News Wed Apr 30 2008
The Society of Midland Authors recently announced the winners of its annual awards. SMA is open "to authors who live in, were born in, or have strong ties to" states throughout the Midwest, including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. This year's award winners and runners-up include several writers from the Chicagoland area, including Judith Testa, who won in the biography category for her book Sal Maglie: Baseball's Demon Barber, and Tony Romano, a finalist in the adult fiction category for his novel When the World Was Young.
The awards banquet will be held on Tuesday, May 13, at the Hotel InterContinental. It is open to the public. Tickets are $60. You can find out more on the website.
— Alice Maggio
News Wed Apr 30 2008
Ray Bradbury's classic novel Dandelion Wine was our September 2005 book club selection. Now you can make your own dandelion wine thanks to WikiHow. According to the tutorial's author, April and May are the best months for harvesting dandelions. This depends, however, on whether you are able to find a lawn or field in the Chicagoland area that still supports dandelions. Most spots have been thoroughly poisoned with pesticides and weedkiller.
— Alice Maggio
News Tue Apr 29 2008
Battleground Chicago by Frank Kusch has been republished by the University of Chicago Press to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the 1968 Democratic Convention. Find out more about the book at the UofC Press website, and even read an excerpt.
— Alice Maggio
News Tue Apr 29 2008
Benjamin Kunkel is rereading Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut and writes about it for the Guardian, calling the book "a funny and despairing vision of the last judgment done in comic-book style."
— Alice Maggio
News Mon Apr 28 2008
Chicago's Outfit Collective has been blogging about Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye all month, ever since the Chicago Public Library picked the book as the spring 2008 "One Book, One Chicago" selection. This weekend Barbara D’Amato wrapped up the series of posts with an examination of Chandler's writing and revision process.
— Alice Maggio
News Mon Apr 28 2008
The Washington Post has an early review of The Lazarus Project, and the reviewer calls the structure of the novel "ingenious."
— Alice Maggio
Events Mon Apr 28 2008
Critically acclaimed local author Aleksandar Hemon will be at Barnes & Noble in Evanston on Thursday to promote the release of his third novel, The Lazarus Project. Hemon's last book, Nowhere Man, was the book club's October 2005 selection. The event is free, and it begins at 7pm. The Evanston Barnes & Noble is located at 1630 Sherman Avenue. See Slowdown for more.
— Alice Maggio /
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 the autobiography American Daughter by Era Bell Thompson, which was first published in 1946:
Cranks, philanthropists, or plain, everyday Americans, I like them all. For every bad one, there are twenty good ones. We can't always find jobs for them, we aren't always successful at getting them to take the jobs we find, but we can give them a kind and sympathetic audience. It is surprising to know how many people in the world are hungry for kindness, to have someone believe in them. And I do believe in them.
When a forelady in a box factory asks, "Isn't it wonderful to live in a country where you can sit down and tell your troubles to someone and have them listen?"
— Alice Maggio
The May 2008 selection of the Gapers Block Book Club is The Grass Dancer by Susan Power, her magical debut novel that was first published in 1994, won the Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award for first fiction for that year, and was also named an American Library Association notable book in 1995.
The Grass Dancer is a collection of interwoven stories about the residents of a Sioux reservation in North Dakota, but while each chapter can stand apart as a separate story, together the stories create a complex portrait of Native American history and culture. The stories move seamlessly back and forth through time beginning in 1981 and reaching back to 1864 before returning full-circle to 1982.
Pumpkin is the title character, an 18-year-old Menominee woman from Chicago who wants to spend her summer dancing in as many powwows as she can. She is a talented grass dancer, a role traditionally performed by men. She meets the troubled 17-year-old Harley Wind Soldier at an inter-tribal powwow in North Dakota, and the two quickly fall in love. But Pumpkin's tragic fate early in the story sets the rest of the novel into motion as we gradually discover the intertwined lives, dreams and histories which led to the present events. The Grass Dancer is a vivid and magical novel in which spirits from the past continue to exert powerful influence over the present.
About the Author
Susan Power was born in Chicago in 1961 and is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Her mother founded Chicago's American Indian Center, which is still located on Wilson Ave. in the Ravenswood neighborhood. When she was 17, Power was named Miss Indian Chicago, but then she left the city to attend Radcliffe College and Harvard University Law School, where she earned her J.D. Power only practiced law a short time, however, before she decided to pursue writing and returned to school to attend the Iowa Writers Workshop. In addition to The Grass Dancer, Susan Power is also the author of the novel Strong Heart Society and Roofwalker, a collection of short stories and essays.
