Sunday, September 28, 2008: Great Architecture of Michigan and Art in Detroit Public Places at Book Beat
Join us at the Book Beat on Sunday, September 28th from 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM for an afternoon celebration of Detroit and Michigan public art and architectural landmarks. We will be presenting two new books; Great Architecture of Michigan and Art in Detroit Public Places. Book authors and photographers will be present.
Detroit Free Press architecture critic John Gallagher and renowned photographer Balthazar Korab have both combined their talents in a new book: Great Architecture from Michigan, recently published by Wayne State University press. With photographs by Balthazar Korab and text by John Gallagher, Great Architecture of Michigan will be a treasured volume, indispensible for anyone wanting to learn more about Michigan’s impressive architectural legacy.
John Gallagher and Balthazar Korab will be at the event to sign books and discuss this exciting project, combining some of Michigan's finest architectural works in beautiful photographs and descriptive writing into a single keepsake artbook.
We will also be presenting a new third edition of Art in Detroit Public Places by art historian Dennis Alan Nawrocki and photographer David Clements. This new and updated edition of a classic guidebook considers over 150 pieces organized by section into six geographical districts of metropolitan Detroit. Each of these sections is accompanied by a comprehensive street map for easy planning of walking or driving tours, and the artworks in it are presented with individual descriptive histories and photographs.
Art and Architecture enthusiasts, and all citizens interested in the rich cultural diversity of our city and state will appreciate this afternoon arts celebration.Both books are invaluable refrence guides to the artistic landscape of Detroit and Michigan and will make excellent gifts this holiday.
Dennis Alan Nawrocki is a professor of Art History at Center for Creative Studies. David Clements is the photographer of Talking Shops: Detroit Commercial Folk Art.
The Book Beat is located at 26010 Greenfield, in Oak Park. Call 248-968-1190 for more information or to reserve books.
Justine Larbalestier is quickly becoming a name to watch in the world of young adult fiction. Her latest book, How to Ditch Your Fairy, is about a teenage-girl named Charlie who is blessed with a helpful fairy with a rather unusual talent: the ability to find a parking spot. Loaded with humor this light-hearted novel should appeal to teens and young adults who occasionally feel that everyone else has it made.
Larbalestier is from Sydney, Australia and is also the author of the Magic or Madness trilogy. Read an online interview with two amazingly wonderful fantasy authors: Justine Larbalestier and Ekaterina Sedia at Fantasy Magazine.
Kathe Koja is the author of many critically-acclaimed young adult novels including Buddha Boy, The Blue Mirror and Kissing the Bee. Her latest novel, Headlong, takes place in the Vaughn School, a private school for girls where perfection means everything. Lily Noble’s perfect world is shaken by a new friend named Hazel who shows Lily a world beyond the sheltered walls of Vaughn.
Kathe Koja is a native Detroiter who resides in the area. Read an online interview with Kathe at Teens Read Too.com/
Michael P. Spradlin is the author of an exciting new children’s novel called, The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail. Set during the time of Richard the Lionhearted and the English Crusades, the young orphan Tristan’s wish for adventure is granted when he becomes a squire headed to fight in the Holy Land. This fast-paced adventure novel is sure to please readers aged 9-12 thirsty for excitement in the medieval era.
Spradlin is also the author of the Spy Goddess series and lives in Lapeer, Michigan. Listen to a podcast with the author at Book Bites for Kids.
October 2nd: Bestselling Author THOMAS C. FOSTER at the Huntington Woods Library.
Thomas C. Foster is the author of How to Read Novels Like a Professor. He will speak about "Reading Character" at the Huntington Woods Library on Thursday October 2nd at 7 PM. To register for this free program, call 248-543-9720 or 248-658-3440. The Huntington Woods Library is located at 26415 Scotia (1/2 mile North of I-696 between Woodward and Coolidge).
To honor "October is National Reading Month," the Detroit Chapter of the Women's National Book Association is sponsoring the event and Book Beat will be selling books on site. Thomas C. Foster—the sage and scholar who ingeniously led readers through the fascinating symbolic codes of great literature in his first book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor—now examines the grammar of the popular novel. Read: interview with Thomas C. Foster.
Sunday, October 5th: The Detroit Free Press Gift of Reading Book Fair (formerly the Yak's Corner Book Fair).
The Book Beat is helping to arrange the Detroit Free Press Book Fair to be held from 12:30 - 4:00 PM on Sunday, October 5th, 2008 at the Detroit Science Center, 5020 John R. in Detroit (at the corner of John R and Warren, 1 block east of Woodward, across from the D.I.A.) Author's will speak from 1-2 PM and autograph from 2-3 PM. FREE Admission to the Science Center and book fair -- always a fun family event. The Book Beat will be at the fair selling books by these featured authors:
Kelly DiPucchio: a picture book author whose newest titles include Grace For President (a popular title in 2008!) and Sipping Spiders through a Straw:Campfire Songs for Monsters (just right for Halloween!)
Jean Alicia Elster is author of the Joe-Joe series (ages 6-10 years) and her newest novel Who's Jim Hines? (ages 8-12 years) takes place in Detroit in the 1930s.
Wong Herbert Yee is a Michigan author-illustrator whose titles include: Fireman Small, Tracks in the Snow, Hamburger Heaven and his newest book: A Brand New Day with Mouse and Mole (the third book in an easy-reader series.)
