We will be closed on Monday, September 6th for Labor Day. We will re-open for regular business hours on Tuesday.

This month's book is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

Body Work Book Launch Party

            We’re always delighted when one of our favorite writers releases a new book. Body Work, Paretsky’s fourteenth V. I. Warshawski mystery, may be her most compelling and timely one yet. When a controversial young artist is murdered, V. I. is pulled into a case that touches on some of the most important issues raised by the war in Iraq. In addressing the personal and political implications of art and war, Paretsky boldly places Warshawski at the center of an investigation that cuts to the heart of society today.

            Tonight’s launch party will include free refreshments, giveaway t-shirts, and a chance for one lucky attendee to have a character named after him or her in the next V. I. book!

This month's book is Half the Sky by Nicholas D Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn

Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers

Ten-year Anniversary Reading & Discussion

            Join local contributors Karen Dwyer, Beth Kohl, Sara Levine, Molly McNett and Dan Libman, Tracy Mayor, B. E. Pinkham, Sharla Stewart, and Gale Renee Walden for a reading and discussion commemorating the ten-year anniversary of Brain, Child magazine, the only literary magazine dedicated to motherhood. Refreshments will be served.

My Maasai Life: From Suburbia to Savannah

            As a teen in Schaumburg in the 1980s, Robin Wiszowaty yearned to learn about more of the world beyond the suburban Midwest. In college, she found the opportunity she was looking for when she enrolled in a program that would send her to live in a Maasai household in Kenya for a year. Joining her eight-member Maasai family in their cow dung hut far from any city, and enduring drought, malaria, and typhoid, Wiszowaty adapts to a new way of living and new understandings of the world. Currently director of Kenya’s Free the Children program, Wiszowaty’s inspiring tale about how even the most average of us can choose to change the world has enthralled thousands, and she has shared stages with such luminary social activists as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Mia Farrow.

How We Move the Air

            In the spirit of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, Columbia College professor Garnett Kilberg Cohen’s How We Move the Air tells the story of musician Jake Doyle’s suicide and how, over time, it affected those who knew him. In seven linked stories, Cohen explores the complex ways in which people choose to remember – or not remember – the past. Cohen has been the recipient of numerous literary awards and her work has appeared in publications such as American Fiction, The Antioch Review, and Other Voices. How We Move the Air is her second story collection, after Lost Women, Banished Souls.

7:30 p.m.

Sappho’s Salon: A Provocative Night of Lesbian Diversions

Featuring Nikki Patin, Sissy Van Dyke, and DJ SpinNikki

$7-$10 sliding scale includes food and wine.

            This
month’s installment of our monthly salon night for lesbians and their
friends features award-winning and internationally acclaimed spoken work
artist Nikki Patin. A teacher, activist, and artist, Patin has
performed on HBO’s Def Poetry Slam, was a member of Chicago’s 2001
Mental Graffiti National slam team, and received the gold medal in slam
poetry at the 2006 International Gay Games. Author of “The Phat Grrl
Diaries,” she also fronts the rock band, “Like A Hundred.” Joining Patin
will be writer, stand-up comic and punk rock musician Sissy Van Dyke.
As usual, Sappho’s house DJ SpinNikki will round out tonight’s show with
an eclectic array of pop, electronica, soul, world music, and dance
tracks. Proceeds benefit the artists and the Women’s Voices Fund.

This month's book is Zami by Audre Lorde

We will be discussing The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood.

Room: A Novel

            In her unforgettable new novel, beloved lesbian author and anthologist Emma Donoghue (Landing, Slammerkin) marks a stunning thematic shift. Experienced through the perceptions of five-year-old Jack, Room tells the story of a mother and son held in captivity, of the mother’s struggle for survival, and Jack’s innocent acceptance of the only world he’s ever known. While carefully unraveling the mystery of their imprisonment, Donoghue explores the unconditional bond between mother and child in a way few, if any, writers have. Our own Linda Bubon described Room as “one of the most memorable and best books I have ever read.” Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Donahue read from what is certain to be one of the most talked about books of the year.

“Room is that rarest of entities, an entirely original work of art.  I mean it as the highest possible praise when I tell you that I can’t compare it to any other book.  Suffice to say that it’s potent, darkly beautiful, and revelatory.”