Further Reading
Find out more about Susan Power at the Voices from the Gaps website, which includes a short biography and a 2000 interview with the writer.
See and hear Susan Power in a 36-minute webcast from her appearance at the National Book Festival in 2003 at the Library of Congress website. [Requires RealPlayer to view.]
~*~
Read The Grass Dancer and then join us on Monday, May 19, at 7:30pm at The Book Cellar in Lincoln Square to discuss the book. No RSVP is required, and new members are always welcome.
— Alice Maggio
Ink Tue Apr 22 2008
Playing off the American Book Review list of best opening lines in literature, what is your favorite opening line from a book?
— Alice Maggio /
Events Mon Apr 21 2008
Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson (Gilead, Housekeeping) comes to DePaul on Thursday to discuss her works as part of their "Writing and the Catholic Imagination" series. Free and open to the public at 7pm in the Student Center, 2250 N. Sheffield. Call 773-325-7346 for more information.
— Veronica Bond
Every Friday is Quotable Friday on the book club blog, where we highlight a notable passage from a book with a Chicago connection. April is National Poetry Month, so this week's quotable is Carl Sandburg's poem "At a Window" from Chicago Poems.
At a Window
Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!
But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.
In the dusk of day-shapes
Blurring the sunset,
One little wandering, western star
Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.
Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.
— Alice Maggio
News Thu Apr 17 2008
American Book Review compiled a list of the 100 best first lines from novels. The opening lines from Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Herzog by Saul Bellow, recent book club selection Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, plus many more writers with a local connection made the list.
— Alice Maggio /
News Thu Apr 17 2008
Chicago-related lit news and reviews from around the web:
• The Chicago Tribune reviews More Than a Dream: The Cristo Rey Story: How One School's Vision Is Changing the World by G.R. Kearney, about Chicago's Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, and says "what is most notable about the book is its honest willingness to leave all the warts on the story."
• Jane Dailey also looks at Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets
by Sudhir Venkatesh in the Trib, and believes Venkatesh "romanticizes the drug world."
• "Mr. Wonderful" by Daniel Clowes, which was serialized in the New York Times, has been nominated for an Eisner Award in the "Best Short Story" category. Chris Ware is also nominated for no less than three awards for Acme Novelty Library #18, Best American Comics 2007 and Sundays with Walt and Skeezix.
— Alice Maggio
Events Mon Apr 14 2008
This week I'm going to take a moment to toot our own horn - tonight's Book Club meeting marks three years since we first started getting together to discuss the wealth of local literature our city provides. From angsty punk adolescents to cyborg bounty hunters to a depression-era circus, we've had some interesting and exciting travels. To celebrate the past three years and to thank all of you who have joined and supported us, both online and in real life, we welcome you to enjoy some desserts and beverages with us as we discuss our current book, Middlesex. We look forward to discovering more local classic and emerging work with you in the years to come. 7:30pm tonight at the Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln Ave.
— Veronica Bond
Quotable Friday is back! every Friday on the book club blog we highlight a notable passage from a book with a Chicago connection. This week's quotable is from our current book club selection, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides:
"The most famous hermaphrodite in history? Me? It felt good to write that, but I've got a long way to go. I'm closeted at work, revealing myself only to a few friends. At cocktail receptions, when I find myself standing next to the former ambassador (also a native of Detroit), we talk about the Tigers. Only a few people here in Berlin know my secret. I tell more people than I used to, but I'm not at all consistent. Some nights I tell people I've just met. In other cases I keep silent forever."
— Alice Maggio
News Thu Apr 10 2008
The Telegraph claims to have designed the perfect library, consisting of just 110 books. Titles are broken down by genre, from classics to literary fiction to sci-fi and children's books. A few writers with local connections made the list, including Ernest Hemingway, Philip Roth and past book club selection Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Check out the full list here.
— Alice Maggio
First, a note: next week's meeting marks the third anniversary of the GB Book Club and we hope to celebrate it with all who come with some tasty treats and drinks on us! Whether you're only able to follow us online or whether you've become one of our regular meeting attendees, we're very glad to have had you along for this literary ride.
Below are the questions we'll use to discuss Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex, in which I hope you're all thoroughly and wonderfully engrossed. Feel free to post answers, thoughts or additional questions in the comments. Remember - spoilers are allowed.
