Tuesday, September 27, 7 pm, at Boswell:Christopher Hebert, author of Angels of Detroit
Boswell presents Christopher Hebert, author of The Boiling Season, winner of the of the 2013 Friends of American Writers Award. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Five Chapters, Cimarron Review, and The Millions. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and is editor-at-large for the University of Michigan Press. Hebert is currently the Jack E. Reese Writer-in-Residence at the University of Tennessee Libraries and lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. He will be in conversation with Valerie Laken, Associate Professor of English at UWM.
Christopher Hebert’s new novel delivers a kaleidoscopic of an iconic American city, of abandonment, hope, violence, and resilience—and the lives intersecting on Detroit’s margins. Once an example of American industrial might, Detroit has gone bankrupt, its streets dark, and its storefronts vacant. Miles of city blocks lie empty; saplings grow through the cracked foundations of abandoned buildings. Hebert takes an urban wasteland whose history is plagued with riots and unrest and reimagines it as an ambiguous frontier—a site of tenacity and possible hope. With razor-sharp, beguiling prose, we are drawn into the lives of multiple characters who are struggling to define their futures in this desolate landscape. Each of their desires are distinct, and their visions for a better city are on a collision course in this master plotted epic.
Wednesday, September 28, 2 pm at Boswell:A talk and scene preview of Man of La Mancha, adapted from the classic Don Quixote, by the cast from Milwaukee Rep
Join us for a free talk and scene preview from the Milwaukee Rep cast of Man of La Mancha, winner of five Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score.
It’s an adventurous tale of a knight’s heroic battle. It’s a fairy tale with a tragic love story. It’s a tale of an old man gone mad and his family searching desperately for him. It’s all of those things and more. With incredible songs that you know and love, you won’t want to miss The Rep’s next big musical. Man of La Mancha will run from September 30-October 30 and is recommended for audiences 14+.
Here's ticket info for Man of La Mancha. And here's Mike Fischer's review of the show in the Journal Sentinel. His advice?: "By the time the originally skeptical prisoners reprise 'Impossible Dream,' nearly everyone is singing Quixote’s song. Catch this show and so will you."
Wednesday September 28, 6:30 pm, at Kenosha Public Library-Northside Neighborhood Library, 1500 27th Ave in Kenosha:Jennifer Chiaverini, Fates and Traitors: A Novel on John Wilkes Booth
Take a road trip with Boswell down to the Kenosha Public Library Northside Branch for an evening with Jennifer Chiaverini Her newest novel is about John Wilkes Booth, the driven son of an acclaimed British stage actor and a Covent Garden flower girl, whose quest to avenge the Confederacy led him to commit one of the most infamous acts in American history has long been the subject of speculation and even obsession.
What is less known about Booth is the story of the four women who were integral in the life of this unquiet American: Mary Ann, the mother he revered; Asia, his sister and confidante; Lucy Lambert Hale, the senator’s daughter who loved him; and Mary Surratt, the Confederate widow to whom he entrusted the secret of his vengeful wrath. From a tumultuous childhood on a farm in Maryland, to the glittering ballrooms of DC, the novel portrays not just a soul in turmoil, but a country at the precipice of immense change.
Read the Journal Sentinel review of Fates and Traitors from Jim Higgins.
Thursday, September 29, 7 pm at Boswell:Thomas M. Holbrook, author of Altered States: Changing Populations, Changing Parties, and the Transformation of the American Political Landscape
The 2012 presidential elections represented the second consecutive defeat for the Republican Party, and its fourth defeat out of the last six presidential elections. In recent years both Republican and Democratic strategists and pundits have spoken of an emerging Democratic Party "lock" on the Electoral College and speculated that even in the wake of Republican victories in Congress, presidential candidates are still at a major disadvantage due to the party's increasing demographic and geographic isolation.
In Altered States, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Wilder Crane Professor of Government Thomas Holbrook looks at party fortunes in presidential elections since 1972, documenting the magnitude, direction, and consequences of changes in party support in the states. Holbrook looks at the ways that the racial and ethnic composition of the state electorates, internal (state to state) and external (foreign born) migratory patterns, and other key demographic and political characteristics drive changes at the ballto box. Additionally, he explores the ways in which increasing partisan polarization at the national level has altered group-based party linkages and contributed to changes in party support at the state level. These factors, along with an increasingly inefficient distribution of Republican votes, have converted what was once a Republican edge in electoral votes to an advantage for Democratic presidential candidates.
