We had a chance to talk briefly with author Patrick Rothfuss after his May 2nd book signing held at the Baldwin library.  About 70 of Patrick’s enthusiastic fans came out to hear him speak about The Name of the Wind and its upcoming sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear.

Patrick read a little from his amusing column “The College Survival Guide”, and talked about blogging, writing, teaching, his  family and connecting to the community of fantasy  authors. He also announced the publication of a dark satirical fantasy book, THE ADVENTURES OF THE PRINCESS & MR. WHIFFLE, a title we will have in stock soon.

Of contemporary fantasy writers, Rothfuss recommended three;  Brandon Sanderson,  UK author Joe Abercrombie, and a woman writer currently living and teaching in Chicago; Nnedi Okorafor. Patrick noted he especially liked Okorafor’s ZAHRAH, THE WINDSEEKER, winner of the 2008 Wole Soyinka Prize for literature in Africa.

When asked what world lit classics helped shape his vision, Patrick chose three;  Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, and the Memoirs of Giacomo Casonova.

We look forward to another visit with Patrick Rothfuss, hopefully when the sequel is published around March 2011.

Patrick discusses the finer merits of each book jacket to the first edition. Signed copies of the trade paperback edition of The Name of the Wind, are available now at the Book Beat, please call or write soon to hold one.

This short, perfect novel seems to encapsulate all the world’s pain in a soap bubble. Its surface is as smooth as a fable, its setting and characters are unremarkable, its tone is blithe, and its effect is shattering.  — Deborah Eisenberg

Read the complete review at the source: New York Review of Books

The Book Beat reading group meets the last Wednesday of every month. At our next meeting we will be discussing Skylark by Dezso Kosztolanyi as the Book Beat Reading Group selection for May. The meeting will be held on May 26th at 7 pm at the Goldfish Teahouse, 117 W. Fourth Street in Royal Oak. Meetings are free and open to the public. Please call 248-968-1190 for more information. Book club books are discounted 15% at Book Beat, online orders will also receive the 15% discount for this title.

Richard Aczel’s fine version of Skylark catches its author’s irony and sharp, atmospheric nuance. This hidden masterpiece is now being presented to a wide audience, an event to be celebrated.
— The Irish Times

…a superb, deeply poignant short novel…anyone can enjoy Skylark as literature in English, even it they have no special knowledge of, or interest in, Hungary…because Kosztolányi’s writing is good enough to transcend [any] cultural differences…
— Timothy Garton Ash, The Independent (London)

Dezso Kosztolányi (1885-1936) was born in Subotica, a provincial Austro-Hungarian city (located in present-day Serbia) that would serve as the model for the fictional town in which he later set several novels, including Skylark. His father was the headmaster of the local gymnasium, which he attended until he was expelled for insubordination. Kosztolányi spent three years studying Hungarian and German at the University of Budapest, but quit in 1906 to go into journalism. In 1908 he was among the first contributors to the legendary literary journal Nyugat; in 1910, the publication of his second collection of poems, The Complaints of a Poor Little Child, caused a literary sensation. Kosztolányi turned from poetry to fiction in the 1920s, when he wrote the novels Nero, the Bloody Poet (to which Thomas Mann contributed a preface); Skylark; and Anna Edès. An influential critic and, in 1931, the first president of the Hungarian PEN Club, Kosztolányi was also celebrated as the translator of such varied writers as Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Verlaine, Baudelaire, Goethe, and Rilke, as well as for his anthology of Chinese and Japanese poetry. He was married to the actress Ilona Harmos and had one son.

Source: New York Review of Books (publisher site)

I dream of colored inks. Of every kind.

The yellow is the finest. Reams and reams
of letters could I write in yellow ink
to her, the little schoolgirl of my dreams.
I’d scrawl something that looks like Japanese,
then try a bird, most intricately scrolled.
And I want other colours, many more,
like bronze and silver, emerald and gold,
and then I want a hundred more, a thousand,
or rather, I will have a million:
dumb-charcoal, funny-lilac, drunken-ruby,
enamoured, chaste or brash vermilion.
I ought to have some mournful violet,
a palish blue, a brick-red-like maroon,
like shadows seeping through a stained glass window
against a black vault, in August, at noon.
In reds I want a blazing, burning one,
and blood-red, like the blood-stained setting sun
and then I’d go on writing: with a blue
to my young sister, mother will get gold,
I’d write a prayer in gold ink to my mother,
a golden dawn with golden words re-told.
I’d go on writing, in an ancient tower.
My colour set, so fine and exquisite,
would make me happy, oh my God, so happy.

I want to colour in my life with it.

Kosztolányi poem from Laments of a Poor Little Child Source: European Cultural Review

Author Laura Lee will be reading and signing her latest book, BROKE IS BEAUTIFUL: Living and Loving the Cash-Strapped Life at Book Beat on Wednesday, April 21st from 7:00-8:00 PM. This will be an entertaining and fun event for all ages, and especially anyone facing the realities of a financial downturn. The Book Beat is located at 26010 Greenfield, in Oak Park.

Broke is Beautiful is a fun lighthearted read with wise and witty observations on the “joys of being broke” — its not a how-to guide – but more of a social and cultural book on financial awareness and the lighter side of “debt-free” living in these tight and often high-pressure times. Laura Lee is a local Detroit area author who knows the lay of the land, and lives the broke life proudly.   

“We’re all ignorant, only on different subjects”  — Will Rogers

“…the key to a feast is not the price or exotic nature of the ingredients, it is the degree to which you savor the experience.”  — Laura Lee

The economic downturn has forced nearly everyone into a life of limited means, but author Laura Lee was broke before it was cool. She won’t tell anyone to clip coupons or forego their morning latte—in fact, she won’t give any guidance on how to be saved from a dark financial destiny. Instead she provides readers with a psychological how-to full of fun tidbits. Broke is Beautiful is an insightful compendium of history, inspiration, facts, and humor that all celebrate the lack of money as a gateway to more serenity, self-awareness, and yes, even security.

In the tradition of Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life and Eric Wilson’s Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, here is an unconventional take on a subject that is relevant to us all. It is quirky comfort for the (literally) poor soul: offering historical and geographic perspective, ponderings on consumerism and credit scores, and even recipes for ramen noodles.

Laura Lee is the author of ten books and is still financially strapped.  Check out her blog; Broke is Beautiful -worth checking out for its oddball celebration on the endtimes of consumerism and its fun-loving take on all that is broke, busted and more spiritually evolved.

