Mitch Ryder, the legendary “unsung hero” of Michigan rock and roll will be presenting and signing his new autobiography Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend, at the Book Beat bookstore on Sunday, February 5th between 12:30 -2:30 PM. This is a rare opportunity to meet and hear Ryder speak in a small and intimate setting. The Book Beat is located at 26010 Greenfield in Oak Park. This event is free and open to the general public. To reserve an autographed copy of Devils & Blue Dresses, you can order online now or call (248) 968-1190 Music by Mitch Ryder will be available next door from our neighbors at Street Corner Music.

order now online at: Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend,

Mitch Ryder’s autobiography goes well beyond typical eyewitness accounts of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll road stories. His account of rock stardom is one of the most lucid, original, darkly emotional and surreal in rock and roll. In 34 concise chapters, Ryder has penned a passionate and often experimental exposè, told in a distinctly introspective voice, a ‘long nights journey’ through the twisted alleyways of the music business and how his natural talent and notoriety was used and abused by himself and those around him.

…read more about Mitch Ryder’s Devils & Blue Dresses

Technorati Tags: author appearance, autobiography, booksigning, Detrot Rock, Devils and Blue Dreeses, Mitch Ryder

Wednesday, January 25th beginning at 6:30 PM Wong Herbert Yee, the Theodor Geisel Honor Award winner, will be demonstrating his process for writing and illustrating books. You don’t want to miss his dynamic presentation! The Picture Book: From Concept to Creation will take place at the  Bloomfield Township Public Library 1099 Lone Pine Road. The Book Beat will be supplying books for the event. Please contact the Bloomfield Township Library (248) 642-5800 or the Book Beat (248) 968-1190 for more information.

About The Author: “I was born in Detroit, Michigan, one of seven. My first grade teacher tacked a drawing of mine, Horse with Feedbag up on the bulletin board. From there I went on to study art at Wayne State University, graduating in 1975 with a BFA in printmaking. I had my fair share of rejections at the start, but through perseverance my first picture book, EEK! There’s a Mouse in the House was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1992. My latest early reader, Mouse and Mole Fine Feathered Friends received a 2010 Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Award.” -from the author’s blog site.

Technorati Tags: Bloomfield Township Library, book illustration, Children's book events, Wong Herbert Yee, workshop

Detroitland covers a century of Detroit’s rich and colorful history, Bak relives the scandals, mysteries, catastrophes, triumphs, and celebrations that have rocked Detroit. He also introduces readers to the heroes, criminals, stars, and regular people who lived through them, or in some cases, set them in motion.  Detroitland contains the stories behind familiar names like Frank Murphy, the infamous Purple Gang, the Lone Ranger, “Potato Patch” Pingree, and Charles Lindbergh. Yet Bak also reveals lesser-known episodes in Detroit’s history, like the ambitious International Exposition & Fair of 1889; the killer heat wave of 1936, with five straight days of hundred-degree temperatures; and the attempted around-the-world flight of Ed Schlee and Billy Brock in the Pride of Detroit in 1927.

313: Life in the Motor City is a collection of 42 stories and more than 100 glossy photographs, many previously unpublished, by Detroitblogger John Carlisle of detroitblog.org fame. His blog and weekly column in Metro Times chronicle the quirky and often over-looked stories of average folks in the city. Read about a man with a strip club in his living room, the city’s last gun shop, a historic church kept alive by a handful of its parishioners, a bar in a ghost town, a coffee shop for the homeless, an art gallery in a mattress store and a family who made an abandoned apartment complex their home, among many other unforgettable people and places in Detroit.

Detroit Television chronicles the history of many of the most fascinating characters in tv history. Soupy Sales turned getting a pie in the face into an art form. Mort Neff celebrated the state’s outdoor charms. George Pierrot showed Detroiters the world. Other beloved personalities include: Milky the Clown, Ed McKenzie, Sonny Eliot, John Kelly, Marilyn Turner, Robin Seymour, Bill Bonds, Dick Westerkamp, Jingles, Bill Kennedy, Lou Gordon, Captain Jolly, Johnny Ginger, Auntie Dee, and many more.

For more info on this event or to reserve copies of any of these titles, please call Book Beat (248) 968-1190. This event is free and open to the public.

Our Fall Hours: MON-FRI- 10AM-8 PM, SAT 10 AM- 7 PM., Sunday 12-5 PM. Please call: 248-968-1190 for more information or to place an order.

Paolini’s Inheritance Out NOW!!

The long wait is finally over! Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance (the final book in the beloved Inheritance cycle) is in the store and ready to be devoured on Tues., Nov. 8th!! Copies will be discounted 20% off list price. If you have not already reserved a copy with us, call 248 968 1190. All reserved copies will be on hand to pick up when we open at 10am.

November Reading Group Selection

November’s Reading Group selection is Lord of Misrule, 2010’s National Book Award-winner for fiction. The Reading Group will meet on Mon., Dec. 5th at 7pm in the Goldfish Tea House (117 W 4th St., in downtown Royal Oak).  Books are discounted 15% at Book Beat (26010 Greenfield Rd. Oak Park, MI). All are welcome!

