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Greetings!

A surprise I must say!

It made my very day!

2011 has been our best year ever, so it's VERY rewarding to announce that Vivien Jennings received the "Dr. Seuss Award" for Outstanding Community Volunteer from Reach Out and Read Kansas City in recognition of her support and promotion of early childhood literacy.  She was particularly amused by the Dr. Seuss Book Title they chose to accompany the award.  If I Ran The Circus might be the Title of her memoir!

Colby and Megan Garrelts           

bluestem: the cookbook

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 5:30 PM at Studio Dan Meiners.

Rainy Day Books, Dan Meiners and Steve Chick invite you into Studio Dan Meiners for a cocktail reception to chat with Chefs and Owners Colby & Megan Garrelts of bluestem debuting their first Book, bluestem, the cookbook, just in time for the holiday season!  Chefs Colby & Megan will be present during the reception to mingle with the guests and personalize Cookbooks.

Daniel Woodrell           

The Outlaw Album

Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 6:30 PM at Kansas City Public Library, Central Branch.

Writer Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone, appears as part of the Writers At Work Speaker Series.  Sponsored by the Kansas City Public Library, the UMKC English Department, the Writers at Work Round Table, and Rainy Day Books.  Daniel Woodrell appears to discuss his new collection of short stories The Outlaw Album.

Emily Giffin           

Heart of the Matter

Saturday, November 19, 2011 at 3:00 PM at Rainy Day Books.

Emily Giffin is a graduate of Wake Forest University and the University of Virginia School of Law.  After practicing litigation at a Manhattan firm for several years, she moved to London to write full time.  The author of four New York Times Bestselling novels including Something Borrowed and Something Blue, she now lives in Atlanta with her husband and three young children.

A late addition to our Autumn Author Event Calendar, meet Book Club favorite Emily Giffin as she comes to Kansas City!

Christopher Paolini           

Inheritance

Monday, November 21, 2011 at 7:00 PM at Unity Temple on The Plaza.

Christopher Paolini is the author of the New York Times Bestselling Books: Eragon, Eldest, and Brsinger.  He lives in Montana.

The final chapter of the Inheritance Cycle is here!  Join us as we welcome back the delightful Christopher Paolini.  If you are about to start reading the Book, Christopher will preserve the secrets and surprises!  Come join us to celebrate the finale of the Internationally Bestselling Series.

Walter Isaacson           

Steve Jobs            

CONFIRMED EVENT DATE:  Tuesday, December 06, 2011 at 7:00 PM at Unity Temple on The Plaza

Walter Isaacson is the President & Chief Executive Officer of The Aspen Institute, the former Chairman of CNN, and the former Managing Editor of Time Magazine.  He is the Bestselling author of Einstein: His Life and Universe, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, and of Kissinger: A Biography, and the Co-Author of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made.

Walter Isaacson will be interviewed on Stage by Vivien Jennings, Founder & President and Roger Doeren, Chief Operations Officer of Rainy Day Books, Inc., in a Multimedia Celebration of Steve Jobs.  Co-Sponsored by Rainy Day Books, The Apple Stores, AT&T Mobility, River City Solutions, Country Club Bank, Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology, and Rockhurst University.

Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs, the Co-Founder & Chairman of Apple Inc., is the most highly anticipated nonfiction book of the year.  Based on more than forty interviews with Steve conducted over two years, as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues, Walter has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for precision and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

Be the lucky Winner of a State-of-the-Art and Top-of-the-Line Apple iPad 2, Black, Wi-Fi + 3G, AT&T, 64GB Model from AT&T Mobility.

Every month our buyers select new and noteworthy titles that they they think you'll find interesting. Here are a few titles from this month's Buyer's Picks list:

Fiction

Love and Shame and Love

Peter Orner 

Hardcover,  

Little, Brown

Alexander Popper can't stop remembering. Four years old when his father tossed him into Lake Michigan, he was told, Sink or swim, kid. In his mind, he's still bobbing in that frigid water. The rest of this novel's vivid cast of characters also struggle to remain afloat: Popper's mother, stymied by an unhappy marriage, seeks solace in the relentless energy of Chicago; his brother, Leo, shadow boss of the family, retreats into books; paternal grandparents, Seymour and Bernice, once high fliers, now mourn for long lost days; his father, a lawyer and would-be politician obsessed with his own success, fails to see that the family is falling apart; and his college girlfriend, the fiercely independent Kat, wrestles with impossible choices. Covering four generations of the Popper family, Peter Orner illuminates the countless ways that love both makes us whole and completely unravels us. A comic and sorrowful tapestry of memory of connection and disconnection, Love and Shame and Love explores the universals with stunning originality and wisdom.