We are pleased to present photographer Andrew Moore appearing at the Oakland Community College Theater at the Royal Oak Campus on  Friday, April 30th at 7:00 PM to autograph and talk about his latest large format photography book Detroit Disassembled. This controversial new book is one of the first to focus extensively on the ruins of Detroit. It raises important questions concerning all of us who live in the Detroit area. This event is co-sponsored by Oakland Community College and the Book Beat. Oakland Community College is located at 739, South Washington in Royal Oak. For more information please contact: Book Beat at 248-968-1190. Books are  now available for purchase at  Book Beat or at the event.

Andrew Moore is a professional photographer, educator, cinematographer and producer. His previous book, Russia: Beyond Utopia, was published by Chronicle Books. Moore was also executive producer and cinematographer for the Award Winning documentary on artist Ray Johnson, How to Draw a Bunny. He currently lives and works in New York City.

Moore ventures well beyond the typical shoot-and-run exploiter, yet I cannot shake the disturbing feeling I get when I view these photographs. I think I understand Moore’s intent, and I even accept that he may have achieved his artistic purpose. Yet I find his photographs unremittingly bleak. – Read More: John Gallagher, The Detroit Freepress

The primary signs of life in Moore’s photographs come not from humans, but from nature: mossy grass grows in buildings, trees crawl from warehouses, and houses are swallowed whole by reaching vines. Moore’s postscript—and more quietly but importantly, his photographs—invoke Detroit’s motto, Speramus Meliora, Resurget Cineribus: “We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes.” –Read More: The New Yorker

Is Detroit America’s Rome?… Moore’s vision is more lyrical, almost optimistic. The sight of fluorescent moss carpeting a floor or birch trees sprouting from a bed of rotting books signifies for him not — or not only — a boomtown’s tragic collapse but an occasion to devise a new urban paradigm, one that incorporates vast swaths of woods and farmland. Moore’s Detroit, though sparsely populated, is not a ghost town.    -from a recent review in: the New York Times: Ruin With a View

Beyond their jawdropping content, Moore’s photographs inevitably raise the uneasy question of the long-term future of a country in which such extreme degradation can exist unchecked. -Publisher’s website blurb for Detroit Disassembled

“Andrew Moore’s images, by contrast, transcend politics….his photographs comprise an other­worldly calculus of a profoundly troubled nation eternally uncertain of its place in the world.“ – Boris Fishman on Russia: Beyond Utopia

Andrew Moore is best known for his complex and painterly images of Cuba, Russia, and New York City. He has had nine solo shows in New York as well as numerous exhibitions in the U.S. and internationally. His photographs are represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Library of Congress, the Israel Museum, the High Museum, the Eastman House and the Canadian Centre for Architecture amongst others. Moore has been the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The New York State Council on the Arts, and several private foundations.  His photographs have been published by Wired, The New York Times Magazine, Departures, Conde Nast Traveler, Art and Auction, Geo, Vogue, Rolling Stone, Harpers, Esquire, Fortune, New York Magazine, and The New Yorker.

The Book Beat reading group meets the last Wednesday of every month. At our next meeting we will be discussing the contemporary cult and mystical classic There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales (Paperback) Our next meeting is Wednesday, April 28th at 7:00 PM at the Goldfish Teahouse, 117 W. Fourth Street in Royal Oak. Meetings are free and open to the public. Please call 248-968-1190 for more information. Book club books are discounted 15% at Book Beat.

Petrushevskaya’s own brand of fairy tale straddles the line between reality and utopia, intermingling the dismal oppressiveness of life in a Moscow apartment with the joy that can be found in a children’s home. “I think of myself as a documentary writer,” she has said, “collecting documents about people’s lives and reworking them.”  — The Nation review

“Write down strange things you hear people say, stories people tell you, strange thoughts that you have.” -Ludmilla  Petrushevskaya

“What is shocking and memorable about the stories is not the sudden, supernatural junctures but the utterly bleak and believable details of the character’s lives. In the seventies and eighties, Petrushevskaya, then primarily known as a dramatist, was reputed for her bracing realism. Her recent fairy tales follow the trajectory of this work.  While fantastical, There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby reverberates with the grim realities of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia.” –  Truth through Fairy Tale: Despair and Hope in the Fiction of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya -Dissent Magazine review

If these stories are gray, blocky walls, the images, poetry and metaphor within them are beautiful, fluid cement that binds them. Shadows of ghosts hover around murderers. Characters break from tension and the ground shifts from the land of the living to the land of the dead, or from home to America. People trade money to bring their loved ones back to life. In some of the stories, the bribes work. When people write about Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, they remark on the hope that clusters around the bleak stories. I am not so certain I read hope in these pages but there is redemption within them, something that keeps the fantastical and mystical events that do not often end happily from seeming ripe with despair. For me, maybe it is just the act of storytelling that is redemptive. Someone lived to tell the tale. –online review from “The Millions”

Sighting Ludmilla, the author speaks (briefly)

Wearing black fishnet sleeves, jewels on every finger, and a feathered black hat with matching shawl, Russian author Ludmilla Petrushevskaya looked like a character from her new book, There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales. On Tuesday, Sulzberger Parlor’s North Hall was filled with people who had come to hear her read stories like “The Arm,” about a man who digs up his dead wife to retrieve an airplane ticket from her grave; and “Pretty Woman,” in which a Julia Roberts-like character, awaiting her Richard Gere, grows fungus all over her body. — from The Columbia Daily Spectator

Read Ludmilla’s story THE FOUNTAIN HOUSE published in the New Yorker.

For decades, the writer Ludmilla Petrushevskaya was banned in the Soviet Union. She wrote stories about domestic despair and Soviet censors demanded optimism. Petrushevskaya’s writing was just too dark, but today she’s a living legend in Russia. And she’s always reinventing herself. Her newest endeavor? Cabaret. Recently Petrushevskaya visited New York City at Samovar and sang for an audience of Russian émigrés. Kiera Feldman reports. Hear the author singing (click MP3 link at the top of page)

Ludmilla’s Dark Cabaret

Lozano…has spent much of the past 14 years wandering Dallas’ darker byways and skidzones, and is not an unfamiliar figure along the lower extremities of Greenville Avenue.

She is a walking secret history of the sometimes tragic late American avant-garde.

“I paint stoned.”— Lee Lozano, 29 March 1969

The fact that she is also quite mad prevents her from seeking help through any existing social-service resources.

PARTY PIECE (or PARANOIA PIECE): describe your current work to a famous but failing artist from the early 60’s. Wait to see whether he boosts any of your ideas. – Lee Lozano , Notebook March 15, 1969

“I have started to document everything because I cannot give up my love of ideas”-Lee Lozano

…the more that I learn, the more it appears that she is the missing link…to the wider societal mysteries and maladies that beguile most of us every day:  madness, homelessness, what America does to its artists and what America’s artists do to themselves.