Friday, September 30, 3:30 pm at Wauwatosa Public Library, 7421 W North Ave in Wauwatosa:Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin, author and illustrator of Click, Clack, Surprise!
Quack! We're off to our first author event at the Wauwatosa Library for an exciting after-school event featuring longtime collaborators Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin, who received a Caldecott Honor for Click, Clack Moon. In their latest, Click, Clack, Surprise, Little Duck learns how to celebrate his birthday with a little help from all the other animals on the farm. Happy first birthday, Little Duck!
Everyone wants to look their best for the big party. But Little Duck has never had a birthday before—so how better to learn how to prepare than to do what all the other animals do! The sheep trim their wool—so Little Duck trims her feathers. All over the barnyard Little Duck snips, slurps, squishes, and shimmy shakes herself ready until...WHOOPS! It’s party picture time—and Little Duck is a big mess. No matter—it’s not something Farmer Brown’s frosted maple cake can’t fix!
Being that we'll be only one day from October, we're expecting to sell a lot of Click, Clack, Boo at this event. And it turns out that Duck For President has also been extremely popular. A lot of independent voters are that only Duck has the kind of bill that can bring together both parties. The campaign is going swimmingly and a win would really be a feather in Duck's cap.
Friday, September 30, 7 pm at Boswell:
Michael Copperman, author of Teacher: Two Years in the Mississippi Delta
When Michael Copperman left Stanford University for the Mississippi Delta in 2002, he imagined he would lift underprivileged children from the narrow horizons of rural poverty. Well-meaning but naive, the Asian American from the West Coast soon lost his bearings in a world divided between black and white. He had no idea how to manage a classroom or help children navigate the considerable challenges they faced. In trying to help students, he often found he couldn't afford to give what they required sometimes, with heartbreaking consequences. His desperate efforts to save child after child were misguided but sincere. He offered children the best invitations to success he could manage. But he still felt like an outsider who was failing the children and himself.
From 2002 to 2004, Michael Copperman taught fourth grade in the rural black public schools of the Mississippi Delta with Teach For America. Now, he teaches writing to low-income, first-generation college students of diverse backgrounds at the University of Oregon. Listen to Copperman speak to Mississippi Public Broadcasting about managing a classroom, motivating kids, and reacting to people who hadn't really known an Asian American before.
Saturday, October 1, 12:30 pm, at Discovery World, 500 N Harbor Drive in downtown Milwaukee:Bradley P. Beaulieu, author of Of Sand and Malice Made
Bradley Beaulieu will be appearing at Discovery World Sci Fi Day, at 12:30 for a family-friendly extravaganza of magnificent costumes, props, and displays from the sci-fi world! Featured are Wisconsin Ghostbusters, Kenosha Lego Group, Heroes Alliance, Milwaukee Astronomy Society’s Planets demo, and more. We'll be featuring books, including those of Bradley Beaulieu, who is appearing for a talk at 12:30 pm.
For those who wonder about the original book's publication, it is considered a classic, but only in retrospect, much like Moby Dick. AsAs John Blades wrote in the Chicago Tribune: "The publisher printed only one thousand copies, of which 456 were sold, bringing the author royalties of $68.40. Seven years later, "Sister Carrie" was reissued to high praise and, with such later Dreiser works as Jennie Gerhardt and An American Tragedy, had a profound influence on the fiction of Upton Sinclair, Willa Cather, Sinclair Lewis and others."
Tickets for this all-day event at Discovery World, 400 N Harbor Dr, are $18 for adults, with sliding scale for children, students, and seniors. Once again, Bradley Beaulieu will speak at 12:30 pm. This event is from 10 am to 5 pm and tasteful costumes encouraged.
Monday, October 3, 7:00 pm at Boswell:
Book club discussion of Sister Carrie with Florentine Opera
Join us and the in-store lit book club in discussion of Theodore Dreiser’s classic Sister Carrie. We will be joined by UWM’s professors Jason Puskar and Amanda Seligman, along with a guest from the Florentine Opera. Dave Begel writes about the opera in OnMilwaukee: "Sister Carrie will be a commissioned world premiere of a new opera, something that the opera world takes very seriously. There have long been questions of where the new operas are going to come from, and while Puccini and Verdi still resonate and sell tickets, the developmental grants and funds are for new operas. That's why there will be so much national and international attention paid to "Sister Carrie" and why this is a big deal in the world of classical music."
Sister Carrie will be performed at Uihein Hall, Marcus Center for the Performing Arts October 7 and 9 for more information, including ticket information please visit Florentine Opera’s website.
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