Paul Clemens at Baldwin Library; Wednesday, February 1 at 7 pm

Detroit Author Paul Clemens will be at the Baldwin Public Library on February 1, 2012 at 7:00 pm speaking about his newest book, Punching Out: One Year in a Closing Auto Plant. This is Clemens’ second book on Detroit, his first being Made in Detroit and it concerns the loss of manufacturing and the working class in Detroit and America.

From the New York Times,  “All this said, “Punching Out” is frequently rewarding. Mr. Clemens traces the colorful history of the Budd plant, which manufactured parts for a variety of car brands and which once employed nearly 10,000 people. He is a lovely, mournful observer of Detroit’s people.”

….read more here

Rock Legend Mitch Ryder signing at Book Beat on Sunday, Feb. 5th

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 about his life 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 or call (248) 968-1190 for more information.

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

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Coming on February 29th: Elmore Leonard Book Signing for Raylan at the Grosse Pointe War Memorial… details TBA

* * * * *

Book Beat reading group selection for February

The Book Beat Reading Group  will meet February  29th  on leap year to discuss The Museum or Eterna’s Novel (The First Good Novel) - a book ahead of its time. Written during the 1930s and ’40s – the heyday of Argentine literary culture – Museum is in many ways an “anti-novel: It opens with more than fifty prologues – including ones addressed “To My Authorial Persona,” “To the Critics,” and “To Readers Who Will Perish If They Don’t Know What the Novel Is About” – that are by turns philosophical, outrageous, ponderous, and cryptic. The second half of the book is the novel itself, a story about a group of characters (some borrowed from other texts) who live on an estancia called “La Novelo”. Meetings are held at  the Goldfish Teahouse (117 W. Fourth, in downtown Royal Oak) at 7pm. Books are discounted 15% at Book Beat (26010 Greenfield Rd., Oak Park, MI). All are welcome! 

Book Beat is pleased to welcome legendary author and beloved Detroiter Elmore Leonard, along with his son, author Peter Leonard, to the Baldwin Library (300 West Merrill0 Street Birmingham, MI 48009) on Thursday, Jan. 19th at 7 pm.  They will be speaking and signing books. This free event is co-sponsored by the Book Beat and the Baldwin Library, and open to the general public. Please call Book Beat (248) 968-1190 for more info or to reserve copies of these titles.

This event is one of only three nationwide book signings planned for the book launch of Raylan, Leonard’s latest novel that features the U.S. Marshal Raylan featured in the hit TV series JUSTIFIED.

….read more here

Wong Herbert Yee at Bloomfield Township Library, Jan. 25th

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.    

Paul Clemens at Baldwin Library; Wednesday, February 1 at 7 pm

Detroit Author Paul Clemens will be at the Baldwin Public Library on February 1, 2012 at 7:00 pm speaking about his newest book, Punching Out: One Year in a Closing Auto Plant. This is Clemens’ second book on Detroit, his first being Made in Detroit and it concerns the loss of manufacturing and the working class in Detroit and America.

From the New York Times,  “All this said, “Punching Out” is frequently rewarding. Mr. Clemens traces the colorful history of the Budd plant, which manufactured parts for a variety of car brands and which once employed nearly 10,000 people. He is a lovely, mournful observer of Detroit’s people.”

….read more here

Rock Legend Mitch Ryder signing at Book Beat on Sunday, Feb. 5th

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 about his life 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 or call (248) 968-1190 for more information.

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

* * * * *

Book Beat reading group selection for January

Book Beat’s Reading Group Selection for January is Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s surreal The Letter Killers Club. The Reading Group will meet on Wednesday, January 25th in the Goldfish Teahouse (117 W. Fourth, in downtown Royal Oak) at 7pm. Books are discounted 15% at Book Beat (26010 Greenfield Rd., Oak Park, MI). All are welcome!       ….read more here.