Her father and mother died, having neglected to leave a will, in 1987 and 1990 respectively, and another six years passed before their estate was exhausted—whereupon the aging orphan faced certain eviction and possible full-time life on the streets.

–excerpts from the Lee Lozano blog site MYTHING IN ACTION

“Confinement is the near root of all my rage.” — Lee Lozano in her notebook on December 20, 1969

Lee Lozano was among the most celebrated conceptual artists of the 1960s. So why is she buried in an unmarked grave in Grand Prairie?

During the 1960s, she showed in the most prestigious of New York’s galleries and museums, until one day she decided she wanted nothing more to do with the commodification of her work. Her writings became her work; soon enough, her life became her art, around the time she decided to stop talking to women and opted to leave behind the world that once embraced her. Even now, nearly an entire decade of her life remains unaccounted for. — LEE LOZONO THE DROPOUT PIECE  article by Robert Wolonsky: Dallas Observer News

“black and white is more perfect, more beautiful, more abstract, less associational, less tiring and less pretty than color” –Lee Lozano Notebook, Aug, 1, 1968

Between the time I saw Lozano’s paintings in a barn in Pennsylvania, in 2001, and their appearance in Basel, their prices had rocketed from the low tens of thousands to nearly a million dollars…. Lozano’s rediscovery by the art world, as much as her withdrawal from it, belongs to a larger market dynamic. In the recent past, museums, galleries, critics, and auction houses have been reviving older and dead artists in earnest. Categories include the “artist’s artist” (as opposed to the collector’s artist, I suppose) who has been seen as minor but begins to look major (Mary Heilmann); the artist who enjoyed initial success but floundered when money got tight or when fashions changed (Alan Shields); the artist whose production was inconsistent or ephemeral (Tony Conrad). Not by coincidence, these rediscovered artists represent good value: Now construed as the product of integrity rather than of failure, their obscurity serves as a substitute for the obsolete category of the avant-garde; they even rival emerging artists as a source of speculative reward. As Nickas pointed out in a recent conversation, unlike the freshly minted art school graduate, the rediscovered artist comes complete with oeuvre and provenance. — Katy Siegel, Free Library LEE LOZANO

“I WILL NOT CALL MYSELF AN ART WORKER BUT RATHER AN ART DREAMER AND I WILL PARTICIPATE ONLY IN A TOTAL REVOLUTION SIMULTANEOUSLY PERSONAL AND PUBLIC” – Lee Lozano Notebook, April 10, 1968

“People (in some ways) are more important than art.” –Lee Lozano September, 1969

Available now: THE NOTEBOOKS OF LEE LOZANO published by Primary Information Transiting Pop art, Feminist Expressionism, Conceptualism and Minimalism, Lee Lozano (1930–1999) sits alongside Eva Hesse and Hannah Wilke as a radical and influential model for younger generations of female artists. Lozano’s notebooks, which she approached as drawings, and which were later dismantled and sold as individual pages, became a part of her artmaking at the height of her fame in the late 1960s. Reproduced here for the first time, as an affordably-priced facsimile reprint, the three notebooks collected here, which were kept between 1967–1970, contain sketches for her Wave paintings, writings about the trajectory of her artistic process and the language pieces that she became famous for prior to her withdrawal from the art world. They thus constitute the fullest and richest document on an artist whose relevance and profile have recently seen a steady ascent.

Click & see: Book Beat April Author Events

Book Beat Reading Group Title for April

There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales (Paperback) Masterworks of economy and acuity, these brief, trenchant tales by Russian author and playwright Petrushevskaya, selected from her wide-ranging but little translated oeuvre over the past 30 years, offer an enticement to English readers to seek out more of her writing. The tales explore the inexplicable workings of fate, the supernatural, grief and madness, and range from adroit, straightforward narratives to bleak fantasy.

The Book Beat reading group meets the last Wednesday of every month. Our next meeting is Wednesday, April 28th at 7:00 PM at the Goldfish Teahouse, 117 W. Fourth Street  in Royal Oak.  Meetings are free and open to the public. Please call 248-968-1190 for more information.

Book club books are discounted 15% at Book Bear

Baseball Season Begins Now! Autographed Copies Available:

Baseball From A to Z (Hardcover) Learning about baseball has never been so much fun! From a pitching Ace to a baseball from a to z strike Zone, this energetic alphabet book covers all the bases of America’s favorite pastime. Lively, action-packed illustrations will take readers right into the stands to root, root, root for the home team. So put on your favorite team Jersey and get ready for the Ballpark . . . because Baseball from A to Z is one Home run you don’t want to miss.

Earth Day is April 22nd

Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep us Safe Organic matters, to all of us. Red state, blue state, churchgoer or atheist, soccer mom or single bachelor, what our society does to the soil (or allows to be done to it) directly affects our health.

Sure, eating organic has long been a battle cry of environmentalists trying to protect the land, but as more and more science is telling us, we need to eat organic to save ourselves. As Maria Rodale, CEO of Rodale Inc. and author of the new book Organic Manifesto, points out, “the planet will be fine without us.” We’re the ones in trouble if things don’t change.

Tracking Trash; Flotsam Jetsam and the Science of Ocean Motion When hundreds of Nike sneakers washed ashore in Seattle, Washington, in 1990, Dr. Curt Ebbesmeyer’s career in tracking trash began. His mother, a Seattle resident, figured Curt would be able to determine the origin of the shoes, since he studied ocean movements for a living. The curious landfall perplexed many, but after several months of research, Dr. Ebbesmeyer pinpointed the source from which the sneakers came.

One Child, One Planet: Inspiration for a the Young Conservationist “Earth, so big, and me, so small – Oh, what good can I do?” Funny you should ask, my child. The world’s been waiting for you!

Children of all ages will be captivated by this loving tribute to Mother Earth, her gifts and her greatest concerns. Young or old, everyone’s actions make a difference. Loose-rhyming text and awe-inspiring photography are woven into a family treasure that will create excitement and responsibility toward the planet.

Ages 4-8

The Smash Smash Truck: Recycling As You’ve Never Heard it Before What self-respecting glass bottle would want to be trapped in a trash dump for hundreds of thousands of years, when it could be transformed over and over again into new and exciting containers? Luckily, the Smash! Smash! Truck is on hand to speed up the recycling process, making things go round faster. Professor Potts takes us all the way back to the Big Bang to look at how the earth naturally recycles its resources and ends with a series of glorious smashes as a modern recycling truck is loaded and unloaded.

