Our programming gurus, Tom Bell and Terra Elan McVoy, take great pride in their ability to program for a diverse audience. They have, however, missed an important book loving segment, and we have been called out. A letter of protest has been received in our offices from Kona K., head of public relations at Bound to Be Read Books.

My name is Kona Kitty and I am the Director of Public Relations at Bound To Be Read Books, plus a paw model, and lead singer in the all-feline punk band Kona Kitty and the Kinky Whiskers. Purrhaps the name rings a tiny silver bell … Ding-a-ling? I’m also an author and currently shopping my life story, Furmoir: My Life in Fur, as well as my historical Southern epic, Fsst! with the Wind.

It has come to my attention that there is a paucity of pussycats in the 2010 Decatur Book Festival program. Not only is there a very blatant human bias in the featured authors and events, but I am deeply troubled that you included a “Man’s Best Friend Track” of talks by authors of books about dogs.

And where, purr-chance is the “Cats ‘R’ Cool Track” of talks by authors of books about kitties? In reviewing the program, I have identified not one author or event featuring writers of the feline purrsuasion. Once again cats have been pushed to the back of the pet carrier, leaving a slobbering face as the image of domesticated pets everywhere. I hiss in your general direction!

Maybe I could look beyond this egregious species bias had the books featured in your doggie track actually been written by dogs. But no—they’re written by humans! (I’m beginning to see a disturbing pattern here, Mr. Wang.) Why the Decatur Book Festival would want to highlight an animal that slobbers profusely and has to be walked to the toilet several times a day is beyond me. Dogs have as much in common with books as birds have with kilts. Cats, on the other paw, are like a good book in lots of ways, although space does not permit me to list them now.

It’s also imperative to mention the great legends of the feline literary canon whose names and masterpieces you have blatantly ignored. Who can forget the screwball comedy of Mr. Mittens’ zany tale of a jealous housecat who sells the new baby on e-Bay in I Bid You Adieu?

Who didn’t fear for all of their nine lives while reading Lady Bird Munchenstein’s thriller about a recovering catnip junkie stalked by a psychopathic gardener in Nip It in the Bud?

Who could quit turning pages to find out how an ordinary tomcat could pull off a pet store heist in Puss in Cahoots? Wonderful stories, all!

Clearly an injustice has occurred under your leadership, Mr. Wang, and recompense – or a tuna milkshake, at the very least – is called for.

This is a serious matter and, although I support the fabulous job that you do in the Atlanta literary community, we cats must stand up for dignity and inclusion. Therefore, I am calling for a feline boycott of the 2010 Decatur Book Festival.

That’s right, there will be no pussycats shyly raising their paws during the keynote speaker’s address to ask Mr. Franzen if he prefers short-hairs to long-haired breeds. There will be no cats to walk between Ms. Gruen’s legs and warm her ankles. And there will be no pussycat posse patrolling the Old Courthouse for rogue mice that may interrupt your little soiree with their tiny pitter-pattering feet.

I am feline; hear me roar!

If the kitty literati is not shown some love at the 2011 Decatur Book Festival, I promise you that books will be shredded, Mr. Wang, books will be shredded …

Miaow for now,

Kona Kitty,

Director of Public Relations

It's not as if my own cats haven't lodged this complaint with me personally. We should have been more sensitive to the issue

Bookzilla has arrived. I hope to see any and all of you Verb followers out on the Decatur Square this weekend for the AJC-Decatur Book Festival.

Jonathan Safran Foer: EATING ANIMALS
Wednesday 9/1 7pm
Atlanta History Center
Jonathan Safran Foer will discuss his bestselling work, Eating Animals. Eating Animals is a carefully researched, artfully told, funny, and personal exploration of what we eat and why, how what we eat affects our lives and the environment, and how every individual can make seemingly small choices that will enact big change.
Jonathan Safran Foer, author of the acclaimed novel Everything Is Illuminated, delves into the environmental and social effects of factory farming and relates personal stories that influenced his decision to become a vegetarian. Eating Animals will move readers — and eaters — of every persuasion to participate in the ongoing conversation about what we eat and challenge them to take a naked look at what is too often conveniently brushed aside. Admission is $5 for members and $10 for nonmembers. Reservations are required for all lectures.