- Do you trust Cal as a narrator? How you feel about the parts where he was narrating his grandparents’ and his parents’ pasts? Were these truthful?
- Do you feel the author wrote Callie as a woman well? Were her thoughts and actions believable?
- What role does fate play in the story? How do people either depend on it or challenge it?
- What is Dr. Luce’s role in the story? Did you find him villainous or merely someone doing their job? What reaction did you have to Luce’s theories as influenced by current beliefs about gender?
- Why did Callie feel the need to run away after reading Dr. Luce’s report? Do you think Milton and Tessie would have accepted her decision not to have the surgery? Would Callie have been able to transform into Cal within her family or was it necessary for her to go out on her own?
- Is Cal being exploited during his time in San Francisco? What allows him to put his body on display when all of his life he’s made efforts to hide it?
- Both Cal and his grandparents are strangers in a strange land. How does Cal’s shift in gender compare to his grandparents’ shift in space? Are they similar experiences of immigration or are they different? How does Cal compare his own changes to that of his grandparents’?
- How does history shape the lives of these characters? How do the burning of Smyrna, the rise of Islam, the Detroit riots, etc., force the characters to go through their own transformations?
- What does America represent for these characters – for Desdemona and Lefty, for Milton and Tessie, and for Cal and his brother? Do their visions of America differ based on their status as first-, second- and third-generation immigrants?
- What do you think of Cal’s current relationship with Julie? How do you think the author wants us to believe it ends?
— Veronica Bond
News Wed Apr 09 2008
Perfectly coinciding with our reading Middlesex this month, Jeffrey Eugenides has a new story in a recent issue of the New Yorker. And, the story is set in Chicago. I expect everyone to be prepared to discuss it on Monday, in addition to Middlesex.
Just kidding.
— Alice Maggio
News Tue Apr 08 2008
The Poetry Center of Chicago is accepting applications for its summer residency program. According to the Center's guidelines, one poet will be awarded a month-long poetry residency with housing. This residency is open to poets who have published no more than one book of poetry, not including self-published work. In addition to housing, the poet will receive a $1,000 stipend. The poet is responsible for his/her own travel and meal expenses. The submission deadline is Friday, May 9, 2008. You can download the application from the Poetry Center website here.
— Alice Maggio
News Tue Apr 08 2008
Time to close a few bookmarks. Here is some recent book news and reviews with a Chicago connection from around the web:
• The Chicago Tribune reviews Easy Innocence, a new mystery by local author Libby Fischer Hellman.
• The Denver Post reviews Windy City, the new political novel by Scott Simon, and calls it "nothing less than a passionate love letter to Chicago and its political machine."
• Sara Paretsky talks to the Independent about everything from obesity to embryo research to Barack Obama as Bleeding Kansas is published in the UK.
• Tony D'Souza writes a long essay about Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee for the NBCC blog, in which he argues that the novel is "the definitive work on South Africa’s present state."
— Alice Maggio
News Tue Apr 08 2008
I've been MIA the last few weeks, mostly laid up in bed with a nasty flu and feeling very sorry for myself. But that's in the past, and we're overdue for a new question in Ink.
Thanks to everyone who responded to the last question about donating books. I was not aware of the community boxes someone mentioned, and I wholeheartedly endorse donating to the Newberry Library Book Fair, although in my personal experience, the book fair has a tendency to expand my book inventory more than it lessens it.
But this time I want to hear about e-books and e-book readers. Amazon.com claims it cannot keep up with demand for its Kindle e-book device, yet I don't know anyone who owns one. Do you? Do you read e-books or own an e-book reader? Why or why not? Leave your comments above in Ink.
— Alice Maggio
Ink Tue Apr 08 2008
Do you read e-books? Do you have an e-book reader?
— Alice Maggio /
Events Mon Apr 07 2008
This week Women & Children First offers you the opportunity to see two renowned women writers at the Swedish American Museum. On Tuesday you can see Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri, who will read from her new book Unaccustomed Earth. On Wednesday, Isabel Allende reads from her new memoir The Sum of Our Days. Tickets to both events are free with the purchase of the respective books at W&CF (you can request an additional ticket for $5 with your purchase). Both readings start at 7:30pm at 5211 N. Clark St. Call 773-769-9299 for more information.
— Veronica Bond
