Ru Paul: WORKIN’ IT

Outwirte Bookstore
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 7:30PM
**This is a Line Ticketed Event
"Workin' It!" will provide helpful and provocative tips on fashion, beauty, style and confidence for girls and boys, straight and gay - and everyone in between! No one knows more about life, self-expression and style than RuPaul! With photos by Mathu Andersen from the new season of RuPaul's Drag Race and a fresh look at style and inner beauty, "Workin' It!" will pick up where the show leaves off. The book will be as colorful, fun, and intriguing as RuPaul, with insights into makeup, clothing choices and the illusion of drag. Fans of RuPaul will get piece of Ru's philosophy on style and attitude - and how it's more than the clothes that make the man, or woman! With four colour photos throughout and a fresh, funky design "Workin' It!" will be the perfect guide to RuPaul - part style guide, part confidence manifesto, and entirely fabulous! And, words of wisdom from your favourite contestants on Season One of RuPaul's Drag Race including, Nina Flowers, Ongina, Rebecca Glasscock, and more!
Ru Paul and Elton John--Don’t Go Breakin My Heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDqPpbqSnAI

A major media presence thanks to his outgoing persona and campytheatrics, RuPaul was a popular attraction on '90s dance floors as well,scoring several club hits with Hi-NRG Euro-disco pop. Born Rupaul AndreCharles, he grew up in San Diego, learning fashion tips from his mother and three sisters.

The Big Read Kick-Off: Harlem Renaissance Celebration

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 6pm-8:30pm
Atlanta History Center
The Atlanta History Center's Literary Center at Margaret Mitchell House
presents a unique after-hours program with a nod to the Harlem Renaissance during the Big Read kick-off party. Guests enjoy living history performances by Yvonne Singh as she portrays Zora Neale Hurston, musical performances by singer/songwriter Kyshona Armstrong, and guided tours of the exhibition Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits. Light refreshments and a cash bar are available. The first 50 visitors through the door receive a free copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God. This program is free of charge.

Woody Holton: ABIGAIL ADAMS
Saturday 2/20/2010 5pm
A Cappella Books
Abigail Adams is perhaps best remembered for requesting that her husband, the not–yet–president John Adams, "remember the ladies" as he helped forge a new government in 1776. This famous private letter has turned Adams into a feminist icon, and while here she may have been specifically referring to domestic violence, in other letters she expressed what is often seen as a progressive, enlightened view that women should be equally educated with men and allowed to engage in business and control their own finances. This aspect of Adams's biography is well-known. But less so are her conflicted ideas on religion, African-Americans, money making, Europe, politics and family. In Abigail Adams, by American history scholar Woody Holton, readers are given a vivid and complete picture of America's second first lady.
Woody Holton was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Margaret Atwood
SCAD Main Campus
Tuesday, Feb 23rd 6:30-7:30
Margaret Atwood, the Booker Prize-winning author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin, follows up her award-winning narrative, Oryx and Crake, with the highly anticipated book The Year of the Flood. Her latest novel focuses on a group called God's Gardeners, a small community of survivors of the same environmental catastrophe depicted in Oryx and Crake. In her 30 years as a writer, Atwood has authored more than 25 volumes of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. She is also the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees.
Do you really need convincing to go see Margaret Atwood? She's one of the most interesting writers of the last 30 years and she has made it nearly impossible to categorize her. She's a fine reader, and The Year of the Flood, which runs concurrent to Oryx and Crake, sounds like a winner.

Robert Hartle Jr: The Highs & Lows of Little Five (GA): A History of Little Five Points
A Cappella Books
Saturday, February 13,7:15PM
Because, as we know, all the cool kids hang in little five:

Atlanta's Little Five Points, the city's first Neighborhood Commercial District, stands out as one of the most distinctive shopping districts in the Southeast. There have been quite a few ups and downs in the area's history, but ultimately the dedicated, passionate individuals who made L5P what it is today handled them with perseverance and foresight, creating unique, independently owned stores that draw the most eclectic mix of people found anywhere in Atlanta. The cultural melting pot created by these stores is what makes Little Five Points such a popular destination for both locals and tourists. Join author Robert Hartle Jr. as he tells the story of the revitalization of Little Five Points, including firsthand accounts from longtime L5P business owners who were actually there and who helped to save the area from the many threats to its survival.

Thomas Mullen: THE MANY DEATHS OF THE FIREFLY BROTHERS

Georgia Center for the Book
Decatur Library
Wednesday, February 3rd, 7:15pm
Late one night in August 1934, following a yearlong spree of bank robberies across the Midwest, the Firefly Brothers are forced into a police shootout and die . . . for the first time.