If I Had a Hammer: Building Homes and Hope With Habitat for Humanity President Jimmy Carter’s compelling anecdotes inspire a personal look at Habitat for Humanity that is sure to fire up a younger generation.

Somewhere in West Virginia, a thirteen-year-old girl now invites friends home without embarrassment. In a Brazilian village, children no longer sleep beneath a table when the heavy rains come. For a quarter-century in nearly ninety countries, Habitat for Humanity has built homes with and for the people who need them, aided by more than a million multigenerational volunteers. Two of the most devoted are former president Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn — and now this captivating account, abundantly illustrated with photos, relays their favorite stories with special resonance for young readers.

Save the Frogs Day and Arbor Day is April 30th!

The Mud Fairy Autographed For all those fans of Princess Smartypants -or for any little girl going through a fairy-princess obsessive phase-comes a playful story about a fairy who’s just fine being herself.

Wearing pink and tiptoing through the dewdrops is for wimps! Emmelina would rather play with her friends, the FROGS. But can a fairy with an independent streak earn her wings if she goes against the fairy code? Warm, humorous, and with just the right amount of pink (and mud), here’s a book that will capture the hearts of girly-girls and tomboys alike.

Place for Frogs In this simple introduction to frogs and ecology, Melissa Stewart shares with young readers the behavior and beauty of frogs and describes specific ways people can help protect them and their natural habitats.

Children learn basic facts about frogs, including where they live, what they eat, and how they benefit plants and other animals. Sidebars throughout the book contain information on how human action has harmed frogs and the many ways people can protect certain frog populations, such as by preserving wetlands and cutting down on pesticide use. Pointers on how youngsters can help frogs in their own neighborhood are also included. Ages 4-8

Alego t’s almost time for supper, and Alego goes with her grandmother to the shore to collect clams. Along the way, the girl discovers tide pools brimming with life — a bright orange starfish, a creepy crawly ugjurnaq, sea snails, and a sculpin. A rising star of the famed Cape Breton Inuit art scene, author and illustrator Ningeokuluk Teevee draws on her own childhood experiences in the Arctic for this enchanting introduction to the life of an Inuit girl and her world. Printed in both Inuktitut and English, the book includes an illustrated glossary of the sea creatures in the story as well as a map of Baffin Island.

Perfect for Arbor Day April 30th: & illustrated by local Artist Cyd Moore!

Arbor Day Square (Hardcover) Katie and her papa are among a group of settlers building a town in the middle of the dusty, brown prairie. Every week the trains bring more people and more lumber to build houses, fences, and barns. New buildings are erected: a church with a steeple, a store with glass windows, even a schoolhouse with desks for seventeen children.

But one thing is missing: trees.

When the townspeople take up a collection to order trees from back east Katie adds her own pennies and Papa’s silver dollar. When the tiny saplings finally arrive, Katie helps dig holes and fetch water. Then, in a quiet corner off the public square, Katie and Papa plant a flowering dogwood in memory of Mama.

Although set in the past, Kathryn O. Galbraith’s gentle story of community building, the timelessness of love, and the power of ritual will resonate with young readers today. Cyd Moore’s full-color illustrations reflect the simplicity of the story and life in a new prairie town, while evoking the complexity of its themes.

“An attractive introduction to the celebration of Arbor Day.”

Booklist

“Moore’s gentle pencil and watercolors lend a classic “storybook” feel to the story…”

Kirkus

Poetrees This book is ripe with poetrees, They’re grown to educate and please.

You’ll see a cedar.

Oak tree too.

Birch and banyan,

Pine and yew.

Palm and gum

And willow tree,

Plus more you’ll love tree-mendously!

Ages 6 and up

Starting with the book’s title and ending with a final “glossatree,” the wordplay in Florian’s latest poetry collection provides plenty of fun. Each of the 18 poems celebrates the wonder of trees, from the giant sequoia (the world’s tallest trees) and the Banyan (“an acre in its canopy “) to the bristlecone pine, one of the oldest trees on earth (alive “for fifty cen-trees”). Each poem is printed on a vertical double-page spread illustrated with mixed-media artwork in gouache, watercolor, colored pencil, rubber stamps, oil pastels, and collage on brown paper bags. The dramatic swirling visuals sometimes swamp the words, but the blurry images do leave room for kids to use their imaginations as they interpret the words. The big pages are well suited for group sharing, as are the playful puns (“Lovely leaves / Leave me in awe”). The final fascinating notes on each tree, and on leaves, stems, and roots, spell out the call for conservation that is part of the poetry and pictures. —  BOOKLIST

April is National Poetry  Month

Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty Give me your tired, your poor Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free… Who wrote these words? And why?

In 1883, Emma Lazarus, deeply moved by an influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe, wrote a sonnet that was to give voice to the Statue of Liberty. Originally a gift from France to celebrate our shared national struggles for liberty, the Statue, thanks to Emma’s poem, slowly came to shape our hearts, defining us as a nation that welcomes and gives refuge to those who come to our shores. Ages 4-8 years

Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25 One poet describes a meditative moment with her cat that “destroys all my knitting to teach me about impermanence.” Another prays for a soldier, a “ kindergarten best friend” who has returned from Baghdad. In several selections, immigrants remember their arrival in the U.S. In a brief, appended biography, one poet describes her draw to poetry: “Unresolved, uncomfortable, and sometimes repulsive moments of memory can be made somehow graceful through writing.” Teens will connect with the passionate, unmoderated feelings that are given clarity and shape in each poem. Grades 7-12. –Hazel Rochman,  Booklist

Radical New Poem Book of Reversible Verse

Mirror Mirror What’s brewing when two favorites—poetry and fairy tales—are turned (literally) on their heads? It’s a revolutionary recipe: an infectious new genre of poetry and a lovably modern take on classic stories.

“This appealing collection based on fairy tales is a marvel to read. It is particularly noteworthy because the poems are read in two ways: up and down. They are reverse images of themselves and work equally well in both directions. “Mirror Mirror” is chilling in that Snow White, who is looking after the Seven Dwarves, narrates the first poem of the pair. Read in reverse, it is the wicked queen who is enticing Snow White to eat the apple that will put her to sleep forever.” — Publisher’s Weekly

Books for Middle School Ages 11+

FDR’s Alphabet Soup; New Deal America, 1932-1939 During Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office, when he unveiled his New Deal to combat the Great Depression, his plans met with both skepticism and support. The years-long programs were broadly aimed at helping the country make an economic comeback, as FDR sought to create a government that was activley concerned with the common good of the people and would lend a helping hand to those willing to take on hard work. FDR’s porgrams and the agencies that implemented them, known by their initials and collectively referred to as Alphabet Soup, laid the foundation for many programs that are stil in operation today.

