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Events Wed Oct 22 2014

Book Club @ The Chicago Humanities Festival

The Chicago Humanities Festival begins full-swing this weekend, and four BC staff writers are first in line. Check out where we're headed this Saturday, Oct. 25, and why you should tag along!

jamaica_kincaid.pngJack @ Jamaica Kincaid (11:00 am)
In college, I accidentally signed up for a literature class entitled "Caribbean Literature." Thinking it'd be sort of a blow off course, I quickly found out I was dead wrong. The lit that we read, although there was an overwhelming amount of it, was incredibly enjoyable and included writers such as Sam Selvon, Edwidge Dantecat and Nobel Prize-winner V.S. Naipaul.

Of all the books we read during that semester, there's one that stands out above all else: Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid. I read the text front to back in one sitting, which was admittedly no real feat, the novella being somewhere around 100 pages. However, it was my favorite out of all the quality books that we read.

Much of Kincaid's work reflects on the disorienting experience of moving from one place to another, a perfect companion for many a Chicagoan. A widely-acclaimed writer for her fiction, nonfiction, and work as a staff writer at The New Yorker, Kincaid has done it all and won many prizes in the process. Check out her talk with CHF Emeritus Artistic Director, Lawrence Weschler, on Oct. 25, 11am-12pm at Cahn Auditorium. Tickets are $15 for CHF Members and $20 for the general public.

eula_biss_where_we_are_from.pngDannette @ Eula Bliss (2:30 pm)
Biss is the author of the award-winning Notes from No Man's Land, a collection of essays exploring race and racial identity that Biss compiled while traveling across the country. Her latest work, On Immunity: An Inoculation, spans less geography, but tackles no less controversy; prompted by the anxiety of new motherhood, Biss takes a harrowing look at the science and history of immunizations. The author will be joined by Katie Watson, a professor of medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern.

wallace_shawn.pngAlex @ Wallace Shawn (5:00 pm)
Whether your memories of Wallace Shawn are at dinner with Andre Gregory, shouting "inconceivable!" into the ironic abyss of The Princess Bride or starring in Jonathan Demme's newest film, The Master Builder (an adaptation by Shawn of Ibsen's play), it is certain that this Saturday's Chicago Humanities Festival event would be silly to miss.

The iconic actor and playwright has been featured in nearly 100 films (including 7 in 1995 alone). He was awarded the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award in 2005 as a Master American Dramatist.

still_failing_gary_shteyngart_returns.pngMiden @ Gary Shteyngart (7:30 pm)
Even if one hasn't heard of Gary Shteyngart, bookstore loiterers would doubtless recognize the polka-dotted jacket of his bestselling novel Super Sad True Love Story. When I first started reading Love Story, I underlined every phrase that made me laugh out loud. Now, my copy is so dense with stripes one could feasibly call it nautical.

Of course I can't help but wonder about the author of a book that so strikes me with its wit. Now I need not wonder at all: Shteyngart's memoir, Little Failure employs both wit and heart in detailing his childhood; from the transition from Soviet Russia to America, to his extreme childhood asthma, to the climactic unveiling of his first unreleased work -- a 100-page novel about Lenin and a magical goose that he wrote for his grandmother in exchange for slices of cheese.

 
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Mark Dostert / November 1, 2014 11:33 AM

I just heard Mr. Shteyngart read in Houston at Brazos Bookstore. What a mind! What a sensibility! What a storyteller! Wish I could be there in Chicago to hear him again!
Mark Dostert

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