Jonathan Franzen: FREEDOM
Friday 9/3 8pm
Agnes Scott College’s Presser Hall
The keynote address for the AJC-Decatur Book Festival, this is Franzen’s first stop on his international tour for Freedom.
The first question facing Franzen's feverishly awaited follow-up is whether it can find its own voice in its predecessor's shadow. In short: yes, it does, and in a big way. Readers will recognize the strains of suburban tragedy afflicting St. Paul, Minn.'s Walter and Patty Berglund, once-gleaming gentrifiers now marred in the eyes of the community by Patty's increasingly erratic war on the right-wing neighbors with whom her eerily independent and sexually precocious teenage son, Joey, is besot, and, later, "greener than Greenpeace" Walter's well-publicized dealings with the coal industry's efforts to demolish a West Virginia mountaintop.
The surprise is that the Berglunds' fall is outlined almost entirely in the novel's first 30 pages, freeing Franzen to delve into Patty's affluent East Coast girlhood, her sexual assault at the hands of a well-connected senior, doomed career as a college basketball star, and the long-running love triangle between Patty, Walter, and Walter's best friend, the budding rock star Richard Katz. By 2004, these combustible elements give rise to a host of modern predicaments: Richard, after a brief peak, is now washed up, living in Jersey City, laboring as a deck builder for Tribeca yuppies, and still eyeing Patty. The ever-scheming Joey gets in over his head with psychotically dedicated high school sweetheart and as a sub-subcontractor in the re-building of postinvasion Iraq. Walter's many moral compromises, which have grown to include shady dealings with Bush-Cheney cronies (not to mention the carnal intentions of his assistant, Lalitha), are taxing him to the breaking point. Patty, meanwhile, has descended into a morass of depression and self-loathing, and is considering breast augmentation when not working on her therapist-recommended autobiography.
Franzen pits his excavation of the cracks in the nuclear family's facade against a backdrop of all-American faults and fissures, but where the book stands apart is that, no longer content merely to record the breakdown, Franzen tries to account for his often stridently unlikable characters and find where they (and we) went wrong, arriving at--incredibly--genuine hope.

Natasha Trethewey: Beyond Katrina, A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast
Sunday 9/5 1:15 pm
AJC-Decatur Book Festival, First Baptist Carreker Hall Stage
Beyond Katrina is poet Natasha Trethewey’s very personal profile of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and of the people there whose lives were forever changed by hurricane Katrina.
Trethewey spent her childhood in Gulfport, where much of her mother’s extended family, including her younger brother, still lives. As she worked to understand the devastation that followed the hurricane, Trethewey found inspiration in Robert Penn Warren’s book Segregation: The Inner Conflict in the South, in which he spoke with southerners about race in the wake of the Brown decision, capturing an event of wide impact from multiple points of view. Weaving her own memories with the experiences of family, friends, and neighbors, Trethewey traces the erosion of local culture and the rising economic dependence on tourism and casinos.
She chronicles decades of wetland development that exacerbated the destruction and portrays a Gulf Coast whose citizens—particularly African Americans—were on the margins of American life well before the storm hit. Most poignantly, Trethewey illustrates the destruction of the hurricane through the story of her brother’s efforts to recover what he lost and his subsequent incarceration.
Renowned for writing about the idea of home, Trethewey’s attempt to understand and document the damage to Gulfport started as a series of lectures at the University of Virginia that were subsequently published as essays in the Virginia Quarterly Review. For Beyond Katrina, Trethewey has expanded this work into a narrative that incorporates personal letters, poems, and photographs, offering a moving meditation on the love she holds for her childhood home.