Technorati Tags: author readings, Author signings, Baldwin library, Book Beat author events, book beat events, Detroit book signings, Detroit literature, Elmore Leonard, Helen Frost, January 2012 literary events, local signings Detroit, Paul Clemens, Peter Leonard

Visit the  links below for Wonderful Holiday gift Ideas:

Best Children’s Books 2011

a curated selection by Book Beat owner and buyer Colleen Kammer, who has put together some of this years finest children’s picture books, early readers, middle readers and Young Adult titles. There are other great titles but we can’t list them all… many books are signed by the authors and illustrators.  Check back soon as titles are being added to the list daily

All Detroit Gift Guide 2011

a bumper crop of Detroit centered books are out this season, featuring music biographies, pictorial surveys, unusual histories, contemporary studies, and art. Check back again soon for more updates.

Best Art & Photo title of 2011

Mixed for Fun (Quirky Gifts) 2011

Here you will find some odd, enchanting and just-for-fun quirky gift add-ons… New this year are flashing/ snapping Camera Pens, Oinking Pig Pens, exquisite day-of-the-dead ornaments, President Obama ornaments, make your own music boxes, monster bandages, Jesus bandages, stylish mustaches, chattering monkey keychains, super awesome trading cards and more.

In our backroom gallery:

Glenn Barr’s holiday pop-up shop with cards, books, posters, prints, toys and special gifts chosen by the artist.

Still up is Yasuo Tanaka’s BONES drawing exhibit with Tanaka & Dick Cruger’s “Parallel  Universe” book & photo exhibit.

Thank you for supporting Book Beat in its 29th year in business!

On Thursday, December 8th at 7 PM, the Book Beat (26010 Greenfield Rd. Oak Park, MI) will host a presentation by three local authors with recent books on Detroit history. 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.

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. MEET THE ORIGINAL WHITE FANG PUPPET!!!

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.

Glenn Barr Signing this Saturday,December 10th!!

Detroit’s favorite space-age bachelor pad artist Glenn Barr will be signing copies of his latest book, Faces at the Book Beat on Saturday, December 10 from 7-8 pm. Faces is a small book, six by six inches, filled with close-up portraits of the stars and starlets that make up Barr’s fabulous forgotten world. A small selection of signed prints will be available at the event, as well as Faces and a few other titles. Put on your finest cocktail garb and zip on over.

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. Call 248-968-1190

Detroit: 138 Square Miles, a recent review

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

The exhibition “Bones” displays the art and vision of Tokyo artist Yasuo Tanaka -up in the Book Beat gallery through January 9th.

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, mixing 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.

We thank you for supporting Book Beat in its 29th year in business.

Our Holiday Hours through December 23rd: MON-WED- 10AM-8 PM, THURS- SAT 10 AM- 9 PM., Sunday 12-5 PM. Sunday December 24th: 10 AM- 6 PM, New Years Eve Dec. 31st: 10 AM-6 PM,  Please call: 248-968-1190 for more information or to place an order.

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.

New Summer Hours: MON-FRI- 10AM-8 PM, SAT 10 AM- 7 PM.  From June 19th through August 21st, Book Beat will be closed on Sundays (open by appointment only)

Regarding Bob Lutz Signed Books:

I'm sorry to report that due to circumstances beyond our control, Mr. Lutz
was unable to sign books as soon as we planned. 

Due to his busy schedule, Mr. Lutz will be unable to sign the books until
after July 16th.  We hope to ship the books to those who ordered online or
by phone shortly after that date. If you ordered from the GM Technical
Center or Design Center, we will be delivering them to those sites as soon
as they are signed and you will be notified by email how to pick them up.
If you would like to make changes or additions to your order we can also
accept them before July 16th.   

If anyone needs to cancel an order before that date, please let us know
and we will refund your money. 

We thank you for your understanding and patience.

Morose Delectation a Black Humor drawing/comics show at Book Beat

a group drawing show at the Book Beat gallery, based around artists found in the book Black Eye #1, edited by Ryan Standfest. For more information: MOROSE DELECTATION JUNE 5th- Aug. 5th

Book Beat reading group discussion of On the Road June 29th.

meeting to discuss Jack Kerouac’s seminal beat novel at Goldfish Teahouse, Wed., June 29th at 7 PM.

