the very littlest nerds will want to return to again and again.
Stay curious. There’s more to learn about everything!
About the Illustrator
Emmy Kastner is a former classroom teacher and the co-founder of Read and Write Kalamazoo (RAWK), a nonprofit devoted to cultivating reading and writing for youth pre-K through high school. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband and three young kids. Emmy’s books include Nerdy Babies: Ocean and Nerdy Babies: Space.