Jaimy Gordon’s tale of  low-stakes horse racing at a backwoods West Virginia race track bristles with authenticity, character, and rich dialogue.  Horse trainer Tommy Hansel dreams up a scam. He’ll run four horses in claiming races at long odds and get out before anyone realizes how good his horses are. But at a track as small as Indian Mound Downs, where everyone knows everybody’s business, Hansel’s hopes are quickly dashed.

“With marvelous poetic authority, Jaimy Gordon takes us deep into the underbelly of the racetrack. There are no roses or mint juleps here. This is the down-and-dirty world of claiming races, and everything is hazed with the gritty patina of desperation. Through her considerable gifts, Gordon fully inhabits this seldom-seen world of trainers, dreamers, gamblers, and grifters. At turns comic, heartbreaking, and lyrical, Lord of Misrule is a brilliant achievement.”–Don Lee, author of Wrack and Ruin

Detroitland Book Signings

On Thursday December 8th at 7 PM, the Book Beat will host a presentation on three recent books on Detroit history by local authors. Featured books will be Detroitland by Richard Bak (Wayne State University Press), Detroit Television (Arcadia Press) by Tim Kiska and Ed Golick and 313 Life in the Motor City (History Press) by John Carlisle. Keep this date open for a night of wonderful storytelling and local history. A special edition “Detroitland glass” will be made available with purchase at the event.

Book Beat supports Battle of the Books

The Book Beat is stocking Battle of the Books titles for Birmingham and Southfield schools. Book Beat is proud to support this challenge that encourages reading for children.  You can purchase them all together  in a packet or one title at a time.  The Battle Books include sets for 4th graders, sets for 5th graders and Young Adult sets.  Please call ahead if you need to hold a title as availability on books does fluctuate. 248-968-1190

Artists Yasuo Tanaka & Dick Cruger; “Bones” at Book Beat Gallery

The exhibition “Bones” will display the art and vision of  Tokyo artist Yasuo Tanaka during a consecutive three day opening at the Book Beat gallery/bookstore on Friday, October 21st from 6-8 PM, Saturday, October 22nd from 5-8 PM and Sunday from 3-5 PM. The artist will be making “portraits in a wheelchair” during his residency and will have original sculptures, ink napkin drawings, photographs and books for sale. Artist Dick Cruger will also be in attendance and will present his collaboration with Tanaka;  Parallel Universe, a correspondence in photographs between Tokyo and Detroit. The Book Beat gallery is located at 26010 Greenfield in Oak Park. Please call 248-968-1190 for more information.

Tokyo artist Yasuo Tanaka (b.1942) is a uniquely gifted artist that uses bookmaking, design, puppetry, wire sculpture, photography, and ink drawing in fantastic and striking combinations. Tanaka has produced a curious and quietly poetic body of work, a bizarrely stylized skeleton world radiating a simple universal message and philosophy. A surreal, childlike and humorous quality pervades all of Tanaka’s art that presents to us a Borgesian metaphysical vision about eternity, death and life wrapped inside his purely visual reality.

Detroit book artist and sculptor Dick Cruger, began a friendship with the artist Yasuo Tanaka about 10 years ago. Dick was introduced to Yasuo through the American poet Arthur Barnard who now lives in Tokyo. Barnard thought the two artists should meet since they both shared a similar aesthetic. Each artist executes their work with technical polish, working in similar areas of storytelling with visual art and sculpture. Together they have recently collaborated on Parallel Universes, book project that combines sites of Detroit and Tokyo told through skeleton and robot figures. The Book Beat gallery will display this body of work and hold the book launch in a three day opening:  October 21st-23rd. Read the full article HERE.

Bonnie Jo Campbell is a Michigan native and the acclaimed author of Q Road, American Salvage (finalist for the 2009 National Book Award in fiction), and her latest release, Once Upon A River.

Once Upon a River is the story of 16 year-old Margo Crane, a beauty whose unflinching gaze and uncanny ability with a rifle have not made her life any easier. After the violent death of her father, in which she is complicit, Margo takes to the Stark River in her boat, with only a few supplies and a biography of Annie Oakley, in search of her vanished mother. But the river, Margo’s childhood paradise, is a dangerous place for a young woman traveling alone, and she must be strong to survive, using her knowledge of the natural world and her ability to look unsparingly into the hearts of those around her. Her river odyssey through rural Michigan becomes a defining journey, one that leads her beyond self-preservation and to the decision of what price she is willing to pay for her choices.

“It is, rather, an excellent American parable about the consequences of our favorite ideal, freedom.” New York Times Book Review of Once Upon a River. Read the full review here.

Samuel Park is the author of This Burns My Heart, the story of a privileged young woman straining against the suffocating traditions of her South Korean family and culture, yet it is her own allegiance that drives her to enter into a loveless marriage rather than break tradition and marry the man who knows her heart.

