Pam Grier:
Foxy
Wednesday, June 16, 2010,
6:30 pm at Outwrite Books

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzgw0ppe1oM(there’s 15 seconds of non-FCC complaint inducing sound at 1:35, although if you bleep one mothereffing word, it would be better to start at 1:20)

In this prickly autobiography, the iconic actress is almost as hard-nosed toward lovers as her filmic alter -ego was toward enemies. Grier recalls a flamboyant career, from B-movie starlet in Women in Cages through blaxploitation diva in Foxy Brown to Tarantino muse in Jackie Brown, all of it shaped by a rigorous Stanislavskian method. (Her self-transformation into a strung-out killer prostitute for an audition almost got her arrested by the NYPD.)

Grier nods to the feminist and black power movements that inspired her screen persona as a glamorous badass shot gunning a white and/or male power structure—Hollywood's answer to Angela Davis—while distancing herself from the myth: deep down she's a Colorado farm girl, scarred by two rapes, who loves horses. But there's a resemblance to her onscreen persona in her tough, wary attitude toward domineering boyfriends like Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who futilely tried to convert her into a submissive Muslim wife, and comedian Freddie Prinze, whose suicide garners less space and pathos than does the death of her dog. “What harm would it do to say yes and keep on watching his behavior?” she strategizes when a suitor presents an engagement ring.
 
 
Sebastian Junger:
War
June 16, 2010
7pm at Barnes & Noble Buckhead

“War is insanely exciting.... Don't underestimate the power of that revelation”, warns bestselling author and Vanity Fair contributing editor Junger (The Perfect Storm).

The war in Afghanistan contains brutal trauma but also transcendent purpose in this riveting combat narrative. Junger spent 14 months in 2007–2008 intermittently embedded with a platoon of the 173rd airborne brigade in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, one of the bloodiest corners of the conflict. The soldiers are a scruffy, warped lot, with unkempt uniforms—they sometimes do battle in shorts and flip-flops—and a ritual of administering friendly beatings to new arrivals, but Junger finds them to be superlative soldiers. Junger experiences everything they do—nerve-racking patrols, terrifying roadside bombings and ambushes, stultifying weeks in camp when they long for a firefight to relieve the tedium. Despite the stress and the grief when buddies die, the author finds war to be something of an exalted state: soldiers experience an almost sexual thrill in the excitement of a firefight—a response Junger struggles to understand—and a profound sense of commitment to subordinating their self-interests to the good of the unit.

 Junger mixes visceral combat scenes—raptly aware of his own fear and exhaustion—with quieter reportage and insightful discussions of the physiology, social psychology, and even genetics of soldiering. The result is an unforgettable portrait of men under fire.
 
 
Bret Easton Ellis:
Imperial Bedrooms
Friday June 18th, 2010
6:30 pm at SCAD Atlanta Campus

Bret Ellis’s first novel, Less Than Zero, is one of the signal novels of the last thirty years, and he now follows those infamous teenagers into an even more desperate middle age.
 
Clay, a successful screenwriter, has returned from New York to Los Angeles to help cast his new movie, and he’s soon drifting through a long-familiar circle. Blair, his former girlfriend, is married to Trent, a powerful manager who’s still a bisexual philanderer, and their Beverly Hills parties attract various levels of fame and fortune. Then there’s Clay’s childhood friend Julian, a recovering addict, and their old dealer, Rip, face-lifted beyond recognition and seemingly even more sinister than in his notorious past. But Clay’s own demons emerge once he meets a gorgeous young actress determined to win a role in his movie. And when his life careens out of control, he’s forced to come to terms with the deepest recesses of his character – and with his proclivity for betrayal.
 
Christopher Hitchens:
Hitch-22: A Memoir
Friday June 18th, 2010
7 pm at Barnes & Noble Buckhead

Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has been a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He has been both a socialist opposed to the war in Vietnam and a supporter of the U.S. war against Islamic extremism in Iraq. He has been both a foreign correspondent in some of the world's most dangerous places and a legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and literature. He is a fervent atheist, raised as a Christian, by a mother whose Jewish heritage was not revealed to him until her suicide.
 
In other words, Christopher Hitchens contains multitudes. He sees all sides of an argument. And he believes the personal is political.
 
This is the story of his life, lived large.
 
