Genevieve McBride and Stephen R. Byers, authors of Dear Mrs. Griggs’: Women Pour Out Their Hearts from the Heartland.
This event is presented by the Shorewood Historical Society, co-sponsored by the Friends of the Shorewood Public Library and the Shorewood Woman's Club.
Please join us for an evening event in the Village Center Meeting Room at Shorewood Public Library, located at 3920 North Murray Avenue in Shorewood, featuring local authors Genevieve G. McBride and Stephen R. Byers as they discuss and sign copies of Dear Mrs. Griggs’: Women Pour Out Their Hearts from the Heartland, their latest collaborative history about legendary and beloved Midwestern advice columnist Ione Quinby Griggs. This event is co-sponsored by the Shorewood Historical Society, the Friends of Shorewood Public Library, and the Shorewood Women’s Club.
Before "Dear Abby" or "Ann Landers," an advice columnist beloved as "Dear Mrs. Griggs" already had dispensed wisdom to millions of readers, mainly women, for decades. Indeed, Ione Quinby Griggs became legendary, as she set a record for longevity of more than half a century in the "advice industry," because she colluded with her readers in the column, empowering them to set the agenda of their page, the back page of the newspaper. The result often foreshadowed front-page news, as their collaborative effort created a forerunner of modern social media, for a more "sociable media." A form of community forum, the column provides a literal mother lode for research into her readers’ letters on their daily lives and everyday concerns, in their own and often colorful words. The result is a unique social history of a region, a class, and a gender rarely represented in histories. 
Tuesday, October 7, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Marquette Professor Daniel Maguire, author of Christianity Without God: Moving Beyond the Dogmas and Retrieving the Epic Moral Narrative.Please join us for an enlightening evening with Marquette Professor of Ethics and recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Christian Ethics, Daniel Maguire, as he discusses and signs copies of his latest treatise on Christianity and ethics, Christianity Without God: Moving Beyond the Dogmas and Retrieving the Epic Moral Narrative.
In Christianity Without God, Daniel C. Maguire rejects the three fundamental dogmas of Christian faith—belief in a personal god, the divinity of Jesus, and the afterlife. Maguire illustrates a powerful poetic moral message communicated in the Bible and suggests how it can be applied in a global ethic to issues such as economics, politics, and ecology, with the hope of healing a planet sinking under the effects of ungrateful mismanagement by the human race. A distinguished professor of religion at Marquette University, Maguire recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Christian Ethics. In Christianity Without God, he seeks not to have the best or the last word on the subject, but one that can join the conversation and speak to the urgent need for change.
“With immense learning and considerable charm, Daniel Maguire evokes a Christianity freed from dogma, literalism, self-righteousness, and terror. Believers and skeptics alike can delight in what's left: poetry, morality, a sense of awe and wonder. In a word, humanity.” —Katha Pollitt, author of The Mind-Body Problem: Poems
Wednesday, October 8, 7 pm, at Boswell:
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Professor Jim Winship, author of Coming of Age in El Salvador.We’re happy to welcome Peace Corps volunteer, Fulbright Scholar, and Professor of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Jim Winship, as he discusses and his book, Coming of Age in El Salvador, which gathers first-person accounts and research into a unique text revealing the challenges and rewards of growing up in a small, globalized Central American country. This event is co-sponsored by the UWM Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
Coming of age, becoming an adult, can be difficult in any time and place. This book is about youth and young adults who live simultaneously in a globalized world and a small Central American country with great beauty and strong family connections, yet with significant problems and too few opportunities. Through first-person accounts of young Salvadorans, his own research and the work of others, Dr. Jim Winship shows the context and challenges in which young Salvadorans struggle to reach their aspirations.
