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Hello again,
Even though we keep you posted almost weekly on our many author events in the store and around town, we actually handle book sales at a good many other programs, where we really are simply the hired help, pretty much like the caterers, only with books.
Such was the case at a breakfast last week presented by the Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business of Georgia State University.
The speaker was Martin Melaver, and his new book is Living Above the Store: Building a Business That Creates Value, Inspires Change and Restores the Land and Community.
 A Savannah real estate developer, Melaver also has a PhD in American Literature and is an entrepreneur in the tradition of one of my heroes, Paul Hawken.
I was excited to learn about him and his book and was inspired by his talk. Even though it wasn't technically an A Cappella event, I thought I would take this opportunity to recommend it and to commend The Center for Ethics and their co-presenters for the program, The Institute for Georgia Environmental Leadership.
Until next time,
Frank Reiss
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Happy 250th to Guinness:
Buy a Book,
Win Free Beer
Celebrate 250 Years of Guinness with A Cappella Books at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, 1136 Euclid Ave.
We don't generally need much of an excuse to
spend some time with our old neighbors at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club,
but we've actually got a great one now: The Guinness Brewery is 250 years old, and The Goodness of Guinness: A Loving History of the Brewery, Its People, and the City of Dublin by Tony Corcoran has just come out from Skyhorse Publishing. We will have copies available for sale at the bar on Thursday, May 28 starting at 7 p.m.
Everyone who purchases a copy of the book will be entered into a raffle to win one of two $25 Yacht Club Gift Certificates.
The Yacht Club will also have Guinness specials all night as well as giveaways from the distributor.
We hope you can join us for the fun.
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How Our Food is Making Us Sick
And What We Can Do About It
Last Wednesday, we heard bestselling author Mark Kurlansky discuss his fascinating book The Food of a Younger Land and how Americans ate--for better and for worse--before the industrialization of food.
This Wednesday, May 27 at 7:15, at the Decatur Library at 215 Sycamore St., the Georgia Center for the Book presents a very different type of author with a very different
type of book, and this time, it is a thorough indictment of the current state of
American food, like Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation.
Robyn O'Brien --who has been called the Erin Brockovich of the food industry--will share her new book, The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It . You may have seen Robyn discussing her work recently on NBC's "The Today Show."
A Cappella will have copies of the book for sale. A book signing will follow O'Brien's presentation. A portion of the proceeds benefit The
Georgia Center for the Book. And thanks again to our friends at Slow Food Atlanta for helping us spread the word. |
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Local Author Saves Independent Bookstore:
Patti Callahan Henry's Driftwood Summer
In Atlanta author Patti Callahan Henry's new novel, three estranged sisters are brought back together by one of the most worthy causes imaginable (to us at least): to save their family's community bookstore. The Georgia Center for the Book presents Henry reading from Driftwood Summer on Monday, June 1 at 7:15 at the Decatur Library, 215 Sycamore St.
Following the reading, the Decatur Book Festival co-sponsors a "Book Launch Party" at their new digs at 176 South Candler Road.
Both events are free and open to the public. We'll have copies of Henry's books for sale. A portion of the sales benefit The Georgia Center for the Book. A slightly larger portion benefits our favorite family-owned community bookstore.
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Hip-Hop Theory of Justice:
A View from Both Sides of the System
Once in a while a book challenges our basic
assumptions about the way things work. Paul Butler was an ambitious
federal prosecutor, a Harvard Law graduate who gave up his corporate law
salary to fight the good fight--until one day he was arrested on the
street and charged with a crime he didn't commit.
At the courthouse Butler stood alongside the
people he'd spent his days sending to prison. This stint on the other
side of the law confirmed his sense that the system was not working-not
making the streets safer, nor helping the people he'd hoped, as a
prosecutor, to protect.
 Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice
gives an insider's view of the lock-'em-up culture that makes every
American worse off. We've reached the tipping point--so many people are
in prison, especially for nonviolent drug offenses, that incarceration
now causes more crime than it prevents. Butler offers innovative
methods for citizens to resist complicity and stand up for their
rights.
Butler's groundbreaking "hip hop theory of
justice" reveals a profound analysis of crime and punishment found in
popular culture. Let's Get Free offers a positive new vision of justice
and legal reform. A former federal prosecutor, Paul Butler provides legal
commentary for CNN, NPR, and the Fox News Network. He has been featured
on 60 Minutes and profiled in the Washington Post. He has written for
the Post, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times and is a law
professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He discusses and signs copies of his book at A Cappella on Thursday, June 4 at 7 p.m.
If you cannot attend the reading and would like to reserve a signed copy of the book, please click here. |
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Pakistani Author Presents Debut Novel:
Introducing Ali Sethi
Just 24 years old, Pakistani Ali Sethi
has emerged as a prominent spokesman in the US on his native county's
current civil strife and has the international literary world abuzz
with his first novel, The Wish Maker. On Sunday, June 14 at 4
pm A Cappella Books presents Sethi as he reads from, discusses and signs copies of
his debut book in Opal Gallery, adjacent to the
bookstore.
Sethi has written about his native country in The Nation and had a
recent op-ed piece on Pakistan in The New York Times. He also discussed
the current unrest in his homeland on NPR's Morning Edition.
Khaled
Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, has written that "The Wish Maker,
in Ali Sethi's mature and sure-handed prose, is an engaging family
saga, an absorbing coming-of-age story, and an illuminating look at one
of the world's most turbulent regions. Ali Sethi steadfastly resists
the usual clichés about both Islam and his native country. Instead, he
offers a nuanced, often humorous, and always novel look at life in
modern Pakistan."
A recent Harvard graduate, Sethi studied under such eminent writers as
Zadie Smith, who published her own remarkable debut at the same age as
her protege, and James Wood.
In The Wish Maker, Sethi evokes Pakistan in the era of Benazir Bhutto.
As rising extremism in the region places Pakistan more glaringly in the
eye of global media, Sethi's book--whose publication date is June
11--and his appearance at A Cappella/Opal is particularly timely. |
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Former Atlantan Returns With Captivating Tale of Bridge and Murder:
Gary Pomerantz at the Carter Center
Gary Pomerantz, who wrote what many of us think is the best book ever about Atlanta, Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn, returns to town on Monday, June 22 to speak at the Carter Center about his latest book, The Devil's Tickets: A Night of Bridge, A Fatal Hand, and a New American Age.
As the Roaring Twenties' last celebratory peals
rang through a nation about to slip into the Depression, a glamorous Kansas City housewife killed her philandering
husband over a bridge game.
At her ballyhooed murder trial, her defense
attorney was a two-time Democratic presidential candidate.
Watching from New York was Ely
Culbertson, a tuxedoed boulevardier with a Russian accent and a
gorgeous American wife, Josephine, who was his bridge partner.
As the P.T. Barnum of the game of bridge, Ely
Culbertson offered trial commentary and used the Bennetts' story to
sell bridge, his instructional books, and himself. Housewives adored
him and rushed to hear his lectures. A few months after the 1931 trial,
when the Culbertsons won the Bridge Battle of the Century at the
Waldorf-Astoria amid the glitter of New York's high society and
Hollywood newsreels, they became millionaire icons.
Through these larger-than-life characters and the timeless partnership game they played, The Devil's Tickets
evokes the last echoes of the Gay '20s and the darkness of the
Depression. Ultimately it reveals a tension between husbands and wives
that is eternal and that manifests itself at the bridge table-both then
and now-in ways surprising and profound.
Pomerantz' talk begins at 7 pm. A Cappella will have copies of The Devil's Tickets for sale at the Carter Center. A booksigning will follow.
If you cannot attend but would like to reserve a signed copy of The Devil's Tickets, please click here.
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