News Thu Jul 31 2008

New Art from Niffenegger

Audrey Niffenegger has a comic running in the Guardian called The Night Bookmobile.

— Alice Maggio

News Thu Jul 31 2008

Trib Readers Respond

The Trib published some responses it received from its request for feedback about the (likely endangered) Books section. Responders include author Sara Paretsky and Roberta Rubin of the The Book Stall in Winnetka.

— Alice Maggio

Ink Tue Jul 29 2008

Reading It Anyways?

If you know you can't come to a book club meeting, do you still read the book?

— Alice Maggio

Events Mon Jul 28 2008

Event Spotlight: Funny Ha-Ha @ Hideout

Funny Ha-Ha's back with an all new installment of hilarious readings by talented writers. On Wednesday, Wendy McClure, Mimi Smartypants, Megan Stielstra of 2nd Story, Margaret Lyons of Time Out Chicago, author Amy Shearn, Lincoln Lodge regular Cameron Esposit and filmmaker Steve Delahoyde provide the laughgs. Hosted, as always, by very funny lady Claire Zulkey. $5 is the suggested donation for admission, all of which benefits the Neighborhood Writing Alliance. 7pm at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia. Call 773-227-4433 for more information.

— Veronica Bond

Quotable Fri Jul 25 2008

Quotable Friday

Every Friday is Quotable Friday on the book club blog, where we highlight a notable passage from a book with a Chicago connection. This week's quotable is by Morris Markey, writing about Chicago for McCall's magazine in March 1932:

"The thing was explosive in its effect upon the eye—more the fabulous projection of a city than a city itself. New York and London, Paris and Berlin and Vienna suddenly became old-fashioned in the memory. This was like a monstrous theatrical spectacle, when the curtain first goes up and you are a little dazed and you say, 'But heavens! It's more stunning than the real thing!' I felt as if the fireworks would commence at any instant, with rockets soaring and terrible detonations shaking the air, and that a flaming screen a mile high would begin to spell in red and white and blue: 'Chicago—World's Greatest City.'"

— Alice Maggio

News Thu Jul 24 2008

Dorothy the Modern Heroine

Dorothy the New Woman? In a timely article, the Guardian UK writes about The Wizard of Oz, our current book club selection:

"Dorothy in the book is definitely a modern heroine, if not a New Woman; she is the predecessor of many a plucky, stoic, staunch girl lead — neither a milksop nor a tomboy, but a little girl who embarks on her adventures in a spirit of curiosity, wonder and self-reliance."

— Alice Maggio

News Thu Jul 24 2008

James Wood on Alexander Hemon

James Wood writes a major critique of Alexander Hemon for the New Yorker:

"Hemon’s fiction has always been daring: Nowhere Man uses three or maybe four different narrators to rub in the silhouette of Jozef Pronek’s complicated life. The Lazarus Project is in some ways bolder still. It alternates chapters describing Brik’s travels with chapters imagining Lazarus Averbuch’s existence in the early twentieth century. It is both a historical fiction and an inquiry into the limits of historical fictionalizing."

— Alice Maggio

News Wed Jul 23 2008

Eric & Rachel = Henry & Clare?

It's official: the oft-talked about Brad-Pitt-and-Jennifer-Aniston-owned movie version of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife is slated for release on Christmas of this year. Playing the lead rolls of Henry and Clare are Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, neither of which I'd ever have imagined for the roles although both are sure to make this interesting and moving story sufficiently saccharine for the general movie-going public. I suppose I should just be happy that Brad and Jen were never in the runnings themselves.

— Veronica Bond

News Mon Jul 21 2008

Writing on the Wall

The Tribune-owned L.A. Times is cutting its books section. The last standalone books section will appear in the July 27 paper. Former L.A. Times book editors have already written a protest letter. This begs the question: How long before the Chicago Tribune books section is also history?

— Alice Maggio

Events Mon Jul 21 2008

Event Spotlight: Newbery Library Book Fair

The Newberry Library Book Fair is simply a book lover's dream. Lasting four days (Thursday-Sunday) and offering over 100,000 donated books in more than 60 categories for prices averaging below $2, you just can't go wrong by stopping over for an hour or two of browsing. Admission to the fair is free - check the website for the scheduled hours on each day. On Satuday, there will also be bughouse music and soapbox debates across the street in Washington Square Park. 60 W. Walton. Call 312-943-9090 for general information.

— Veronica Bond

Quotable Fri Jul 18 2008

Quotable Friday

Every Friday is Quotable Friday on the book club blog, where we highlight a notable passage from a book with a Chicago connection. This week's quotable is from our August Book Club selection, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

"Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty-looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar—except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole."

— Alice Maggio

News Thu Jul 17 2008

A Wake for Kate

Last month I reported that Kate the Great's Book Emporium is closing on July 25. Tomorrow the bookshop is having a wake, of sorts, with live music and readings, beginning at 7pm. Plus, all remaining books now are priced from $1-3. So stop by tomorrow to bid farewell to a plucky indie bookstore that, unfortunately, didn't survive. Kate the Great's Book Emporium. 5550 N. Broadway Ave.