About the Author:
Christopher Hitchens is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School. He is the author of numerous books, including works on Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George Orwell, Mother Teresa, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger, and his #1 New York Times bestseller and National Book Award nominee, God Is Not Great.

Walking in a little late, we tried not to disturb the audience as the hard-wood floors of the Tabernacle creaked with our every movement. “Where is David Byrne?” I whispered to my friend. We finally saw Byrne sitting amidst a panel. Celebrities always look different when you see them in person- a little shorter, sunken almost. But after a few seconds the former Talking Heads star had gripped my attention. From his pitch black suit emerged shiny white sneakers and a mop of grey hair.

 

Byrne was a guest speaker at the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) conference on Wednesday, the 19th of May (http://www.cnu.org/healthiercirculation). This year’s topic was Healthier Circulation: The Future of Getting Around. The panel consisted of urbanists: Ellen-Dunham Jones, professor of architecture at Georgia Tech; Charles Brewer, developer of Glenwood Park in Atlanta; and Scotty Greene, executive director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District.

What was Byrne doing there, you ask? Byrne’s new book Bicycle Diaries documents the concepts of environmentalism, community, spaces and architecture that the above mentioned urbanists study. Byrne’s journeys through the cities across the world using a bicycle as his sole means of transportation allowed him to view cities differently revealing spaces otherwise hidden.

As he came up to the podium with his rock-star confidence I knew I was in for a ride. He brought my attention to cities today and how closely they resembled the giant structures that Hugh Ferris in his vision of future cities showed: Human interaction will be significantly reduced by large structures. He showed several pictures of these other-worldy grey shadowy figures that on closer look resembled many of our cities today. A chilling thought.

Standing there in the spotlight with this painting by Hugh Ferris as a background, made Byrne look like he walked out of Star Trek. “Kill the Streets”, he exclaimed was the motto of architects like Corbusier: Our streets are being killed when interactions between people is being cut because of people’s dependency on cars and highways. Come to think of it this could be one of the reasons why Decatur is comparably very community oriented—it’s easy to walk and bicycle around.

He also mentioned how he enjoyed the close encounters with people in the narrow streets of Ferrara, Italy where almost everyone cycled and cars simply could not fit into the streets. According to Byrne we need to stop accommodating cars. Instead the urban landscape around us should encourage cycling. Inspired by examples of bike parking from cities like Berlin and Japan, he has invented his own artistic vision of bike parking that he is implementing in New York City (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brCk1-AVvRk)

Bicycle diaries is on the top of must read books list. David Byrne is definitely an example of someone who walks the talk, or in this case cycles the talk.

 

Joshilyn Jackson:
Backseat Saints
Tuesday, June 8
7 pm at the Margaret Mitchell House

Backseat Saints will dazzle readers with its original and heart wrenching portrayal of the lengths to which a mother will go to right the wrongs she’s created as well as the distance a daughter must travel to escape the demands of forgiveness.  Taking a minor character from her beloved bestseller Gods in Alabama and turning everything we know about her on its ear, Joshilyn Jackson builds a story rich with her trademark sly wit, endearingly off-kilter characters, and riveting plot twists.
Ro Grandee is the perfect Texas housewife. She's determined to be nothing like her long-missing mother, the one who left her with only a heap of old novels and her father's fists for company, so Ro keeps quiet and takes her husband's punches like a lady. But Ro wasn't always this way. Underneath her pastel skirts and hidden bruises lies Rose Mae Lolley, teenaged spitfire, Alabama heartbreaker, and a crack shot with a pistol. Rose Mae is resurrected when a gypsy's tarot cards foretell doom for dutiful Ro: her handsome husband is going to kill her. Unless she kills him first.
Armed with only her wit, her pawpy's ancient 45, and her dog Fat Gretel, Rose Mae hightails it out of Texas. In a journey that is by turns harrowing and exhilarating, she uncovers long buried truths about her family and herself, running from the man who will never let her go, on a mission to find the mother who did.