The Clone Codes The Cyborg Wars are over and Earth has peacefully prospered for more than one hundred years. Yet sometimes history must repeat itself until humanity learns from its mistakes. In the year 2170, despite technological and political advances, cyborgs and clones are treated no better than slaves, and an underground abolitionist movement is fighting for freedom. Ages 9+

The McKissacks’ slight story for younger readers packs a great deal of messaging, which will no doubt prove useful in classroom discussions of issues and themes but sometimes comes at the expense of the story. The science-fiction backdrop serves as a framework for issues of identity and societal prejudice but is not predominant in the reading experience. Grades 4-7. –Holly Koelling, Booklist

Inspiration For the Aspiring Young Writer:

Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook Practical advice in a perfect package for young aspiring writers. After receiving letters from fans asking for writing advice, accomplished authors Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter joined together to create this guidebook for young writers. The authors—along with award winning illustrator Matt Phelan, mix inspirational anecdotes with practical guidance on how to find a voice, develop characters and plot,make revisions, and overcome writer’s block. Fun writing prompts will help young writers jump-start their own projects, and encouragement throughout will keep them at work. Ages 9-12

Beautiful New Picture Books

A Song for Jamela The summer holidays are here, and Jamela is as bored as a girlcan be! All she can think about is the Afro-Idols TV final – so when she lands a job at Divine Braids hair salon, she can’t believe her eyes at the arrival of glamorous Afro-Idols celebrity Miss Chaka Chaka. But while Jamela’s idol dozes and Aunt Beauty designs her starry hairdo, a buzzy fly appears on the scene and threatens to ruin everything… Can creative Jamela save the day?  Ages 4-7

Niki Daly has won many awards for his exuberant work. His groundbreaking Not So fast Songololo (1986), winner of a U.S Parent’s Choice Award, paved the way for post-apartheid South African children’s books.

LMNO Peas Meet the peas – the alphabet peas!

And get ready to roll through the ABCs.

Ages 3-7

Humble green peas provide inspiration in this hilarious, occupation-based romp through the alphabet. Four-inch-high letters on each page serve as an ingenious architectural platform around, above, and inside of which dozens of “pea-ple” swarm in joyful pursuit of myriad types of work. Bouncy, rhyming text introduces the alphabet peas as “acrobats, artists, and astronauts in space, builders, bathers, and bikers in a race,” with unpaid “voters and volunteers” receiving their due, too. Baker’s inventive details belie the “as alike as two peas in a pod” adage; each and every amusing personalized pea is as unique as a snowflake—and that’s the point. The digitally rendered illustrations glow in vibrant, textured colors that boldly leap off the page against a background of ample white space. The sheer fun of the rhythmic text and the large alphabet letters work well for a read-aloud audience, but the busy, engaging details of the peas in their various worker modes are better suited for one-on-one exploration that young children will want to pore over again and again. – Booklist

Every Cowgirl Needs a Horse In Every Cowgirl Needs a Horse, Nellie Sue does everything with a western flair. Whether it is cleaning up the animal sty (picking up her stuffed animals) or rounding up cattle (getting the neighborhood kids together for her birthday party), she does it like a true cowgirl. All she really needs is a horse. So when Dad announces at her birthday party, “I got a horse right here for you,” Nellie Sue is excited. But when her horse turns out to be her first bicycle, it will take an imagination as big as Texas to help save the day.  Ages 3-5

Autographed copies of Sweets still available!

SWEETS AND OTHER STORIES by ANDRE WILLIAMS The first fiction effort from Andre Williams! Sweets is a narrative which takes you for a wild ride from Chicago to Houston, New Orleans, and New York City, as a teenage girl finds herself in a family way, without a family. Forced to fend for herself, she is taken under the wing of a local pimp who entices her into prostitution. The adventures that follow are a free-for-all foray through the fantastic world of pimps and their women, funeral directors, gangs and drug running, with sidebar anecdotes that are guaranteed to appall, alarm and astonish. Extreme entries remain unedited, and none of Williams’ raw drawl storytelling style has been tampered with in this standout fiction debut. (if ordering online, please request a signed copy).

Radical Art World Drop-out

Transiting Pop art, Feminist Expressionism, Conceptualism and Minimalism, Lee Lozano (1930–1999) sits alongside Eva Hesse and Hannah Wilke as a radical and influential model for younger generations of female artists. Lozano’s notebooks, which she approached as drawings, and which were later dismantled and sold as individual pages, became a part of her artmaking at the height of her fame in the late 1960s.

Rare Reprint of  Judo Book by Artist Yves Klien

The Foundations of Judo In 1952 the 24-year-old Yves Klein left Paris for Japan, to pursue his first love; not art but judo. After becoming one of very few Europeans to receive a coveted 4th dan black belt from the Kodokan in Tokyo, Klein returned to France and opened the Judo Académie de Paris. In 1954 the prestigious firm of Grasset published his book Les Fondements du Judo, illustrated with hundreds of photographs of Klein and the leading Japanese teachers demonstrating the six major Kata of judo.

Now this extraordinary work has finally been translated into English. Limited edition of 1500 copies!

A Collection of Classic Wordless Novels

Wordless Books “Wordless books” were stories from the early part of the twentieth century told in black and white woodcuts, imaginatively authored without any text. Although woodcut novels have their roots spreading back through the history of graphic arts, including block books and playing cards, it was not until the early part of the twentieth century that they were conceived and published. Despite its short-lived popularity, the woodcut novel had an important impact on the development of comic art, particularly contemporary graphic novels with a focus on adult themes. Scholar David A. Beronä examines the history of these books and the art and influence of pioneers like Frans Masereel, Lynd Ward, Otto Nückel, William Gropper, Milt Gross, and Laurence Hyde (among others). The images are powerful and iconic, and as relevant to the world today as they were when they were first produced. Beronä places these artists in the context of their time, and in the context of ours, creating a scholarly work of important significance in the burgeoning field of comics and comics history.

Strange Sounds: Vocoder & Toy Instruments

Listen to the TRUE STORY OF THE VOCORDER review on npr radio, the coolest!