In award-winning author Thomas Mullen's evocative new novel, the highly anticipated follow-up to his acclaimed debut, The Last Town on Earth, we follow the Depression-era adventures of Jason and Whit Fireson—bank robbers known as the Firefly Brothers by the press, the authorities, and an adoring public that worships their acts as heroic counterpunches thrown at a broken system.

Now it appears they have met their end in a hail of bullets. Jason and Whit's lovers—Darcy, a wealthy socialite, and Veronica, a hardened survivor—struggle between grief and an unyielding belief that the Firesons are still alive. While they and the Firesons' stunned mother and straight-arrow brother wade through conflicting police reports and press accounts, wild rumors spread that the bandits are at large. Through it all, the Firefly Brothers remain as charismatic, unflappable, and as mythical as the American Dream itself, racing to find the women they love and make sense of a world in which all has come unmoored.

Complete with kidnappings and gangsters, heiresses and speakeasies, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers is an imaginative and spirited saga about what happens when you are hopelessly outgunned—and a masterly tale of hardship, redemption, and love that transcends death.

Week of January 25th

David Orr: DOWN TO THE WIRE
Tuesday January 26, 2010, 7:30 PM
Agnes Scott College
Won a Lyndhurst Prize acknowledging “persons of exceptional moral character, vision, and energy.”

Professor Orr’s latest book, Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse, has been deemed by Ray Anderson, Founder and Chair of Interface, Inc. to be “a sweeping synthesis of science, politics, history, and public policy…this very important book envisions a road map to a livable future.” The book is significant for any individual institution that has made the commitment to help address climate change locally, regionally or nationally.
Before the words “sustainability” and “climate change” were in the daily vocabulary on most college campuses, Professor Orr was challenging students and teachers to consider the consequences of our actions on the environments. In previous books he has set a high standard for including the environment in education that has become well known in the field.
His career as a scholar, teacher, writer, speaker, and entrepreneur spans fields as diverse as environment and politics, environmental education, campus greening, green building, ecological design, and climate change. He is the author of six books and co-editor of three others. Ecological Literacy (SUNY, 1992), described as a “true classic” by Garrett Hardin, is widely read and used in hundreds of colleges and universities. A second book, Earth in Mind (1994/2004) is praised by people as diverse as biologist E. O. Wilson and writer, poet, and farmer, Wendell Berry.
In 1987 he organized studies of energy, water, and materials use on several college campuses that helped to launch the green campus movement. In 1989 Orr organized the first ever conference on the effects of impending climate change on the banking industry. Co-sponsored by then Governor Bill Clinton, the conference featured prominent bankers throughout the mid-South and leading climate scientists including Stephen Schneider and George Woodwell.
In 1996 he organized the effort to design the first substantially green building on a U.S. college campus. The Adam Joseph Lewis Center was later named by the U.S. Department of Energy as “One of Thirty Milestone Buildings in the 20th Century,” and by The New York Times as the most interesting of a new generation of college and university buildings. The Lewis Center purifies all of its wastewater and is the first college building in the U.S. powered entirely by sunlight. But most important it became a laboratory in sustainability that is training some of the nation’s brightest and most dedicated students for careers in solving environmental problems. The story of that building is told in two books, The Nature of Design (Oxford, 2002) that Fritjof Capra called “brilliant,” and a second, Design on the Edge (MIT, 2006), that architect Sim van der Ryn describes as “powerful and inspiring.”
Professor Orr taught at Agnes Scott College in the 1970s and we are honored to have him return at this important time for the college, for his work and for the global environment.

Michael Shelden: MARK TWAIN: MAN IN WHITE: THE GRAND ADVENTURE OF HIS FINAL YEARS
Wednesday, January 27, 7:15pm
Decatur Library
Michael Shelden, author of acclaimed biographies of Graham Greene and George Orwell, turns his attention to Mark Twain with an eagerly anticipated new book, Mark Twain: Man in White: The Grand Adventure of His Final Years. It's a deeply researched book utilizing some unpublished sources that brings to vivid life Twain's last years, a period that found the humorist full of charm, vigor and charisma. Critics call it "a breakthrough in Twain biography" and praise the scholarship and writing ("eloquent and moving").