— Alice Maggio

Book Club Wed Jul 16 2008

August 2008 Selection: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Come join us this month as we take a trip down the Yellow Brick Road to a place that many of us are already familiar with and love - the wonderful world of Oz. While most of us are well acquainted with the movie The Wizard of Oz, fewer people have been introduced to the book that originally inspired Judy Garland's famous performance. Written by L. Frank Baum in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz broke sales records and was made into a play and the famous musical, all of which turned the author into a celebrity. After the success of this first book, Baum went on to write fourteen other books in the series as well as over 35 other non-Oz books, none of which were ever as successful as the original Oz book and its immediate successor, The Marvelous Land of Oz.

Set in Kansas, the orphan Dorothy lives with her Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and dog Toto on a small farm that is one day hit by a horrible cyclone. Dorothy and Toto are carried away to a strange land where they are greeted by the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins, the inhabitants of the land. Soon after landing, Dorothy is told that her house has killed the Wicked Witch of the East and only her silver shoes (not red!) remain. After imploring the Good Witch for directions on how to get home, she gives Dorothy a protective kiss on her forehead and sends her on her way, down the Yellow Brick Road, to find the Wizard in the Emerald City of Oz. It is along this way that she meets three characters she will never forget: the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion.

It is a great example of Baum's wit that the very characteristics Dorothy's friends most desire are also the ones they most exemplify. The Scarecrow yearns for a brain, yet he is the one who constantly provides well-thought, logical solutions for the obstacles the group faces on the way to Oz. The Tin Man wants nothing more than a heart, but it is his great empathy for all living things that makes him noble and virtuous. The Cowardly Lion may believe his fear warrants him his name, but it is his ability to carry forth in the face of his fears that makes him truly courageous. Just as Dorothy was always able to find her way home, the story holds up the notion that everything you need is already inside you.

Born in New York, Baum moved to Chicago after the birth of his third son where he worked as a reporter for the Chicago Evening Post, a salesman and editor of a magazine for window decorators. He began publishing children's stories at the encouragement of his mother-in-law and first collaborated with Chicago illustrator W.W. Denslow in 1898. Denslow served as the original illustrator of the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Baum never intended to write more than one Oz book, however financial difficulties later in his life prompted him to continue the series. A dispute with Denslow over the first book's royalties resulted in John R. Neill serving as the illustrator for all the subsequent books. The Oz books have since become the subject of much critical analyses, from political, gender, commercialism, exchange theory and more.

— Veronica Bond

Events Mon Jul 14 2008

Event Spotlight: Local Author Night @ Book Cellar

The Book Cellar continues their great monthly series spotlighting local authors this Wednesday. This time four new authors join the ranks - Libby Hellman (Easy Innocence), Margot Justes (A Hotel in Paris), Francince Friedman (MatchDotBomb) and Jess Riley (Driving Sideways). Free at 7pm at 4736-38 N. Lincoln Ave. Call 773-293-2665 for more information.

— Veronica Bond

Quotable Fri Jul 11 2008

Quotable Friday

Every Friday is Quotable Friday on the book club blog, where we highlight a notable passage from a book with a Chicago connection. This week's quotable is from An Autobiography by Frank Lloyd Wright:

"We do not choose the style. No. Style is what is coming now and it will be what we are in all this. A thrilling moment in any architect's experience. He is about to see the countenance of something he is invoking with intense concentration. Out of this inner sense of order and love of the beauty of life something is to be born — maybe to live long as a message of hope and be a joy or a curse to his kind. His message he feels. None the less it will be "theirs," and rather more. And it is out of love and understanding that any building is born to bless or curse those it is built to serve. Bless them if they will see, understand and aid. Curse them as it will be cursed by them if either they or the architect fail to understand each other. This is the faith and the fear in the architect as he makes ready — to draw his design."

— Alice Maggio

News Tue Jul 08 2008

It's the Best Ever

The Telegraph lists its "50 Best Ever Summer Holiday Books." Picks include The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.

— Alice Maggio

News Tue Jul 08 2008

Obama Reads

Laura Miller wants you to know that Barack Obama reads serious books.

— Alice Maggio

News Tue Jul 08 2008

And We're Done

David Sedaris buys a tote bag.

— Alice Maggio

Events Mon Jul 07 2008

Event Spotlight: Salman Rushdie @ Harold Washington Library

Here's a chance to see one of the greatest novelists of our time in the flesh: Salman Rushdie. Come to the Harold Washington Library on Thursday to read from and discuss his newest work The Enchantress of Florence. He'll also be available to sign books, but only two per person so if you're a big fan you'll unfortunately have to leave your personal Rushide library at home. Free at 6pm. Call 312-747-4300 for more information.

— Veronica Bond