How to Wreck a Nice Beach The history of the vocoder: how popular music hijacked the Pentagon’s speech scrambling weapon This is the story of how a military device became the robot voice of hip-hop and pop music. Though the vocoder, invented by Bell Labs in 1928, was designed to guard phones from eavesdroppers, it expanded beyond its original purpose and has since become widely used as a voice-altering tool for musicians. It has served both the Pentagon and the roller rink, a double agent of pop and espionage. In How to Wreck a Nice Beach—from a mis-hearing of the vocoder-rendered phrase “how to recognize speech”—music journalist Dave Tompkins traces the history of electronic voices from Nazi research labs to Stalin’s gulags, from the 1939 World’s Fair to Hiroshima, from Manhattan nightclubs to the Muppets.

Toy Instruments Toy Instruments comprises an eye-popping collection of musical toys made between the 1950s and 1990s. Created to excite children about learning how to play an instrument, it turns out that adults also had fun with these products. Just ask David Bowie; he used the Stylophone in his song “Space Oddity.” Culled from the author’s personal collection, Toy Instruments explores this niche of the toy industry, doing so with an informative and humorous approach that demonstrates how even in today’s world of Guitar Hero and Wii, these musical toys are emblematic, and enigmatic, artifacts from bygone eras. As DJ Spooky writes in his introduction, “I think of the material that Eric Schneider has compiled as a kind of ‘object’ time machine, reaching back to the heart of what electronic music represented when it was new.”

Quality New Fiction

“Little Bee” deserves a warning label: “Do not judge this book by its cover. Contents under pressure.” Despite the cutesy title (the book was more sensibly published in Britain as “The Other Hand”) and the coy book-flap description (“It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it”), “Little Bee” will blow you away. – full review source: Washington Post

Chris Cleave’s Little Bee works because the unflinching, brutal story balances an outwardly political motive with rich, deep character development (and even some welcome humor), focusing narrowly on events before broadening to reveal some larger truths. Cleave’s firm grasp of human nature and his unsparing disdain for injustice allow him to articulate lives as different as those of Little Bee and the less-likeable Sarah; both characters, though, are unforgettable. Comparisons between Cleave and fellow Brits Ian McEwan and John Banville are apt. – Booklist

New Translation of a Japanese Classic

KOKORO No collection of Japanese literature is complete without Natsume Soseki’s Kokoro, his most famous novel and the last he complete before his death. Published here in the first new translation in more than fifty years, Kokoro–meaning “heart”-is the story of a subtle and poignant friendship between two unnamed characters, a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls “Sensei”.

The Kwame Sutra “The Kwame Sutra,” is “a one-stop shop for all of Kwame’s best BS,” says top-rated morning radio show host Drew Lane. This new book from Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters M.L. Elrick and Jim Schaefer captures Kwame Kilpatrick as no one ever has. In his own words, including never-before-published quotations, the former mayor of Detroit reveals himself in many ways: Liar, Lothario and, yes, leader.

Life in the Boreal Forest “Gorgeously intricate illustrations perfectly complement equally evocative text in this introduction to the great northern, or boreal, forest, which sprawls across the entire northern hemisphere…Guiberson and Spirin manage to successfully convey the beauty and majesty of this forest and its denizens in two dimensions, and a list of organizations devoted to preserving the forest provides further information. An author’s note adds urgency to the message about the importance of preservation.”—Booklist, Starred Review  Ages 4-8

A Family Secret paperback, $9.99While searching his grandmother’s attic for likely items to sell at a yard sale, Jeroen finds a photo album that brings back hard memories for his grandmother, Helena. Helena tells Jeroen for the first time about her experiences during the German occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War, and mourns the loss of her Jewish best friend, Esther. Helena believes that her own father, a policeman and Nazi sympathizer, delivered Esther to the Nazis and that she died in a concentration camp. But after hearing her story, Jeroen makes a discovery and Helena realizes that her father kept an important secret from her.

An Eye For Color: The Story of Josef Albers * “Spare, engaging text paired with striking gouache illustrations make this book a perfect choice for aspiring young artists.”—School Library Journal, starred review

“An accessible and lively introduction to this artist and to color theory.”—Publishers Weekly

“An expanded biographical spread and comprehensive glossary with a color wheel greatly enhance this unusual effort, which closes with hands-on projects that explore color theory.”—Booklist  Ages 9-12

The Magician’s Elephant What if? Why not? Could it be?

When a fortuneteller’s tent appears in the market square of the city of Baltese, orphan Peter Augustus Duchene knows the questions that he needs to ask: Does his sister still live? And if so, how can he find her? The fortuneteller’s mysterious answer (an elephant! An elephant will lead him there!) sets off a chain of events so remarkable, so impossible, that you will hardly dare to believe it’s true. With atmospheric illustrations by fine artist Yoko Tanaka, here is a dreamlike and captivating tale that could only be narrated by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo. In this timeless fable, she evokes the largest of themes — hope and belonging, desire and compassion — with the lightness of a magician’s touch. Ages 9-12

Forest Born A brilliant addition to the Books of Bayern, this book is a treat for fans of this series, and stands alone for readers who might be discovering the joys of Shannon Hale’s writing for the first time.

“One doesn’t need to have read the earlier books to become enraptured by this one, but doing so adds to the richness of these very satisfying tales.”—Kirkus Reviews

Ages 13 and up

Midnight Charter (Hardcover) In a society based on trade, where everything can be bought and sold, the future rests on the secrets of a single document-and the lives of two children whose destiny it is to discover its secrets. In this spellbinding novel, newcomer David Whitley has imagined a nation at a crossroads: misshaped by materialism and facing a choice about its future. He has brought to life two children who will test the nation’s values-and crafted a spellbinding adventure story that will keep readers turning the pages until the very end.

For readers who love Philip Pullman, THE MIDNIGHT CHARTER combines great storytelling with a compelling vision – a many layered adventure with powerful and timely implications.

Liar (Hardcover) “Larbalestier creates and sustains a marvelous tension, as readers ponder what part of Micah’s narrative is true. Micah is wonderfully complex, both irritating and immensely likable. The unresolved ending will certainly provoke discussion, sending readers back to the text for a closer rereading.”—Booklist
Age 14 and up

Sotah Set against the exotic backdrop of Jerusalem’s glistening white stones and ancient rituals, Sotah is a contemporary story of the struggle to reconcile tradition with freedom, and faith with love.

