Monday Event Post--Reuben Eisenstein on Monday, Andrea Thalasinos and Susanna Daniel on Tuesday, Toby Barlow on Wednesday!

Monday, August 19, 7 pm:
Reuben Eisenstein, author of Date Certain.

Many years working as a pathologist in teaching hospitals influenced this debut novella that is a medical thriller, an existential dilemma, and a police anti-procedural.

A young doctor named Ben Stone is getting adjusted to his new job as Chief of Pathology at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, when his world is turned upside-down by a bizarre case: an apparently healthy man appear in the Emergency Room, interrupting interrupts a routine autopsy conference, and says he has come to die. His exam indicates all is normal, yet he dies anyway.

Ben's life is further complicated by Mahmoud, a sinister trainee in the Pathology Department, who stalks Ben and seems to have an eerie control over Ben's mind and his dreams. Meanwhile, the bureaucratic County Medical Examiner and an overbearing detective seek answers about the mysterious death, and there's the problem of missing and/or mislabeled bodily organs.…

Tuesday, August 20, 7 pm:
Andrea Thalasinos, author of Traveling Light and An Echo Through the Snow
and Susanna Daniels, author of Sea Creatures and Stiltsville.

Two women face difficult choices about marriage and family in these two riveting, inspiring novels about the struggles we must face when those we love are fighting their own battles, which we can’t win for them, and how those battles can put ourselves and others we love in danger.

Andrea Thalasinos’ second novel, Traveling Light, is an inspiring story about a woman who takes a leave of absence from her promising academic career, and troubled marriage, for a road trip with a canine companion she can’t live without. Paula has been sleeping on the couch for the last ten years, driven out of her marital bedroom by her husband’s compulsive hoarding. When a man dying in a hospital urges her to rescue his beloved dog, Fotis, she accepts, intending to find the dog a good home. But when Fotis enters her life, Paula quickly realizes she doesn’t want him to leave. Instead, they leave together, traveling the road Westward until they are waylaid in northern Minnesota when an impulsive decision to volunteer briefly at a wildlife rehabilitation center changes Paula forever.

Returning to the Stiltsvile setting of her first novel, Sea Creatures is a riveting domestic drama by Susanna Daniel in which a mother must make the unthinkable choice between her husband and her son in a mesmerizing exploration of the high stakes of marriage and parenthood. Georgia and Graham flee Illinois for Miami after their careers derail due to Graham’s severe sleep disorder.

Their fresh start is made more complicated when their son ceases to speak and Georgia strikes up a friendship with an artist who might be able to offer her more than just hope for a new life. “A captivating, haunting novel about the complexities of the human heart and its attachments, terrain as slippery and beautiful and disaster prone as Daniel's South Florida.”—Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone

Wednesday, August 21, 7 pm:
Toby Barlow, author of Babayaga and Sharp Teeth.

Fans have eagerly waited five years for another dose of Toby Barlow, ever since his imaginative and fierce debut novel, Sharp Teeth, surprised readers and reviewers, including David Mamet. His new novel is set in 1959 Paris where a Detroit ad executive (who may or may not be CIA), two ageless Russian witches (one is young and beautiful, the other more traditionally “witchy”), a police detective who gets turned into a flea when he comes to close to solving a grisly murder, and an American who wants to start a literary journal, converge with LSD, buried rifles, and jazz musicians for a romp through Paris such as you’ve never before experienced.

“If his brilliant Sharp Teeth wasn’t enough to make you read anything Toby Barlow writes, he’s done it again, giving a well-worn story a tasty twist. Babayaga is a pulpy, magical adventure set in a Paris any reader would love to visit.” —Stewart O’Nan

Carolyn Kellogg in the Los Angeles Times says that Toby Barlow works his magic to make the impossible possible. "Before Babayaga, I thought Disney had captured all the world's folk tales and remade them as child-friendly blockbusters. But author Toby Barlow got to Baba Yaga--fearsome witches plucked from old Russian legend--first, and he brings them to life in 1950s Paris."

But who can say it better than our own Mel Morrow. "Babayaga is incantatory. A singular tale of falling in love set against the backdrop of post-WWII Paris, with tones of Russian folklore and CIA murder mystery, this profound and poetic novel wrings the unique from ubiquitous themes. The prose is haute couture, the story as rich and compelling as Paris. Toby Barlow is my Beatrice."

plus a reminder for
Tuesday, August 27, 7 pm:
a ticketed event with Louise Penny, author of How the Light Gets in, the newest mystery in the Inspector Gamache series. Note: only buy the book through our website if you are definitely not coming and just want a signed copy. Otherwise, please buy a ticket from Brown Paper Tickets.

Tickets are $25.99 plus tax, and include a copy of How the Light Gets In. On the night of the event only, there is a $20 gift card option. Tickets are nonrefundable, but we will hold a signed copy of How the Light Gets In for you if you are not able to attend.

Here's Anne McMahon on the newest from Penny: "Several circumstances in the life of Inspector Gamache and his friends in Three Pines await illumination. Book store owner Myrna needs help searching for a missing friend, Jean-Guy Beauvoir remains estranged and self-destructive, and Gamache's carefully selected staff is being just as carefully destroyed by the Chief Superintendent. These three story lines converge for a stunning conclusion. Once again, Louise Penny draws you in and holds you captive. I'll be reading and re- reading How the Light Gets In until the next Chief Inspector Gamache mystery is written."

There are light refreshments being served, including themed cupcakes from Milwaukee Cupcake Company, iced tea, and a special poutin amuse bouche from Nick. Once again, here's a ticket-purchasing link.