Jennifer Arnold: Through A Dog’s Eyes
8/24
Decatur Library, 7:15pm
Arnold, founder and executive director of Canine Assistants, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing service dogs for people with disabilities, educates and inspires in this transformative guide to training and celebrating service animals.
Arnold’s new book is a ”must read” for all dog owners and for everyone who loves man’s best friend. ”Through a Dog’s Eyes” is a knowledgeable, compassionate exploration of the intelligence, strength and capabilities of our four-legged friends based on her proven training methods. Her work with dogs is centered on inspiring a dog’s trust and teaching dogs to make choices, as opposed to simply following commands.
Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 16, Arnold was encouraged by her father to start an organization devoted to helping people with physical disabilities. Now after 20 years of dog training, she shares her methodology and stories of canine intelligence, sensitivity, language comprehension, and prescience bordering on telepathy. She offers shining examples of the heroism of service dogs, from anticipating seizures to resetting a ventilator switch. Along the way, she emphasizes choice-based, positive-reinforcement-only teaching methods and shares valuable insights that every dog owner should know. Engagingly written with a perfect balance of science and observation, this book--soon to be a PBS one hour special and series--is a worthy tribute to our canine friends.

Blane Bachelor: On Being a Bachelor
8/26
OutWrite Books, 7:30pm
As many in the media know, attention spans are shrinking at light speed these days. Attracting – and keeping – readers has become a top challenge for editors, reporters, writers, and everybody in between. It’s even tougher in the dating/relationship genre, where everybody and their hamster has something to say. That’s where syndicated columnist Blane Bachelor comes in. For two years the internationally published writer wrote a popular column entitled “On Being a Bachelor” for the Atlanta alternative newspaper Sunday Paper. Every week, Bachelor captured readers’ attention and emotion with her humor, wit and insight into matters of the heart (and, um, other organs). ON BEING A BACHELOR is a collection of those columns.
Equally Wed Magazine says: “Blane Bachelor’s writing is laced with acerbic wit, thoughtful human insight, and plentiful charm. She takes you along with her on her romantic trysts and mighty adventures, while sharing wise advice to apply to your own life.” And Corinna Allen, host of CBS Better Mornings Atlanta, calls the book “a gritty, unflinching look into the trenches of single life. A must-read for anyone who’s been there, and, for God’s sake, anyone considering going back.”

Dr. Muhammed Yunus: Building Social Business
8/25
Agnes Scott College, Presser Hall 8:15 p.m.
Dr. Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering work in the field of microcredit, founding Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which provides small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional loans. Dr. Yunus’ first loan consisted of $27.00 from his own pocket.
Since 1983, the Grameen Bank has issued $6.38 billion to 7.4 million borrowers. More than 94 percent of Grameen loans have gone to women, who suffer disproportionately from poverty around the world and who are more likely than me to devote their earnings to their families. The Grameen Bank's approach to microcredit has inspired similar efforts around the world. In 2009 President Obama bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Dr. Yunus to honor his work as a global agent of change.
Dr. Yunus has developed a visionary new dimension for capitalism that he calls "social business." In his new book, Building Social Business, he outlines this concept. Promotional materials for the book state "By harnessing the energy of profit-making to the objective of fulfilling human needs, social business creates self-supporting, viable commercial enterprises that generate economic growth even as they produce goods and services that make the world a better place."
This event is free and open to the public, no ticket required. A book-signing will follow lecture.

If you are a crackpot organization like the DBF, how do you celebrate your fifth festival? You host Grammy-winning musical icon, a Time-Magazine cover-getting, National-Book-Award-winning great American novelist, and then you add the winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, just because you can. That's all in a three-week stretch. Muhamed Yunus, won the big one for his work in Microfinance, and will discuss his new book , Building Social Business. The event is free and open to the public. Please come out for a once-in-a-lifetime chance. We are co-hosting with Agnes Scott College and Coca-Cola.
Wednesday, August 25th, 8pm
Agnes Scott College, Presser Hall

Eric Jerome Dickey: Tempted By Trouble
8/17
Barnes &Noble, Buckhead 7pm
New York Times Bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey returns with a flaming-hot-stand-alone set in the world of conmen and thieves.