Read more. 

White Truffles in Winter  

Thomas Steinbeck  

Hardcover, WW Norton

White Truffles in Winter imagines the world of the remarkable French chef Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935), who changed how we eat through his legendary restaurants at the Savoy and the Ritz. A man of contradictions-kind yet imperious, food-obsessed yet rarely hungry-Escoffier was also torn between two women: the famous, beautiful, and reckless actress Sarah Bernhardt and his wife, the independent and sublime poet Delphine Daffis, who refused ever to leave Monte Carlo. In the last year of Escoffier's life, in the middle of writing his memoirs, he has returned to Delphine, who requests a dish in her name as he has honored Bernhardt, Queen Victoria, and many others. How does one define the complexity of love on a single plate? N. M. Kelby brings us the sensuality of food and love amid a world on the verge of war in this work that shimmers with beauty and longing.  Read more. 

Nonfiction

Civilization: The West and the Rest

Niall Ferguson 

Hardcover,  

Penguin Press

The rise to global predominance of Western civilization is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five hundred years. All over the world, an astonishing proportion of people now work for Western-style companies, study at Western-style universities, vote for Western-style governments, take Western medicines, wear Western clothes, and even work Western hours. Yet six hundred years ago the petty kingdoms of Western Europe seemed unlikely to achieve much more than perpetual internecine warfare. It was Ming China or Ottoman Turkey that had the look of world civilizations. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed? In Civilization: The West and the Rest, bestselling author Niall Ferguson argues that, beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts that the Rest lacked: competition, science, the rule of law, consumerism, modern medicine, and the work ethic. These were the "killer applications" that allowed the West to leap ahead of the Rest, opening global trade routes, exploiting newly discovered scientific laws, evolving a system of representative government, more than doubling life expectancy, unleashing the Industrial Revolution, and embracing a dynamic work ethic. Civilization shows just how fewer than a dozen Western empires came to control more than half of humanity and four fifths of the world economy.

Read more. 

Then Again

Diane Keaton

Hardcover, Random House

"Mom loved adages, quotes, slogans. There were always little reminders pasted on the kitchen wall. For example, the word THINK. I found THINK thumbtacked on a bulletin board in her darkroom. I saw it Scotch-taped on a pencil box she'd collaged. I even found a pamphlet titled THINK on her bedside table. Mom liked to THINK." So begins Diane Keaton's unforgettable memoir about her mother and herself. In it you will meet the woman known to tens of millions as Annie Hall, but you will also meet, and fall in love with, her mother, the loving, complicated, always thinking Dorothy Hall. To write about herself, Diane realized she had to write about her mother, too, and how their bond came to define both their lives. And so, in a remarkable act of creation, Diane not only reveals herself to us, she also lets us meet in intimate detail her mother. Throughout her life, Dorothy kept eighty-five journals-literally thousands of pages-in which she wrote about her marriage, her children, and, most probingly, about herself. Dorothy also recorded memorable stories about Diane's grandparents. Diane has sorted through all these pages to paint an unflinching portrait of her mother-a woman restless with intellectual and creative energy struggling to find an outlet for her talents-as well as her entire family, recounting a story that spans four generations and nearly a hundred years. Read more. 

For Young Readers 

Chilly Milly Moo

Fiona Ross    

Hardcover, Candlewick   

Milly Moo wants only one thing: to churn out the finest, tastiest, creamiest milk around. But there's just one problem. She's always too hot! While all the other cows snicker and bask in the sun, Milly Moo's milk bucket keeps coming up empty. Nada! Zilch! Just when she's sure that the farmer will banish her, Milly Moo wakes to a freezing cold morning. It's her last chance! Will the icy temperature help her make the special milk product she dreams of? With slyly humorous illustrations and a fun final twist, this treat from Fiona Ross will have children begging for second helpings. Read more.