Michael Largo: GOD'S LUNATICS: Lost Souls, False Prophets, Martyred Saints, Murderous Cults, Demonic Nuns, and Other Victims of Man's Eternal Search for the Divine.
Tuesday, June 22, 6pm
SCAD-Ivy Hall
Arm yourself with God's Lunatics before your next encounter with those who have been blinded by the light. Award-winning author Michael Largo, "the Capote of kaput" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), chronicles history's vast and colorful cast of true believers—from the hidden side of the Bible's eccentric characters to today's street-corner doomsayers, and from extraterrestrial communicators, levitating hermits, and flagellating ascetics to self-serving preachers of overindulgence who believed money, sex, and drugs were the keys to the portal to divine understanding. In addition to the firewalkers, serpent handlers, cultists, terrorists, and alleged time travelers, God's Lunatics also reveals the dubious foundations of the world's major faiths and the many religious customs and laws that continue to influence governments and society, whether you are a believer or not.

Largo, dubbed "the Capote of kaput" by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and "the curator of death" by Esquire, for his irreverent books on human mortality, takes on religious fanaticism in his new release, God’s Lunatics: Lost Souls, False Prophets, Martyred Saints, Murderous Cults, Demonic Nuns, and Other Victims of Man's Eternal Search for the Divine. His latest work examines celebrated mystics, martyrs, wizards, shamans, cult leaders, founding fathers of Utopian experiments, victims of demonic possession and the originators of New Age movements.

Largo is also the author of Genius and Heroin, The Portable Obituary and the Bram Stoker Award-winning Final Exits: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of How We Die.

Jane Green: PROMISES TO KEEP
Friday, June 25^th 7:15
Decatur Library
Jane Green, the bestselling author of 11 popular novels makes her first visit to the Center for the Book with a compelling new novel just right for summer reading, Promises to Keep. It’s the story of one remarkable summer in Maine when the lives of several families intersect, and what happens when you have to be your parent’s child long after you’ve grown up. The novel focuses on enduring love, building relationships and making touch decisions, the challenges we all have to face. Green has won acclaim for her novels which include such favorites as The Beach House, Babyville, Dune Road and Second Chance.

Callie Perry has a pretty perfect life. It may not be everyone’s idea of happiness – her husband spends more time travelling for his job as a commercials director than he does at home – but it works for her. It gives her time to work – she is a successful family photographer – and be around for her two kids, and her friends. She lives in Bedford, New York, is beloved by all who know her, and wakes up every morning grateful for how happy she is.

Her younger sister, Steffi, the baby of the family, has never grown up. In her early thirties and the epitome of a free spirit, she’s never held down a job, or a boyfriend, for longer than six months. Her latest incarnation is as a vegan chef. She’s living with the latest unsuitable man, in a sixth floor walk up in Soho, and her parents have almost given up hope that she’ll ever learn what it is to be responsible.

Lila Grossman is Callie’s best friend. Single, she’s finally met the man of her dreams. Ed has a son she adores, a crazy ex-wife she doesn’t, and she finally feels ready to settle down. If, that is, their goals are the same.

And then there are Callie and Steff’s parents. Walter and Honor . Divorced for almost thirty years, they haven’t spoken for most of that time. They may share two grown-up daughters, but it is agreed by all who knew them, they share little else.

Until they all receive a shocking phone call that changes their lives forever, and brings them all together one short, snowy winter.

Promises to Keep is about the hard choices we sometimes have to make; about having to be a child, long after you’ve grown up, and mostly, about the enduring nature of love.
(Jane gets a shout out mainly because she has a book called The Love Verb. We think all titles should have "Verb" in them.)

Dorothea Benton Frank: LOWCOUNTRY SUMMER: A Plantation Novel
Foxtale Book Shoppe
Woodstock GA
Saturday, June 26^th 6pm
Starred Review. Here's one for the Southern gals as well as Yankees who appreciate Frank's signature mix of sass, sex, and gargantuan personalities. In this long-time-coming sequel to Plantation, opinionated and family-centric Caroline Wimbly Levine has just turned 47, but she's less concerned with advancing middle age than she is with son Eric shacking up with an older single mom. She's also dealing with a drunk and disorderly sister-in-law, Frances Mae; four nieces from hell; grieving brother Tripp; a pig-farmer boyfriend with a weak heart; and a serious crush on the local sheriff. Then there's Caroline's dead-but-not-forgotten mother, Miss Lavinia, whose presence both guides and troubles Caroline as she tries to keep her unruly family intact and out of jail. With a sizable cast of minor characters with major attitude, Frank lovingly mixes a brew of personalities who deliver nonstop clashes, mysteries, meltdowns, and commentaries; below the always funny theatrics, however, is a compelling saga of loss and acceptance. When Frank nails it, she really nails it, and she does so here. (June)

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New York Times bestselling author of RETURN TO SULLIVANS ISLAND, BULLS ISLAND, THE CHRISTMAS PEARL, THE LAND OF MANGO SUNSETS and many others, has written the sequel to PLANTATION. When Caroline Wimbley Levine returned to Tall Pines Plantation, she never expected to make peace with long-buried truths about herself and her family. The Queen of Tall Pines, her late mother, was a force of nature, but now she is gone, leaving Caroline and the rest of the family uncertain of who will take her place. In the lush South Carolina countryside, old hurts, betrayals, and dark secrets will surface, and a new generation will rise along the banks of the Edisto River. In her novels, Frank, a native of the South, captures the beauty, atmosphere, characters and the eccentricities of life in this area.
(We love Dottie. She's a hoot and a half.)

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.