Dr. William Jelani Cobb:
The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress
Thursday, June 10
7 pm at the Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater

For acclaimed historian William Jelani Cobb, the historic election of Barack Obama to the presidency is not the most remarkable development of the 2008 election; even more so is the fact that Obama won some 90 percent of the black vote in the primaries across America despite the fact that the established black leadership since the civil rights era--Men like Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, Andrew Young, who paved the way for his candidacy--All openly supported Hillary Clinton. Clearly a sea of change has occurred among black voters, ironically pushing the architects of the civil rights movement toward the periphery at the moment when their political dreams were most fully realized.
How this has happened, and the powerful implications it holds for America's politics and social landscape, is the focus of The Substance of Hope, a deeply insightful, paradigm-shifting examination of a new generation of voters that has not been shaped by the raw memory of Jim Crow and has a different range of imperatives. Cobb sees Obama's ascendancy as "a reality that has been taking shape in tiny increments for the past four decades", and examines thorny issues such as the paradox and contradictions embodied in race and patriotism, identity and citizenship; how the civil rights leadership became a political machine; why the term "postracial" is as iniquitous as it is inaccurate; and whether our society has really changed with Obama's election. This event is sponsored by A Cappella books.

Jeffery Deaver:
The Burning Wire: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel
Monday, June 14
1 pm at the Atlanta-Fulton Central Public Library

The Burning Wire finds Rhyme and Sachs in a breathless two‑day race to stop a twisted killer whose horrific weapon of choice is the very energy that powers our lives.  At the same time, quadriplegic criminologist Rhyme finally decides to undergo risky experimental treatment that may restore his ability to walk. But it is a decision that threatens to derail his most important case to date – and could have even more dire consequences.
Called "a master gamesman" (The New York Times) and “the cleverest puzzle maker in the business” (Booklist), Deaver has been nominated for every major mystery and thriller award available, from the Edgar to the Macavity to the Anthony to the British Crime Writers’ Association’s Steel Dagger – and he only continues to rack up accolades.  Both novels he published in 2008 (The Broken Window and The Bodies Left Behind) were nominated for the International Thriller Writers Association’s Best Novel; Bodies won.  With 22 thrillers under his belt, including The Bone Collector, which was made into a film with Denzel Washington as Lincoln Rhyme and Angelina Jolie as Amelia Sachs, and Maiden’s Grave, which became an HBO movie starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, Deaver has proven once again to be the reigning king of thriller writing.

Carolyn Jessop:
Triumph: Life After the Cult--A Survivor’s Lessons.
Tuesday, June 1st
7 pm at the Decatur Library

On April 21, 2003, when Jessop was 35, she left her husband's family and the FLDS church, fleeing to a safe house in Salt Lake City. Subsequently, she sued for custody of her children, and became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. In 2007, she co-authored her book Escape with Laura Palmer and chronicled her life in the FLDS organization, her adulthood and disillusionment, and her eventual flight. She was forced into an arranged marriage to Merril Jessop at age 18. Merril Jessop was 32 years her senior and already had three wives and more than 30 children, several of them older than his new wife. Once married, Carolyn Jessop did get to attend college, but her husband decided that she would study elementary education, not medicine. Just months into the marriage, the FLDS's new leader, Rulon Jeffs, gave Merril two new wives.

In her book, Carolyn Jessop stated that she endured regular unwanted sexual relations with Jessop in exchange for better emotional treatment. Jessop had eight children with her husband, the last four after she was warned against further pregnancies by her doctors. The final pregnancy was life-threatening and required an emergency hysterectomy, during which time Jessop maintains that her husband and his family regarded her condition with disinterest. Jessop contends that the resulting freedom from pregnancy helped her escape from her abusive marriage and volatile home situation.

On May 4, 2010, Jessop released Triumph: Life After the Cult-- a Survivor's Lessons, the autobiographical sequel to Escape. Triumph details Jessop's unique insights and inside information regarding the Texas FLDS Raid and its aftermath as well as Jessop's struggle to come to terms with her oldest daughter's return to the cult. Jessop also reveals the various sources of strength and resources on which she has drawn as she overcame the obstacles to achieving success after a lifetime of trauma living inside a cult. Triumph concludes with Jessop's victorious court battle to win back child support for the years since her escape as well as lifetime support for her severely disabled son, Harrison.