“I highly recommend people interested in El Salvador to read this book. It is a fresh and interesting perspective of what it means to live in El Salvador. Living in a country where many of the conversations about youth only relate to violence, Dr. Winship has been able to capture a collage of key stories that will give the reader a more holistic idea of our youth.” —Eva Rodriguez Bellegarrigue, President, Transformando Conflictos Partners El Salvador
Friday, October 10, 2 pm, at Boswell: Cast Members of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater discuss and perform a song from The Color Purple
Members of the cast of The Color Purple will join us to discuss the musical based on Alice Walker’s Pultizer Prize-winning novel as well as to perform a song from the production. The Color Purple is running at Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s Quadracci Powerhouse now through November 2.
Following the success of last year’s Ragtime, Mark Clements and his creative team reunite at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre to bring you the hit musical based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. This glorious musical saga, spanning four decades, tells the unforgettable story of a woman who finds the strength to triumph over adversity and discover her own unique voice in the world. With a joyous Grammy-nominated score featuring jazz, ragtime, gospel, and blues, The Color Purple captures the hearts of young and old, and reminds us that “it only takes a grain of love to make a mighty tree.”
Friday, October 10, 7 pm, at Boswell: Steven Pinker, author of The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.
You may know Steven Pinker as a psychology professor at Harvard, as well as one of the foremost writers on matters of the brain. What you might now know is he is also a longtime style manual enthusiast, and chair of the Usage Panel of The American Heritage Dictionary. For his presentation on The Sense of Style, Pinker will discuss the corruption of the English language, the intentional obfuscation of bad writing, kids these days, and other issues raised in his cheerful, practical, and entertaining usage guide.
Pinker argues that complaints about the decline of language go at least as far back as the invention of the printing press. Every generation believes that the kids today are degrading the language and taking civilization down with it. So we can’t blame social media or texting. Rather than moaning about the decline of the language, carping over pet peeves, or recycling spurious edicts from the rulebooks of a century ago, Pinker believes we can apply insights from the sciences of language and mind to the challenge of crafting clear, coherent, and stylish prose. For example, contrary to Strunk an; White’s instruction in The Elements of Style to change passive verbs to active ones, linguistic research has shown that the passive construction has a number of indispensable functions because of the way it engages a reader’s attention and memory.
“This book is a graceful and clear smackdown to the notion that English is going to the proverbial dogs. Pinker has written the Strunk and White for a new century while continuing to discourage baseless notions such as that the old slogan should have been ‘Winston tastes good AS a cigarette should.’” —John McWhorter, author of Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.
Sunday, October 12, 3 pm, at Boswell:
Jennifer Holland, author of Unlikely Heroes: 37 Inspiring Stories of Courage and Heart from the Animal Kingdom.The Wisconsin Humane Society and Boswell are proud to invite you to an inspiring event with Jennifer Holland, author of bestselling books Unlikely Friendships and Unlikely Loves, who will discuss her latest book, Unlikely Heroes: 37 Inspiring Stories of Courage and Heart from the Animal Kingdom. This event is co-sponsored by the Wisconsin Humane Society with 10% of each sale of Unlikely Heroes from this event donated to them.
In Unlikely Heroes, Jennifer Holland uncovers and celebrates yet another side of animals that we often think belongs primarily to people—heroism, that indefinable quality of going above and beyond, often for altruistic reasons, often at great personal risk. These 37 inspiring true tales show animals whose quick acts have saved lives, like the pod of dolphins who protected swimmers in New Zealand from a great white shark by forming a screen around them. There are stories of animals who simply and unselfishly give, like Rojo the llama, who shines his very special light of loving kindness on the elderly patients in an Oregon rehab center. And there are compelling stories of heroic resilience: like Naki'o, the abandoned puppy who lost all four paws to frostbite but found the grit not only to overcome that terrible hardship but to reclaim the joy of life—that's him, smiling on the cover of the book.
Coming Next Week:
Tuesday, October 14, 6:30 pm :
Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen, author and illustrator of Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, with opening musical act Fox and Branch.
Wednesday, October 15, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Deborah Crombie, author of To Dwell in Darkness.
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