We can plan all we want, but sometimes fate has a different agenda. Dmytryk was a respectable man...once. But when a crippling recession annihilates the auto industry, Dmytryk and his wife, Cora suddenly find themselves without jobs. And after two years of trying to live honestly, they begin to realize that honesty just doesn't pay the bills.
Afraid of losing her home and her marriage, Cora compromises her faith and makes some choices that she isn't proud of. And when a ruthless crime boss gives them an opportunity to buy back their old lives, Cora urges Dmytryk to man up. All he has to do is join a crime ring and rob some banks: two minutes, in and out, nobody gets hurt.
Torn between desperation and moral integrity, Dmytryk gives in, but no sooner than he doesCora abandons him, taking with her his dreams for a better life and disappearing without a trace.
Now, determined more than ever to get his life back, Dmytryk is one bank job away from having the money to leave the crime ring and find Cora. But when the job goes wrong he realizes yet again that destiny has another plan for him. Forced into seclusion with one of his partners - Dmytryk wonders if he'll ever find his way back to his old life. And in the end, will he even want to?

Suzanne Ruff: The Reluctant Donor
8/22
Borders, Buckhead 4pm
The only sibling with healthy kidneys, Suzanne is ambivalent about donating a kidney to a sister she's not even sure she likes--but she makes the offer. Eight family members, including her mother, have died from the disease. Now her sisters have PKD and each need kidney transplants. The Reluctant Donor exposes Suzanne's doubts, raw fear, and strong Irish Catholic family history.

Her terror at the prospect of surgery is offset by her wonder at the small miracles that surround her. Inspired by her faith and the courage of those who came before her, Suzanne Ruff navigates uncertainty with humor and honesty.

Ruff believes that being a living donor is an intensely personal choice. She is delighted that her old kidney now happily resides in her sister's body. In the case of a sudden or unexpected death and during a family's worst nightmare, she believes being an organ donor is one of the noblest things we can do. Suzanne continues to work for a cure for PKD and spread the word about the miracle of organ donation. She and her husband Bill live in Minnesota.

Josh Russell: My Bright Midnight
8/23
Decatur Library, 7:15pm
Josh Russell, the bestselling author of Yellow Jack, will be at the Center for the Book with his exciting second novel, My Bright Midnight. It’s a wonderfully engrossing story about a German immigrant named Walter Schmidt, haunted by his past and trying to find a place for himself in the decadent, steamy city of New Orleans.

Walter Schmidt's life isn't simple: His wife Nadine wants to live next door to her dead first husband's mother, the Mississippi River is three blocks down the street and rising dangerously, FDR is dead, and the war seems like it will never end---but for the most part, things are going Walter's way. Then one bright April morning in 1945, Walter comes home early from work to find Nadine in bed with his best friend, Sammy.
Shocked into silence, when she then calls him a "kraut," Walter becomes even more confused. True, he's a German immigrant, but he's lived in New Orleans for almost twenty years, and an hour before, he thought he was a happy American---baseball fan, reader of pulp novels, lover of gangster movies. Suddenly Walter wonders if Nadine's right, if he's more German than American, more enemy than friend. When Sammy later offers him $1,000 as an apology for sleeping with his wife, Walter accepts, desperately hoping to hurt his friend, but instead setting in motion a series of events more dangerous than betrayal and petty revenge.
Pulitzer Prize-winner Natasha Trethewey calls the novel ”a compelling invocation of the way people build, from the ntruth of their lives, something they can live with, the endless possibilities of beginnings.” Russell teaches creative writing at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

The AJC Decatur Book Festival is the largest independent book festival in the country. It takes hundreds of volunteers to put on a world class book festival. Join the volunteer team during Labor Day weekend to help show the tens of thousands of people attending that Decatur knows how to put on a festival! Volunteers receive a distinctive Festival t-shirt.

Many volunteer positions have already been filled but there are still numerous openings. Visit the website for a list of volunteer positions and job descriptions. Available positions include:
* Book Market on the Square Set Up - Saturday, September 4 from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. (great for groups). Volunteer early, so you can have uninterrupted enjoyment of the Festival.
* Book Market on the Square Close Down - Sunday, September 5 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (great for groups). A great way to cap off a great Festival.
* Author Talk/Signing Venue Support (including the Children's Stage and the Teen Stage/The Escape) - Various shifts available on Saturday and Sunday. Become one of our Festival ambassadors. Training is required.