“An unflappable heroine anchors Park’s epic post–Korean War love story. . . . But this is no quiet tale of yearning: the plot kicks in with an unexpected fierceness, and the ensuing action—a kidnapping, fist fights, blackmail—make for a dramatic, suck-you-in chronicle of a thrilling love affair.” —Publishers Weekly review of This Burns My Heart

“A vivid and involving novel . . . Park portrays, with penetrating compassion, individuals trapped in soul-crushing, sexist traditions . . . Smart, affecting, and unabashedly melodramatic, Park’s novel of adversity, moral clarity, and love is consuming and cathartic.” —Booklist review of This Burns My Heart

Purchases from local, independent stores support an essential part of our community. Your support is appreciated.

“When Alice’s Aunt Polly passes away, she takes with her the secret to her world-famous pie-crust recipe. Or does she? In her will, Polly leaves the recipe to her extraordinarily surly cat Lardo . . . and then leaves Lardo in the care of Alice. Suddenly Alice is thrust into the center of a piestorm, with everyone in town trying to be the next pie-contest winner … including Alice’s mother and some of Alice’s friends. The whole community is going pie-crazy . . . and it’s up to Alice to discover the ingredients that really matter. Like family. And friendship. And enjoying what you do.”

Books will be available for purchase at the event. For more information or to reserve copies please call Book Beat 248.968.1190

Purchases from local, independent stores support an essential part of our community. Your support is appreciated.

If your class is interested in attending this event, please contact Janet Batchedler at (313) 481-1409 for more information.

Devin Scillain may best be known as a nightly news anchor on WDIV Detroit, but he is also an accomplished musician and children’s author with over a dozen titles to his credit, including the bestsellers A Is For America and Fibblestax. His latest title is Memoirs of a Goldfish, which tells the charming story of a simple goldfish and his solitary life that is upended when assorted intruders invade his fishbowl.

Memoirs of a Goldfish is the featured title for 2011’s Michigan Reads! Children Program, which highlights the importance of reading and sharing books with children, especially toddlers through early elementary, and to recognize the vital role libraries play in providing access to the quality books, programs and services that lay the foundation for reading and school success.

Blood Red Road is the epic journey of Saba, a girl from the wastelands known as Silverlake.  After her twin brother, Lugh, is abducted by four cloaked horsemen, Saba is forced to leave Silverlake to rescue him.  What she finds is a lawless, ugly reality where the Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed.  But she also realizes what a fighter, survivor, and crafty opponent she is.

Lord of Misrule is a brilliant novel that captures the dusty, dark, and beautiful world of small-time horse tracing, where trainers, jockeys, grooms, and grifters vie for what little luck is offered at a run-down West Virgina race track.

“With marvelous poetic authority, Jaimy Gordon takes us deep into the underbelly of the racetrack. There are no roses or mint juleps here. This is the down-and-dirty world of claiming races, and everything is hazed with the gritty patina of desperation. Through her considerable gifts, Gordon fully inhabits this seldom-seen world of trainers, dreamers, gamblers, and grifters. At turns comic, heartbreaking, and lyrical, Lord of Misrule is a brilliant achievement.”–Don Lee, author of Wrack and Ruin

Link to NY Times review of Lord of Misrule here.

Facsimile Edition Released by Primary Information

A Detroit launch for the Destroy All Monsters Magazine (book) is scheduled for Saturday June 11th  8-10 PM  at Public Pool, 3309 Caniff in Hamtramck. A talk between local art critic Vincent Carducci and DAM member Cary Loren will begin at 8:30 PM, a Q & A will follow.

Primary Information:

http://primaryinformation.org/index.php?/upcoming/destroy-all-monsters/

New York book launch at MoMA/PS1:  http://www.artbook.com/blog-at-first-sight-d-a-m.html

Primary Information is pleased to announce the release of Destroy All Monsters Magazine — making all issues of the Magazine available to a wide audience for the first time. This publication is a compilation of the seven issues of Destroy All Monsters Magazine that were originally published between 1976-1979. The book is 278 pages and retails for $30.

Destroy All Monsters was an Detroit-area band and collective that was formed in 1973. Its initial members were Mike Kelley, Cary Loren, Niagara and Jim Shaw. Destroy All Monsters were art students and musicians who used performance art tactics to create noise music that evolved out of influences like Sun Ra, Nico, horror movie soundtracks and local bands like MC5 and The Stooges. The band later took on new members and briefly reunited in the 90s.

Destroy All Monsters Magazine was edited by Cary Loren and contained artwork, photographs, and flyers from Mike Kelley, Cary Loren, Niagara and Jim Shaw. Printed using any papers and techniques available to the band, the issues combine the cut and paste tactics of punk zines with a psychedelic affinity for color.  Destroy All Monsters Magazine functions as a kind of manifesto, providing insight into the band through densely layered pages with movie imagery, kitsch, cartoons, delicate drawings, and counter-culture collages. While Destroy All Monsters has been the subject of recent exhibitions and partial reprints, this is the first time that all issues have been reprinted.

Destroy All Monsters Magazine is available directly through Primary Information’s website www.primaryinformation.org and is distributed through Distributed Art Publishers worldwide. For further information or to order Destroy All Monsters Magazine, please contact Primary Information at info@primaryinformation.org

Primary Information is a 501(c)3 organization. The organization receives generous support through grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Stichting Egress Foundation, the Buddy Taub Foundation, and individuals worldwide.