Greetings!

Greetings from your local independent bookstore. I hope you have been enjoying the unseasonable weather--I guess that is all coming to an end tomorrow. I know you weren't looking to this email for a weather report, but because we are hosting Ayad Akhtar, author of American Dervish, this week, we must think about these things.

Due to the weather, and in particular, projected hazardous winds on Thursday evening, we are moving our launch event with Mr. Akhtar to Friday, January 13, 7 pm. We are not always able to do this, but since we're able to work this out, it seems like the best solution. Alas, you will still see some media with the wrong date, but just remember that Friday is the right day. If the weather is what is predicted, you wouldn't have come out anyway.

Tonight at Boswell? I've Got the After-College, Baby-sitting, Pop-Culture Filled, Arrested-Development Blues with Leigh Stein.

 
Fiction writer and poet Leigh Stein comes to Boswell Wednesday, January 11, 7 pm, for her novel, The Fallback Plan, chronicling the tricky time between graduating from college and moving out of your parents' house. Stein's book of poetry, Dispatches from the Future, will be coming out from Melville House later this spring. Her poetry is been awarded the coveted Amy award from Poets and Writers magazine.

Stein is known for her work in New York's poetry and puppets series. And she uses these skills in this wry trailer. You can understand why I received word that her launch event at Greenlight Books in Brooklyn was total pandamonium. Read more about Leigh Stein in this Boston Globe article, or try our blog post.

David Finch's Humorous Take on Coping with Aspergers, Tuesday, January 17, 7 pm, at Boswell.

I would love to say I discovered David Finch's humorous take on Asperger's in his original New York Times Magazine essay, "Somewhere Inside, a Path to Empathy," but I must admit I am a consistent but sometimes spotty reader of the Sunday paper. Instead it was the reading room at the Great Lakes booksellers fall trade show where I fell for his charms. That's why I am particularly excited that Finch will be speaking at Boswell on Tuesday, January 17, at 7 pm for his new memoir The Journal of Best Practices.

He was talking about his semi-professional (or was it semi-amateur) diagnosis of Asperger's by his wife, a speech therapist, after giving him a battery of questions. The entire room was laughing at with Finch's descriptions of his behavior, his coping mechanisms. We definitely weren't laughing at David, but with him, as he described his behaviors, his coping methods, his take on others and himself. He made his diagnosis real and understandable to everyone in the audience...
 

Read the rest of this essay on our blog, and better yet, come hear Mr. Finch himself at Boswell, on Tuesday, January 17, 7 pm. Want more? Read this interview in O Magazine.

We're Back at the Sugar Maple in Bay View for a Joint Reading with Patrick Somerville and Hannah Pittard on Thursday, Jan. 17, 7 pm.

We've had such a great time at the Sugar Maple on 441 E. Lincoln Avenue for our previous events with Justin Cronin/Dan Chaon and Josh Wilker/David Anthony/Pete Nelson that we hoped to find just the right combination for a return visit. We think we've found it in a joint reading with Hannah Pittard, author of The Fates will Find Their Way, and Patrick Somerville, author of the novel The Cradle and his most recent story collection,The Universe in Miniature in Miniature.

Both authors bring just the right combination of gravitas and fun to the event. And honestly, sometimes you want a nice pint of Night Train Porter to go with your reading, and at least for now, Boswell doesn't have a liquor license. Note to self: get down to an event at Chicago's Book Cellar, where vino is always a literary option.

On Monday, January 23, 7 pm, Adam Johnson Discusses His Epic New Novel Set in North Korea,  

An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master's Son follows a young man's journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world's most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea. The book is already winning raves in the press. Booklist raves: "Part adventure, part coming-of-age tale, and part romance, The Orphan Master's Son is a triumph on every level." 

Adam Johnson's second novel and third published book, following his acclaimed story collection Emporium and his previous novel Parasites Like Us, tells the haunting story of Pak Jun Do, whose mother was a singer "stolen" to Pyongyang and whose father runs a work camp for orphans. It is in the work camp that Jun Do is given his first taste of power, allowed to choose who eats when and who works where. As his superiors boost him ever higher, his job begins requiring much more sinister abuses of power for the state.

Pak Jun Do is trained as a low-level operative, charged with kidnapping Japanese and South Korean folks for intelligence tasks. But a chain of events leads to him impersonating Commander Ga, in charge of the prison mines and married to the beloved actress Sun Moon. Like many novels I love, the story is told from several perspectives--from Jun Do/Ga, from his interrogator, and from the official loudspeaker chronicling the Best North Korean story of the year.

But Adam Johnson plays with the storytelling narrative by subverting the idea of genre altogether. As Richard Powers notes in a conversation chronicled in the advance copy, Johnson collides "bildungsroman, prison narrative, sea story, romantic drama, escape thriller, comic picaresque, and heroic opera", not to mention social realist drama and a wee bit of satire. You can read my entire take on this novel in the Boswell and Books blog. Or hear more from Adam Johnson himself, including the story about how he was able to do research in North Korea for this novel, when he visits on Monday, January 23, 7 pm.

Inside the Creative Writing Classroom--A Launch Event with Our Friends from UWM on Thursday, January 26, 7 pm.

Chris Drew, Joseph Rein, and David Yost, graduate students at UWM, have co-edited a useful book of exercises for creative writers and creative teachers. Dispatches from the Classroom: Graduate Students on Creative Writing Pedagogy is a collection of recent theoretical scholarship, with an emphasis on practical application.

Our talk with Yost, Rein, and Drew will touch on ways to teach creative writing in a classroom environment, utilizing selections and exercises from their new book. The sections of Dispatches from the Classroom include  "Laying the Ground Rules", "What is 'Appropriate' for the Workshop?", "Teaching 'Technique'", and "The Hybrid TA."

Our talk is Thursday, January 26, 7 pm. If you've been there, are there, or are contemplating going there (and by that I mean creative writing academia), this is the event for you. And if you know the authors, come to celebrate their new book's release.

Paul Wilkes Contemplates Confession on Friday, January 27, 7 pm. 

The Art of Confession: Renewing Yourself Through the Practice of Honesty draws on traditions from ancient Greece, psychoanalysis, Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism, and Islam to show readers how to incorporate a confessional practice into their daily lives. There are visualizations, spiritual exercises, prompts, meditations, private confessions, direction confessions, psychological confessions, and more, all illustrating the relief and renewal that true self-reflection can encourage.

Marquette graduate Paul Wilkes has distinguished himself as a documentary filmmaker, social entrepreneur, and author, having written over forty books. In his new book, he suggests that in a world where confession is easy--just post a message and say you're sorry--it is more and more common for such confessions to be noticeably devoid of honesty. But a true confession can help us find what is best and true and virtuous in our natures.

Marianne Williamson praises The Art of Confession: "This book illuminates the Atonement, the powerful way of cleaning up the past and readying your heart to start over again. It truly does enlighten and restore." Mark your calendar for January 27, 7 pm.

Tickets Now On Sale for Ira Glass at the Pabst Theater, Saturday, February 4, 8 pm.

We're excited to be part of "Reinventing Radio", a rare up close & personal evening with the host & creator of PRI's This American Life. Ira Glass will discuss what makes a compelling story, where the amazing stories on his show are found and how he and his staff are trying to push broadcast journalism to new heights.