To sign up to volunteer for a special weekend that includes a unique mix of authors, parades, meeting new people, and lots of fun, visit www.decaturbookfestival.com and go to "Participate" or contact Lee Ann Harvey with Volunteer! Decatur at leeann.harvey@decaturga.com or (678) 553-6548.

A Triple Play Baseball Literary Event with Dave Cohen, Hal Jacobs, and Pete Van Wieren
8/10/10
Decatur Public Library, 7:15pm
With the Braves in the midst of their best season in years, fans in Atlanta and elsewhere across the South are buzzing with excitement. Barely past the mid-point of baseball's calendar, the team has already amassed what seems like a full season's worth of storylines and eye-popping moments. Sitting firmly atop the National League East, the squad is drawing interest not seen since its days as "America's Team," when it rode an amazing stretch of success to take the division title 14 straight years starting in 1991.

With all the heady enthusiasm now swirling around the Braves, baseball is back in the air in Atlanta, and next month, fans will have a chance to further feed their passion for the game. The bases will be loaded as authors of three new books – Of Mikes and Men: A Lifetime of Braves Baseball by Pete Van Wieren and Jack Wilkinson; Matzah Balls and Baseballs: Conversations with 17 Jewish Former Major League Baseball Players by Dave Cohen; and Ball Crazy: Confessions of a Dad-Coach by Hal Jacobs – come together to discuss their works and sign copies.
Of Mikes and Men is a memoir of Van Wieren's more than 30 years calling Braves games on TV and radio, starting in 1976. "The Professor," as Van Wieren is known, was inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame in 2004, and in the book he takes readers back through the years, including that miraculous, "Worst-to-First" 1991 season.
In Matzah Balls and Baseballs, Dave Cohen, the longtime voice of Georgia State University Athletics, takes a look at the role Jewish ballplayers, like Hall of Famers Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax, have played in the game over the years. The book includes interviews with Ken Holtzman, who holds the record for the most wins by a Jewish pitcher, Steve Stone, 1980's American League Cy Young winner, and many others.
Hal Jacobs's Ball Crazy chronicles a summer of youth baseball from a father's point of view, as Jacobs – a former columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – served as the coach of his then 12-year-old son's team, watching the pressure the game put on his son and the obsession it inspired in parents.

Rosanne Cash: Composed
8/14/10
Presser Hall at Agnes Scott College, 7pm
Presented by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival and Yuenging Beer and hosted by Agnes Scott and A Cappella Books, this event promises to be much more than an author talking about her new book.

Cash, daughter of music legend Johnny Cash, has promised to share some stories, sign books, and play a couple of songs as part of the event. She will perform on a custom-made Martin D-41 guitar donated by America's oldest brewery, Yuengling. And it gets better – this guitar will be auctioned after the event, with proceeds going to the festival's literacy efforts.
This will be Cash's first trip to Atlanta following the book's August 10 publication.
According to her publisher, in Composed Cash "writes candidly about her upbringing, her development as an artist, and her current life."
Cash earned 11 No. 1 country hits in the '80s, including "Seven Year Ache," "The Way We Make a Broken Heart," and "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me." Her 2009 album, "The List," was inspired by a list of influential songs given to her as a teenager by her father.
Her first book, Bodies of Water (Hyperion, 1995), received widespread critical acclaim, as did her children's book, Penelope Jane: A Fairy's Tale. Her essays and fiction have appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Oxford-American, New York Magazine, and various other periodicals.

Tickets to the event are $30 and include a copy of Composed. Tickets are available at Ticket Alternative.

June Hall McCash: Almost to Eden
8/16/10
Decatur Public Library, 7:15pm
The author of three very popular and informative coastal histories The Jekyll Island Club, The Jekyll Island Cottage Colony and Jekyll Island’s Early Years, will be reading from her exciting new historical novel, Almost to Eden. The setting is Jekyll Island and nearby Brunswick, and is a story about an Irish immigrant, Maggie O’Brien, who comes to the Georgia coast hoping for freedom and a new life and who finds herself caught up in the lives of coastal residents.