Robert Pinsky :GULF MUSIC: POEMS
Sunday, January 31, 4pm
Glenn Memorial Chapel
Emory University
Served as US Poet Laureate from 1997-2000. He received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1974, and in 1997 he was named the United States Poet Laureate and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. He now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and teaches in the graduate writing program at Boston University.
As Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky founded the Favorite Poem Project, in which thousands of Americans of varying backgrounds, all ages, and from every state share their favorite poems. Pinsky believed that, contrary to stereotype, poetry has a strong presence in the American culture. The project sought to document that presence, giving voice to the American audience for poetry.[citation needed]
Pinsky is also the author of the interactive fiction game Mindwheel (1984) developed by Synapse Software and released by Broderbund. [3]
Pinsky guest-starred in a 2002 episode of the animated sitcom The Simpsons, "Little Girl in the Big Ten", and appeared on The Colbert Report in April, 2007, as the judge of a "Meta-Free-Phor-All" between Stephen Colbert and Sean Penn.

David W. Orr Agnes Scott College,Presser Hall Tuesday, January 26th, 7pm

David W. Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Special Assistant to the President of Oberlin College and a James Marsh Professor at the University of Vermont.

His career as a scholar, teacher, writer, speaker, and entrepreneur spans fields as diverse as environment and politics, environmental education, campus greening, green building, ecological design, and climate change. He is the author of six books and co-editor of three others.

In 1987 he organized studies of energy, water, and materials use on several college campuses that helped to launch the green campus movement. In 1989 Orr organized the first ever conference on the effects of impending climate change on the banking industry. Co-sponsored by then Governor Bill Clinton, the conference featured prominent bankers throughout the mid-South and leading climate scientists including Stephen Schneider and George Woodwell.

In 1996 he organized the effort to design the first substantially green building on a U.S. college campus. The Adam Joseph Lewis Center was later named by the U.S. Department of Energy as “One of Thirty Milestone Buildings in the 20th Century,” and by The New York Times as the most interesting of a new generation of college and university buildings. The Lewis Center purifies all of its wastewater and is the first college building in the U.S. powered entirely by sunlight. But most important it became a laboratory in sustainability that is training some of the nation’s brightest and most dedicated students for careers in solving environmental problems.

Orr’s political writings appear in, The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror (Island Press, 2004), andarticles such as “The Imminent Demise of the Republican Party” (www.commondreams.org ) written in January of 2005.

In an influential article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Orr proposed the goal of carbon neutrality for colleges and universities and subsequently organized and funded an effort to define a carbon neutral plan for his own campus at Oberlin. Seven years later hundreds of colleges and universities, including Oberlin, have made that pledge.

Down to the Wire

Down to the Wire is a sober and eloquent assessment of climate destabilization and an urgent call to action. Orr describes how political negligence, an economy based on the insatiable consumption of trivial goods, and a disdain for the well-being of future generations have brought us to the tipping point that biologist Edward O. Wilson calls "the bottleneck."

Due to our refusal to live within natural limits, we now face a long emergency of rising temperatures, rising sea-levels, and a host of other related problems that will increasingly undermine human civilization. Climate destabilization to which we are already committed will change everything, and to those betting on quick technological fixes or minor adjustments to the way we live now, Down to the Wire is a major wake-up call. But this is not a doomsday book.

Orr offers a wide range of pragmatic, far-reaching proposals--some of which have already been adopted by the Obama administration--for how we might reconnect public policy with rigorous science, bring our economy into alignment with ecological realities, and begin to regard ourselves as planetary trustees for future generations. He offers inspiring real-life examples of people already responding to the major threat to our future.

Down to the Wire is essential reading for those wanting to join in the Great Workof our generation.

Each week, I spend a few minutes on the air over on WABE discussing upcoming book events around Atlanta on John Lemley's program City Cafe.
Now, thanks to absolutely no demand, I'm going to start posting my notes from those sessions here. Here's yesterday's:

Robert Crais: FIRST RULE
Tuesday, January 19th, 7:30 pm
Barnes and Noble Buckhead
One of the preeminent thriller writers returns:
Frank and Cindy Meyer had the American dream – until the day a professional robbery crew invaded their home and murdered everyone inside. The only thing out of the ordinary about Frank was that – before his family, business, and oh-so-normal life – a younger Frank Meyer worked as a professional mercenary . . . with a man named Joe Pike.
The robbery crew has done other home invasions, and all the targets have been criminals with large stashes of cash or drugs. The police believe the same is true of Frank, but Pike does not, and with the help of Elvis Cole, he sets out to clear his friend . . . and punish the people who murdered him.
They are about to learn the first rule: Don’t make Pike mad.
13th book in the Joe Pike/Elvis Cole series.