“The pleasures of Ragen’s book arise… from thought-provoking comparisons of Israeli Orthodox and American Jewish life.” –Publishers Weekly

Louisa: The Life of Louisa May Alcott When Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women was published in 1868 it was an instant success. Louisa drew on her experiences in writing the novel, but there’s a lot more to her rags-to-riches story. Louisa came from a family that was poor but freethinking, and she started teaching when she was only seventeen years old. But writing was her passion. This informative biography captures the life of a compassionate woman who left an indelible mark on literature for all ages.  Ages 9-12

Eidi: The Children of Crow Cove (The Children of Crow Cove Series) (Hardcover) “Like the previous book in the Children of Crow Cove series, this unassuming yet compelling story is notable for the simplicity and power of the storytelling, the clarity of description and characterization, and the humanity of the ideas at the novel’s heart.” —Starred, Booklist

“[A] heartfelt story of love and belonging.” —Kirkus Reviews

Everything for a Dog (Hardcover) This parallel novel to Martin’s A Dog’s Life (Scholastic, 2005), about a stray named Squirrel, tells the tale of Squirrel’s brother and his search for a home. Unlike Dog’s Life, only part of the story is told from Bone’s perspective. Instead, it is also narrated by Henry, a boy desperately in want of a dog; and Charlie, who is dealing with the aftermath of his brother’s recent death. Though it follows the standard “boy and his dog” story line, Martin’s gentle tale also touches upon growing up, facing hardship, and the importance of companionship, no matter its form. The interconnected stories, told in alternating chapters, are thoughtfully written and crafted to a satisfying convergence. This is a touching and ultimately happy story that will appeal to fans of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Shiloh (S & S, 1991) and Fred Gipson’s Old Yeller (HarperCollins, 1942), as well as to a wider audience.—Nicole Waskie (School Journal) Ages 9-12

Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip Volume 3 (Hardcover) $19.95, “[Jansson’s] work soars with lightness and speed, and her drawings only echo her writing: delicate but precise, observant yet suggestive . . . Jansson was exceptional, an exuberant explorer of emotional independence and interdependence, a liberating force.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

Moomin has been swiftly making its way into the hearts of North Americans ever since Drawn & Quarterly began collecting the strip in 2006. It debuted in the London Evening News in 1954 and has become the fastest-selling D+Q series to date. Fifty years ago, Tove Jansson’s observations of everyday life—whimsical but with biting undertones—easily caught the attention of an international audience and still resonate today.

The True Deceiver (paperback) “…Jansson crafts an unsentimental – often mischievous – novel of ideas that asks whether it is better to be kind than to be truthful, especially for an artist. Ali Smith’s excellent introduction expresses shock and delight that there is still fiction by Jansson untranslated into English. After reading this gem, who could disagree?” —Financial Times

“I loved this book…understated yet exciting, and with a tension that keeps you reading. I felt transported to that remote region of Sweden and when I finished it I read it all over again. The characters still haunt me.”–Ruth Rendell

The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My (Hardcover) In a delightful, curious game of what come next, Moomintroll travels through the woods to get home with milk for Moominmamma. A simple trip turns into a colorful adventure as Moomintroll meets Mymble who has lost her sister Little My. Along the way, they endue the hijinks of all teh charming characterse of the Moomin world including the Fillijonks and Hattifatteners. Will Moomin ever make it home safe and sound? A beautiful and boisterous story by internationally acclaimed children’s author Tove Jansson, this picture book is sure to tickle the fancies of parents and kids as well as Moomintroll fans everywhere!

Weezer Changes the World (Hardcover) “Weezer is a cute little dog who does normal cute little dog things until one day he gets struck by lightning and everything changes. Suddenly Weezer can do extraordinary things. Then Weezer gets sick and it is up to everyone in the world to show him what they can do to change. The watercolor illustrations are comical and engaging.

Weezer Changes the World is not so much about how one person can change the world but how everyone together can make a difference if they really want to. This simple story grabs the great big scary world by the horns and tames it for young readers. It is meant to be read again and again as young children will gain more insight with each repetition.” — Advice From a Catapiller. online

Only One You (hardcover) This is a story about a deep love that is shared between parents and their child. Sharing wisdom from one generation to another is so important.

As parents, our hope is that our words will be embraced and stored away until they are needed. I wanted this colorful story to be a springboard that allows families to talk about memories and life lessons with their children. There is certainly no more enjoyable close to a busy day than sharing a special story with your child.

By visually seeing these simple thoughts, together with fun, lively characters, children will make a meaningful connection and understand that they, in their own way, can truly make a difference in their own lives and in the lives of those around them. They will celebrate their own uniqueness.

Ancient Gonzo Wisdom Bristling with inspired observations and wild anecdotes, this first collection offers a unique insight into the voice and mind of the inimitable Hunter S. Thompson, as recorded in the pages of Playboy, The Paris Review, Esquire, and elsewhere. Fearless and unsparing, the interviews detail some of the most storied episodes of Thompson’s life: a savage beating at the hands of the Hells Angels, talking football with Nixon on the 1972 Campaign Trail (“the only time in 20 years of listening to the treacherous bastard that I knew he wasn’t lying”), and his unlikely run for sheriff of Aspen.

Oy Vey: More! The ultimate book of jewish jokes part 2 Hanukah Quizzes Matzo Ball Humor A Real Kosher Treat!

From rabbis to relationships, latkes to lawyers, and marriages to miracles, here is a feast of more than a thousand old and new Jewish jokes and witty anecdotes—and you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy them!

David Minkoff’s Web site, www.awordinyoureye.com, has attracted attention and contributions from around the world. Containing jokes to tell children, a compatibility test for couples, and humorous quips for special occasions, his book is a truly unique collection.

“This clever kosher compilation generates giggles galore.” —Publishers Weekly

“Terrific and addicting . . . guaranteed to make you laugh.” —The Reporter (New York)

Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box Harken back to those thrilling days of yesteryear when the advent of rental videos astonished the movie-going consumer who could only feed his addiction by going to the theater or watching chopped up movies in between commercials on TV. Like vinyl, here is the revenge of another analog cast-off: the VHS is once again insinuating itself into American culture, and this book celebrates the anarchic design art of those early VHS boxes.

The Art Student’s War In The Art Student’s War, his sixth novel, Brad Leithauser has brought off a double feat of imagination: a keen and affectionate rendering of an artist as a young woman and a loving historical portrait of a now-vanished Detroit in its heyday.

The story opens on a sunny spring day as a pretty woman, in a crowded wartime city, climbs aboard a streetcar. She is heading home, where another war—a domestic war—is about to erupt.

The year is 1943. Our heroine, Bianca Paradiso, is eighteen and an art student. She goes by Bea with friends and family, but she is Bianca in that world of private ambition where she dreams of creating canvases deserving of space on a museum’s walls. She is determined to observe everything, and there is much to see in a thriving, sleepless city where automobile production has been halted in favor of fighter planes and tanks, and where wounded soldiers have begun to appear with disturbing frequency.