McCash presents a novel that began with a simple question - What's the story behind the 1912 drowning victim who lies in Jekyll Island’s north end cemetery? McCash has blended her decades of historical research with a gift for story-telling as she relays the story of Maggie.
Seeking a new Eden in America, Maggie discovers that freedom and justice, even in the new world, do not always triumph over wealth and power. In the process of her journey, Maggie finds and loses the things she loves most, but grace and courage lead her toward a fulfillment she never thought to find.
McCash has taught at Emory University and is the 1996 Outstanding Alumna Award winner from Agnes Scott College in Decatur.

I love this graphic from Newsweek. Of course, this is the same magazine that sold for $1 earlier this week. No, not a copy of Newsweek. I mean the whole company.
Kind of makes their take on the future of publishing suspect.

Women Writing Baseball
8/5/10
Charis Books and More, 7:30pm
This special event features four very important baseball scholars: Dorothy Seymour Mills, Christina Kahrl, Judith Testa, and Cecilia Tan. This is a chance to talk baseball with four of the sport’s greatest scholars and writers, all of whom just happen to be women.

Dorothy Seymour Mills is the co-author of the first scholarly books of baseball history, published over the years 1960-1990 under the name of her husband and colleague, Harold Seymour. Her autobiography, "A Woman's Work: Writing Baseball History with Harold Seymour," was published in 2004. Her latest book, "Chasing Baseball: Our Obsession with Its History, Numbers, People and Places" is already in its second printing. Mills, an independent scholar, has published a total of 25 books on various subjects.

Christina Karl is one of the co-founders of Baseball Prospectus, and is currently the executive director of the think tank's website, BaseballProspectus.com. Her regular column covers major league transactions, and has been an online staple for 15 years.
Judith Testa grew up as a Brooklyn Dodger fan, and swore off baseball when the Dodgers moved to LA. After retiring from a career as an art history professor, she returned to her childhood interest in baseball, and remembering Maglie, as a fascinating baseball character from childhood, decided to write a biography of him, "Sal Maglie: Baseball's Demon Barber."
Cecilia Tan's first love was the New York Yankees. She also played baseball for several years in the women's hardball leagues of New England. She is the author of many books for fiction and nonfiction including "The 50 Greatest Yankee Games," "50 Greatest Red Sox Games," "White Flames," and "The Hot Streak."

David Herlihy: The Lost Cyclist, The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and His Mysterious Disappearance
8/9/10
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, 7pm.
In the recently released book, The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and His Mysterious Disappearance, the well-known cycling historian David Herlihy (author of 2004's Bicycle: The History) backtracks to uncover what became of cyclist Frank Lenz.

In the late 19th century a biking craze swept the world as newer models became safer, less expensive, and easier to ride. One of the celebrities of the largely forgotten “golden age of cycling” was Frank Lenz, a bookkeeper from Pittsburgh who had a made a name for himself racing bikes. Seizing on the "safety bicycle" craze, Lenz set out to become the first to circumnavigate the globe solo by bike, and he was commissioned to document his journey for New York's Outing magazine before setting off in 1892.

It took Lenz about five months to travel from New York to California, where he hopped a steamer to Japan to continue pedaling. Just 25 years old at the time, he eventually made his way to China, down through India and into Persia. With Europe in his sights, Lenz hoped to safely roll through Turkey, which was in the midst of a bloody Turkish and Kurdish campaign against Armenians, but in the eastern part of the country he disappeared, meeting a mysterious demise that made headlines back in America.

Afterward, Outing dispatched another well-known cyclist, William Sachtleben, to find what had become of Lenz. He never did, but when Sachtleben made his way to Turkey with a traveling companion to search for Lenz’s grave, he witnessed first-hand events that would eventually lead to the Armenian genocide, returning to America forever altered by what he witnessed.

Herlihy's The Lost Cyclist is a literary crossbreed – a biography of an obsessed adventurer mixed with a vivid account of a dark and sometimes overlooked moment in history. The book – and the upcoming reading – are sure to capture the imaginations of bike lovers and history buffs alike.