Paul Guest:
One More Theory About Happiness: A Memoir
Wednesday, June 2nd
7 pm at Barnes and Noble, Buckhead

Paul Guest was twelve years old, racing down a hill on a too big, ancient bicycle, when he discovered he had no brakes. Steering into anything that would slow down the bike, he hit a ditch, was thrown over the handlebars, and broke his neck.
One More Theory About Happiness follows a boy into manhood, from the harrowing days immediately after his accident to his adult life as a teacher, award-winning poet, and soon-to-be husband. With wit, courage, and an unstoppable drive to live a life of his own creation—stemming in part from his remarkable parents, who insisted he return to school only days after arriving home from the hospital—Paul makes peace with his paralysis. As he grows older, he transforms it with his art, cultivating his lifelong gift for language into a searing poetic sensibility that has earned him praise from the highest ranks of American letters (“Wonderful”— John Ashbery; “Astonishing”—Jorie Graham; “Fierce and unnerving”—Robert Hass).
An unforgettable story—shatteringly funny, deeply moving, and breathtakingly honest—One More Theory About Happiness takes us from a body irrevocably changed to a life fiercely cherished.

Lee Harris:
The Next American Civil War
Thursday, June 3
7pm at the Carter Library

Many were surprised by the escalating incidents that began right after Barack Obama's election, such as tea parties, guns toted to town hall meetings, rumors of socialism, and death panels. But Lee Harris knew this was coming. Harris has long been reflecting on freedom and what it really means. In this new book, he explains that the outrage we're witnessing is born of the age-old fear 'as old as the nation itself' that someone will take away our freedom. It is this fear that sparked the current populist revolt, led by people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin who claim that Obama's push for reform is simply the intellectual elite's most recent power-grab. Here, Harris shows that in reality, this ongoing debate is good and necessary. Throughout our history, Americans have challenged the definition of liberty and this has allowed us to progress as a society. Harris argues that we must listen carefully to this new populist uprising and take it seriously if we are to defend our founding principles and achieve true freedom for all. This event is Sponsored by A cappella books

John Sandford: Storm Prey
Monday 05/24/10
Decatur Library
7:00 pm

Sandford's popular "Prey" series has sold millions of copies and made him one of America's most highly regarded authors. He'll be visiting us to talk about Storm Prey, the 20th book in this prize-winning series. Sandford is really John Camp, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former newspaper journalist whose many successful books include Phantom Prey and Dark of the Moon. Sandford is also the author of two nonfiction books on plastic surgery and art and is the principal financial backer for a major archaeological project in the Jordan Valley of Israel

Wes Moore: The Other Wes Moore
Monday 5/24/2010
Carter Library
7:00 pm

In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes scholarship. The same paper also ran a huge story about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore.
Wes just couldn't shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?
That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless, both were in and out of school; they'd hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.
Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.

Jonathan Alter: The Promise: President Obama, Year One
Wednesday 05/26/10
Atlanta History Center
7:00 pm

In The Promise, Jonathan Alter provides a fast-paced inside account of the breakneck speed with which Barack Obama began making critical decisions and assuming the burdens of office amid the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.  With dozens of exclusive details about everything from the selection of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state to the president’s personal secrets for running a good meeting, Alter paints a fresh and often surprising portrait of a highly disciplined and self-aware president and his team.
Jonathan Alter is a senior editor at Newsweek where he has written an acclaimed column on politics, history, media, and society at large since 1991. Alter is also an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News.

Imagine being a musician and songwriter trying to establish your own name despite having a country legend as a father. Or after several # 1 Billboard Country hits not being able to sing for two years because of brain surgery. Or being married to one of the most respected songwriter/producers in Nashville, and seeing all your marital problems splashed on the front page of the news.

Can’t imagine what it’s like to be Rosanne Cash? Neither can I.

She has broken through her father’s shadow and has successfully made her own mark for sure. Cash has a couple of #1 Billboard Country hits, bestsellers under her belt and has written fiction ranging from fairy tales to short stories. Seems like a lot doesn’t it? Well, the only thing that she hasn’t done is visited us here in Decatur—which is what she’ll be doing on the 14th of August to share her new memoir, Composed.

Mark your calendars and come on over to Agnes Scott College’s Presser Hall where Cash has promised to share some stories, sign your books and also play a couple of songs at the end of the event. She will perform on a custom-made Martin guitar donated by America’s oldest brewery, Yuengling. And it gets better—this awesome guitar will be auctioned after the event, proceeds of which will go towards the festival’s literacy efforts.

Do you want to purchase her new book and also attend the event? Worried about the cost? Don’t worry; purchasing the book will be your entry into the event. The event is being brought together by DBF, A Cappella Books and Agnes Scott College.