Generosity: An Enhancement (Hardcover) What will happen to life when science identifies the genetic basis of happiness? Who will own the patent? Do we dare revise our own temperaments? Funny, fast, and finally magical, Generosity celebrates both science and the freed imagination. In his most exuberant book yet, Richard Powers asks us to consider the big questions facing humankind as we begin to rewrite our own existence.

“Powers can write lovely and heartfelt stories (he won a National Book Award in 2006), but he also has a well-deserved reputation for brainy fiction (he won a MacArthur “genius” grant in 1989), and “Generosity” may be his most demanding novel yet. It’s told in a series of moments that run from just a paragraph to a few pages long, involving a triple-helix plot.” – Washington Post

There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby The literary event of Halloween: a book of otherworldly power from Russia’s preeminent contemporary fiction writer

Vanishings and aparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia—or anywhere else in the world—today.

Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do What are our obligations to others as people in a free society? Should government tax the rich to help the poor? Is the free market fair? Is it sometimes wrong to tell the truth? Is killing sometimes morally required? Is it possible, or desirable, to legislate morality? Do individual rights and the common good conflict?

Michael J. Sandel’s “Justice” course is one of the most popular and influential at Harvard. Up to a thousand students pack the campus theater to hear Sandel relate the big questions of political philosophy to the most vexing issues of the day, and this fall, public television will air a series based on the course. Justice offers readers the same exhilarating journey that captivates Harvard students. This book is a searching, lyrical exploration of the meaning of justice, one that invites readers of all political persuasions to consider familiar controversies in fresh and illuminating ways.

Death of Bunny Munro At turns dark and humane, The Death of Bunny Munro is a tender portrait of the relationship between a boy and his father, with all the wit and enigma that fans will recognize as Nick Cave’s singular vision.

“Put Cormac McCarthy, Franz Kafka and Benny Hill together in a Brighton seaside guesthouse and they might just come up with Bunny Munro. As it stands, though, this novel emerges emphatically as the work of one of the great cross-genre storytellers of our age: a compulsive read possessing all of Nick Cave’s trademark horror and humanity, often thinly disguised in a galloping, playful romp.” —Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting

Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Hardcover) From the author of the #1 bestseller Three Cups of Tea, the continuing story of this determined humanitarian’s efforts to promote peace through education

In this dramatic first-person narrative, Greg Mortenson picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off in 2003, recounting his relentless, ongoing efforts to establish schools for girls in Afghanistan; his extensive work in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan after a massive earthquake hit the region in 2005; and the unique ways he has built relationships with Islamic clerics, militia commanders, and tribal leaders even as he was dodging shootouts with feuding Afghan warlords and surviving an eight-day armed abduction by the Taliban. He shares for the first time his broader vision to promote peace through education and literacy, as well as touching on military matters, Islam, and women-all woven together with the many rich personal stories of the people who have been involved in this remarkable two-decade humanitarian effort.

The Wild Things The Wild Things, based loosely on the storybook by Maurice Sendak and the screenplay co-written with Spike Jonze, is about the confusions of a boy, Max, making his way in a world he can’t control. His father is gone, his mother is spending time with a younger boyfriend, his sister is becoming a teenager and no longer has interest in him. At the same time, he finds himself capable of startling acts of wildness — he wears a wolf suit, bites his mom, can’t always control his outbursts. During a fight at home, Max flees and runs away into the woods. He finds a boat there, jumps in, and ends up on the open sea, destination unknown. He lands on the island of the Wild Things, and soon he becomes their king. But things get complicated when Max realizes that the Wild Things want as much from him as he wants from them. Funny, dark, and alive, The Wild Things is a timeless and time-tested tale for all ages.

Sweets The first fiction effort from the legendary Andre Williams! Sweets is a narrative which takes you for a wild ride from Chicago to Houston, New Orleans, and New York City, as a teenage girl finds herself in a family way, without a family. Forced to fend for herself, she is taken under the wing of a local pimp who entices her into prostitution. The adventures that follow are a free-for-all foray through the fantastic world of pimps and their women, funeral directors, gangs and drug running, with sidebar anecdotes that are guaranteed to appall, alarm and astonish. Extreme entries remain unedited, and none of Williams’ raw drawl storytelling style has been tampered with in this standout fiction debut.

Go-Monster, Go! MONSTER MANIA!

Rat Fink Wacky Wobbler by Ed “Big Daddy” Roth

“Like Wow Man, a Bouncin’ Rat Fink Wacky Wobbler!”

During the hot rod craze of the 60’s, no one made more of an impact on popular culture than the legendary car customizer Ed “Big Daddy” Roth! RAT FINK, Big Daddy’s fly-infested alter ego and trademark was Roth’s most popular monster. This is a special limited edition in metallic groovy green!

Cameron Jamie: silkscreen/ (unsigned) Destroy All Monsters exhibition poster designed by artist Cameron Jamie – a limited number of these are available from an edition of 100. This three color poster has a secret message scrawled in glow-in-the-dark green – just turn out your lights and turn on to a mystical light show that will liven up your secret cave.

Destroy All Monsters ‘Monster Masher’ Trading Card Set Each card deck consists of a complete set of 40 thick glossy double-sided 3×4″ trading cards, two buttons, two stickers, one Japanese monster toy, and two postcard checklists with descriptions and titles for each image, all designed for the 2009 Printed Matter exhibition “Hungry for Death.” -each deck is numbered from an edition of 250 copies.

Also available is the 1975 Destroy All Monsters LP ‘Double Sextet’ and a reissue of the ‘original primal stew’ – the 3x CD set: Destroy All Monsters 1974-1976 . – also available is a new eco-friendly packaged reissue CD of Monster Island’s first acid-folk release “From the Michigan Floor”

Flatwoods Monster Figurine (terracotta, votive candleholder) A wonderful artifact and folk art piece from the Flatwoods West Virgina UFO incident. This figurine and candle votive measures about 12″ tall and about 4″ wide at the base, it is fired clay and brightly painted. There are holes to emit light should you want to use this as an elaborate candle votive, by placing a candle underneath the sculpture and watching the light shoot through it.

This was just sent  in by our key news correspondent in the field Sharon Zimmerman. With Graduation season upon us, here are Max and Eli (authors of a recent bestselling cookbook, Freshman in the Kitchen ) to help us out of the difficult maze of  “What gift do you give to the recent grad?”

Let’s take a look at the top 5 most common graduation gifts to truly hammer home why Freshman in the Kitchen is the far more logical and superior gift choice.