Grace Lee Boggs signed copies

We still have autographed copies of Grace Lee Boggs two books Living for Change and The Second American Revolution

Reminder: Book Beat closed on Sundays June 19th-August 21st

The Book Beat will be closed on Sundays this summer beginning June 19th – August 21st - We will be open by appointment on Sundays during this time or for special events.  We thank you for your continued support.

Sunday June 5th at Book Beat: Comic Drawing Exhibition & Black Eye Launch

ON Sunday, June 5, from 3-5 PM Book Beat will be hosting an exhibition, MOROSE DELECTATION, in conjunction with Ryan Standfest’s new drawing and comic collection, Black Eye: Graphic Transmissions To Cause Ocular Hypertension. This will be the local book launch for Black Eye.

The first scheduled event to coincide with the publication of BLACK EYE 1: Graphic Transmissions to Cause Ocular Hypertension, will be a companion exhibition of works by ten of the book’s contributors. However, the work included in MOROSE DELECTATION will not be drawn from that in BLACK EYE, but will be work that has been newly-created for the exhibition as well as older, unpublished works. The following is the press release:

MOROSE DELECTATION

An Exhibition of Works on Paper, Occasioned by the Release of

BLACK EYE 1: Graphic Transmissions to Cause Ocular Hypertension

A New Comics Anthology of Black and Absurdist Humor by 41 International Artists and Writers, Edited by Ryan Standfest and Published by Rotland Press + Comic Works, Detroit, Michigan.

WHERE: Book Beat Bookstore & Gallery, 26010 Greenfield Road / Oak Park, MI / 48237-1050 / (248) 968-1190

WHEN: JUNE 5th – AUGUST 5^th, 2011; OPENING EVENT with discussion and signing on June 5^th, from 3 to 5 PM.

The exhibition will include work by:

Max Clotfelter (Seattle, Washington)

Andy Gabrysiak (Plymouth, Michigan)

Ian Huebert (San Francisco, California)

Kaz (Hollywood, California)

James Moore (Brooklyn, New York)

Tom Neely (Los Angeles, California)

Paul Nudd (Chicago, Illinois)

Onsmith (Chicago, Illinois)

David Paleo (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Stephen Schudlich (Dearborn, Michigan)

Curated by Cary Loren and Ryan Standfest

This exhibition, held at the Book Beat Gallery, showcases works on paper by ten artists who are contributors to the comics anthology BLACK EYE No. 1. The exhibition is meant to be a companion to the anthology, and the work presented here reflects a continuation of the sensibility presented in the pages of BLACK EYE, namely a focus on black and absurdist humor that sits uneasily on the border between what is funny and what is not.

The exhibition will have an OPENING EVENT ON SUNDAY, JUNE 5^th, from 3 to 5pm, during which there will be a discussion concerning BLACK EYE and the nature of black humor, as well as a signing with some of the contributing artists present. A limited edition letterpress print by the artists Onsmith & Nudd will be available for purchase and for signing, along with copies of BLACK EYE.

Further information about BLACK EYE can be found at the Rotland Press + Comic Works site: http://rotlandpress.wordpress.com/

Black Eye was the subject of international controversy recently after the book was confiscated by Canadian border agents. Copies of the collection were being taken to a comics convention in Canada and agents considered it obscene material. Here is a link to the incident on the Comics Journal website.

Destroy All Monsters Magazine signing/discussion June 11th at PUBLIC POOL

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, Q & A will follow.

Discussion of On the Road, Wednesday,  June 29th

The Book Beat reading group will meet for a discussion on Jack Kerouac’s seminal beat novel “On the Road” on Wednesday June 29th at the Goldfish Teahouse in Royal Oak. For more information please contact the Book Beat, 248-968-1190.

It’s our 28th year.

We’re not so far away….

Come visit us, O.K?

Book Beat will be closed Sunday, May 29th and Monday, May 30th for Memorial Day .  We apologize for any inconvenience.  Have a great holiday!

We are unable to reach everyone who would appreciate these events.   If you know anyone who would be interested, please forward this information on to them.  Thank you for your continued support.