Amy Greene: BLOODROOT
Wednesday, June 20, 7:15pm
Decatur Library
Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about the legacies—of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss—that haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today.
The novel is told in a kaleidoscope of seamlessly woven voices and centers around an incendiary romance that consumes everyone in its path: Myra Lamb, a wild young girl with mysterious, haint blue eyes who grows up on remote Bloodroot Mountain; her grandmother Byrdie Lamb, who protects Myra fiercely and passes down “the touch” that bewitches people and animals alike; the neighbor boy who longs for Myra yet is destined never to have her; the twin children Myra is forced to abandon but who never forget their mother’s deep love; and John Odom, the man who tries to tame Myra and meets with shocking, violent disaster. Against the backdrop of a beautiful but often unforgiving country, these lives come together—only to be torn apart—as a dark, riveting mystery unfolds.
With grace and unflinching verisimilitude, Amy Greene brings her native Appalachia—and the faith and fury of its people—to rich and vivid life. Here is a spellbinding tour de force that announces a dazzlingly fresh, natural-born storyteller in our midst.

Temple Grandin:ANIMALS MAKE US HUMAN
Thursday, January 21
B&N Buckhead 7pm

How can we give animals the best life-- for them? What does an animal need to be happy? In her groundbreaking, best-selling book Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin drew on her own experience with autism as well as her experience as an animal scientist to deliver extraordinary insights into how animals think, act, and feel. Now she builds on those insights to show us how to give our animals the best and happiest life-- on their terms, not ours. Knowing what causes animals physical pain is usually easy, but pinpointing emotional distress is much harder. Drawing on the latest research and her own work, Grandin identifies the core emotional needs of animals and then explains how to fulfill the specific needs of dogs and cats, horses, farm animals, zoo animals, and even wildlife. Whether it’s how to make the healthiest environment for the dog you must leave alone most of the day, how to keep pigs from being bored, or how to know if the lion pacing in the zoo is miserable or just exercising, Grandin teaches us to challenge our assumptions about animal contentment and honor our bond with our fellow creatures.

TEMPLE GRANDIN earned her Ph.D. in animal science from the University of Illinois and went on to become a professor at Colorado State University. She is the author of four previous books, including the national bestsellers Thinking in Pictures and Animals in Translation. Grandin spearheaded reform of the quality of life and humaneness of death for the world’s farm animals.

With an h/t to Vene Franco, here's my to do list:

• Eat
• Pray
• Love
• drink herbal tea from a Verb mug.

Temple Grandin
Barnes & Noble Buckhead
Thursday, January 21st, 7pm
How can we give animals the best life-- for them? What does an animal need to be happy?
In her groundbreaking, best-selling book Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin drew on her own experience with autism as well as her experience as an animal scientist to deliver extraordinary insights into how animals think, act, and feel. Now she builds on those insights to show us how to give our animals the best and happiest life-- on their terms, not ours.
Knowing what causes animals physical pain is usually easy, but pinpointing emotional distress is much harder. Drawing on the latest research and her own work, Grandin identifies the core emotional needs of animals and then explains how to fulfill the specific needs of dogs and cats, horses, farm animals, zoo animals, and even wildlife. Whether it’s how to make the healthiest environment for the dog you must leave alone most of the day, how to keep pigs from being bored, or how to know if the lion pacing in the zoo is miserable or just exercising, Grandin teaches us to challenge our assumptions about animal contentment and honor our bond with our fellow creatures.
Animals Make Us Human is the culmination of almost thirty years of research, experimentation, and experience. This is essential reading for anyone who’s ever owned, cared for, or simply cared about an animal.

TEMPLE GRANDIN earned her Ph.D. in animal science from the University of Illinois and went on to become a professor at Colorado State University. She is the author of four previous books, including the national bestsellers Thinking in Pictures and Animals in Translation. Grandin spearheaded reform of the quality of life and humaneness of death for the world’s farm animals.

A few weeks back, I was over at Mingei World Arts cooking up another hare-brained scheme with Ann Van Slyke, and her friend Sally Wylde, Decaturite was brimming with news she couldn't tell me. Intriguing indeed.
Well this weekend, she emailed to tell me she'd just returned from the UK, where her son-in-law, Michael Thomas, won the nicely lucrative Dublin Impac award. His wife is from these parts, and we are proud to claim him as an Atlantan by marriage. (The picture is him with the Mayor of Dublin, and some mighty bling.)
It couldn't have happened to a better book. The unnamed hero of Man Gone Down has a fantastic voice, and you can't help but feel the desperation in his all-too-familiar story of immediate personal and financial collapse. Published in 2007, the book is perfectly ripe for the summer of 2009.
If you missed it when it came out (and it wasn't for lack of trying from Grove/Atlantic, his publisher), time to circle back and get this one. A really fantastic book.