-Michael Cunningham

Danielle Dutton

S P R A W L

Kate Zambreno

O Fallen Angel      

            Join us as we welcome two authors whose latest releases cleverly and inventively ponder the banality of contemporary American life. Featured in Harper’s magazine and The Bomb, Danielle Dutton’s S P R A W L  is an engaging, absurdly comic evocation of the sprawl of the American landscape and the American mind, through the mercurial inner life of one suburban woman. The winner of Chiasmus Press’s “Undoing the Novel – First Book Contest,” Kate Zambreno’s O Fallen Angel is a triptych of modern-day America set in a vapid Midwestern suburbia.

.... and then Buffy staked Edward.  The End.

Tweens, teens and women of all ages have gone crazy for the Twilight books... but what would Buffy do if she met Edward Cullen in a dark cemetery?  Are the Twilight books simply a post-feminist version of the same themes addressed in the Buffyverse or do they seek to teach girls of a similar age a completely different set of values?  We'll focus on the themes of sexuality, the "harmless" vampire, female teen identity and heroism in our discussion and will ultimately address the question of whether Buffy really WOULD stake Edward if she encountered him in Sunnydale. 

Reading:
What would Buffy do?  Notes on dusting Edward Cullen
http://www.wimnonline.org/WIMNsVoicesBlog/?p=1272

Viewing:
Buffy vs. Edward: Twilight Remixed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM

Love Like a Dog

            The illegal underworld of dog fighting, the complexities of the pit bull breed, and the ethical dilemma of animal cruelty is at the heart of School of the Art Institute of Chicago writing professor Calcagno’s (Pray for Yourself) new novel. When teenager Dirk finds an abandoned pit bull in a dumpster behind his father’s store, it sets in motion a series of events that changes his life forever, as Dirk is torn between the desire to please his father and do what is right for the animals he deeply loves. Intended both to educate and entertain, Love Like a Dog is informed by Calcagno’s ride alongs with the Chicago Police Department’s Animal Abuse Control Team.

Ordinary Women: Extraordinary Heroines – A New Paradigm for the Modern Heroine

She Writes reading featuring Audrey Niffenegger, Zoe Zolbrod, Teri Coyne, and others.

Hosted by She Writes and Teri Coyne.

            Join author Teri Coyne (The Last Bridge) and authors from the ground-breaking web community She Writes (www.shewrites.com) for a special reading celebrating the extraordinary heroics of “ordinary” women; fresh female characters who are often flawed but willful protagonists who rely on intelligence, wit, and survival skills to find themselves or shake things up. She Writes is the leading online destination for women writers. Since June 2009, more than 10,000 women writers from more than 30 countries and all 50 states have signed on to share knowledge, support, and network.

Along with Coyne, Audrey Niffenegger and Zobrod, authors Amina Gautier and Emily Gray Tedrowe will be joining the reading. Gautier has been anthologized in the 2009 and 2010 editions of Best African American Fiction, and Tedrowe is the author of Communters.

In her new book, Nigeria native Toyin Ayeni argues that her homeland is much more
than a producer of terrorists or con artists. Hoping to increase awareness of
the positive aspects of her West African country, Ayeni contends that the
problems associated with Nigeria are global in origin and that global problems
require global solutions. A past president of the Chicago chapter of
Toastmasters International, Ayeni hold a B.S. in microbiology from the
University of Ibadan and an M.S. in information systems management from Loyola
University Chicago. Join us for this special event celebrating the fiftieth
anniversary of Nigeria's independence.

This month's book is Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

We’re having a party to celebrate the career (to date) of celebrated feminist cartoonist Nicole Hollander and the thirtieth anniversary of her most famous creation, the wise-cracking, irreverent social critic Sylvia. Nicole’s new book, The Sylvia Chronicles, looks at the formative years of our young artist as she works her way from painter to a cartoonist syndicated in hundreds of newspapers. We convinced Nicole to give us a PowerPoint presentation of her work—and then we’ll eat cake and drink champagne! We know Hollander’s friends and fans will be here; we also hope those who may not know about the iconic Sylvia will come for a slice of cultural history.