Sunday June 5th at Book Beat: Comic Drawing Exhibition & Black Eye Launch

ON Sunday, June 5, from 3-5 PM Book Beat will be hosting an exhibition, MOROSE DELECTATION, in conjunction with Ryan Standfest’s new drawing and comic collection, Black Eye: Graphic Transmissions To Cause Ocular Hypertension. This will be the local book launch for Black Eye.

The first scheduled event to coincide with the publication of BLACK EYE 1: Graphic Transmissions to Cause Ocular Hypertension, will be a companion exhibition of works by ten of the book’s contributors. However, the work included in MOROSE DELECTATION will not be drawn from that in BLACK EYE, but will be work that has been newly-created for the exhibition as well as older, unpublished works. The following is the press release:

MOROSE DELECTATION

An Exhibition of Works on Paper, Occasioned by the Release of

BLACK EYE 1: Graphic Transmissions to Cause Ocular Hypertension

A New Comics Anthology of Black and Absurdist Humor by 41 International Artists and Writers, Edited by Ryan Standfest and Published by Rotland Press + Comic Works, Detroit, Michigan.

WHERE: Book Beat Bookstore & Gallery, 26010 Greenfield Road / Oak Park, MI / 48237-1050 / (248) 968-1190

WHEN: JUNE 5th – AUGUST 5^th, 2011; OPENING EVENT with discussion and signing on June 5^th, from 3 to 5 PM.

The exhibition will include work by:

Max Clotfelter (Seattle, Washington)

Andy Gabrysiak (Plymouth, Michigan)

Ian Huebert (San Francisco, California)

Kaz (Hollywood, California)

James Moore (Brooklyn, New York)

Tom Neely (Los Angeles, California)

Paul Nudd (Chicago, Illinois)

Onsmith (Chicago, Illinois)

David Paleo (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Stephen Schudlich (Dearborn, Michigan)

Curated by Cary Loren and Ryan Standfest

This exhibition, held at the Book Beat Gallery, showcases works on paper by ten artists who are contributors to the comics anthology BLACK EYE No. 1. The exhibition is meant to be a companion to the anthology, and the work presented here reflects a continuation of the sensibility presented in the pages of BLACK EYE, namely a focus on black and absurdist humor that sits uneasily on the border between what is funny and what is not.

The exhibition will have an OPENING EVENT ON SUNDAY, JUNE 5^th, from 3 to 5pm, during which there will be a discussion concerning BLACK EYE and the nature of black humor, as well as a signing with some of the contributing artists present. A limited edition letterpress print by the artists Onsmith & Nudd will be available for purchase and for signing, along with copies of BLACK EYE.

Further information about BLACK EYE can be found at the Rotland Press + Comic Works site: http://rotlandpress.wordpress.com/

Black Eye was the subject of international controversy recently after the book was confiscated by Canadian border agents. Copies of the collection were being taken to a comics convention in Canada and agents considered it obscene material. Here is a link to the incident on the Comics Journal website.

Book Beat Reading group discussion: A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe

The next Reading Group meeting will be held on Wed., June 1st at 7pm in the Goldfish Teahouse (117 W. 4th St., in downtown Royal Oak). Copies of the reading group selection are discounted 15% at the Book Beat. All are welcome!

Book Beat’s May reading group book is A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe. Oe was the winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature. A Personal Matter is a novel based on the author’s experience coming to terms with his son’s mental disability.

“[A Personal Matter] owes obvious debts to Kierkegaard: the search for—and confrontation with—the self. Its urban surroundings, the classless misfits that populate it, and its vivid sexual descriptions make it seem socially and thematically similar to its Occidental counterparts.”—James Toback, The New York Times Book Review

Laura Lee will be at the Baldwin Public Library on Tuesday, March 8 at 7 p.m.  She is the author of Broke is Beautiful: Living and Loving the Cash-Strapped Life. A smart and humorous look at embracing a non-materialistic lifestyle, Lee believes in challenging society’s perspective on success.  A relevant book for the uncertain economies of today.  Books will be available for purchase at the event from Book Beat adn the author will be available for autographing.  The Baldwin Public Library is located  at 300 W Merrill St • Birmingham, MI • 48009.