Join us to celebrate National Reading Group Month with acclaimed authors Bonnie Jo Campbell and Samuel Park at the Baldwin Public Library (300 West Merrill Street, Birmingham, MI 48009) on Sunday, October 9 at 2pm. This event is presented by the Detroit Chapter of the Women’s National Book Association. Books will be available for purchase at the event. For more information or to reserve copies please call Book Beat 248.968.1190.

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

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We are pleased to have 2010 National Book Award winner Jaimy Gordon at the Baldwin Public Library (300 w. Merrill st, Downtown Birmingham) on Sun., October 2 at 2pm.   Author of The Lord of Misrule, Jaimy Gordon will be speaking and signing copies of her books.  This event is free and open to the public, and presented by the Jane Cameron Endowment Fund. Books will be available for sale at the event. Please call Book Beat (248) 968-1190 for more information or to reserve copies of this title.

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.