Debbie Taylor is the author of the picture book Sweet Music in Harlem (for ages 5-9 years). She is now working on a book about Idlewilde (a Michigan vacation spot popular 50 years ago).
Jonathan Rand is the author of the popular Michigan Chillers and American Chillers series.
Monday, October 6th: CHILDREN’S AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR Heather Henson and David Small at the SOUTHFIELD PUBLIC LIBRARY
Book Beat is pleased to announce that children’s author Heather Henson and Caldecott award winning illustrator David Small will be reading from and signing copies of their new collaboration, That Book Woman at the Southfield Public Library on Monday, October 6, 2008 from 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM. This will be a great opportunity to listen and meet two tremendous talents in the world of children’s literature. This event is a co-production between the Book Beat and the Southfied Library located at 26300 Evergreen Road • Southfield, Michigan. For further information please call 248-968-1190.
That Book Woman is an inspirational tale honoring the courageous individuals called the Pack Horse Librarians who carried books by horseback to remote regions of America during the Great Depression. The story centers around a young boy named Cal who lives deep in the Appalachian Mountains. Cal is skeptical at first of the mysterious book woman who travels so far just to bring “chicken scratch,” but he learns that books are perhaps valuable cargo after all.
That Book Woman is a meaningful, unique, charming and powerful story that will appeal to parents, librarians, educators, book lovers and especially children. It is a Book Beat top-of-the-list fall favorite pick. Thank you for your support for this very special release.
About the Author: Heather Henson grew up in Kentucky and recently returned to her home state after spending many years in Brooklyn, New York, where she worked as an editor of children's books and a freelance writer. She now lives on a farm with her husband, Tim, and young son, Daniel Walker, and is the author of several novels, including Making the Run, Angel Coming and Junebug. That Book Woman is Henson's picture-book debut.
About the Illustrator: David Small is a Caldecott Award winning children’s illustrator for So You Want to Be President? by Judith St. George. He received a Caldecott Honor medal for The Gardener by Sarah Stewart and has also illustrated Imogene’s Antlers, The Library and over 40 other titles. David Small grew up in Detroit and now lives in Mendon, Michigan with his wife Sarah Stewart.
Sunday, October 12: Looking at Detroit with Photographers Bill Rauhauser, Laszlo Regos and historian/author Mary Desjarlais
Detroit area photographers Bill Rauhauser and Lazlo Regos will join historian Mary Desjarlais at the Book Beat on Sunday, October 12th from 2:00-3:30 PM to discuss the history of Detroit's beautiful homes alongside some of its architectural gems.The Book Beat is located at 26010 Greenfield in Oak Park. Call 248-968-1190 for more information or to reserve books.
Bill Rauhauser has been photographing the Detroit area for over 60 years. He is the professor emeritus at Center for Creative Studies and is the author of several books about Detroit including Boblo Revisited and Detroit Revisited. Recently, The Detroit Institute of Arts and The Burton Historical Society acquired a large archive of Rauhauser's Detroit images for their permanent collection.
Mary Desjarlais is an area free lance writer and historian. She is the author of Detroit Revisited and her lastest book: Beauty on the Streets of Detroit.
Beauty on the Streets of Detroit: A History of the Housing Market in Detroit (Paperback) Beauty on the Streets of Detroit showcases the small homes of this great city. Forgotten homes from neighborhoods that have been eliminated for modernization, city growth, and in more recent years from urban neglect, are remembered in black and white glossy full page photographs by the celebrated photographer Bill Rauhauser who is known for his street photography in Detroit. The history of homes built in this 300 year old city and its real estate market was written by Mary Desjarlais. This history covers the city's small houses, their owners and neighborhoods, architectural styles, construction methods, and the development of the real estate practice in the city. This book is a must for anyone interested in the city of Detroit or architectural history. This limited edition book is signed by the photographer Bill Rauhauser, 174 pps., 50 black and white photos.
Laszlo Regos is a Hungarian born photographer who moved to America in 1979 and now calls Detroit home. In 1985 Laszlo began Spectrum Photo in Berkley, Michigan a well known lab and stock photo agency. Laszlo specializes in architectural and interior design photography and will present his new 2009 Detroit calendar and a recently completed book on a famous Hungarian Opera House.
Detroit: City Beautiful (2009 Calendar) by architectural and design photographer Laszlo Regos. There’s more to Detroit than sports, cars, and music. Just look up – and you’ll see that the city’s skyline is home to beautiful buildings by renowned architects such as Albert Kahn, Minoru Yamasaki, Cass Gilbert, and many others.
Photographed by professional architecture and interior design photographer Laszlo Regos, Detroit: City Beautiful 2009 is itself a work of art that offers a glimpse inside several of Detroit’s world-class architectural gems.
Book Beat October Reading Group Selection
The Book Beat reading group selection for October is At the Mountains of Madness (paperback). » We will meet Wednesday, October 29th at 7:00 PM at the Goldfish Tea House located at 117 West 4th Street in downtown Royal Oak, just west of Main Street. We have moved our meetings to Goldfish Tea in order to be more flexable with our discussion time. We are reading the Modern Library edition with an essay by Lovecraft on "Supernatural Horror in Literature". Copies are available at the store for a 15% discount.
"Lovecraft's most obvious literary source for At the Mountains of Madness is Edgar Allan Poe's lone novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, whose concluding section is set in Antarctica. Lovecraft twice cites Poe's "disturbing and enigmatic" story in his text, and explicitly borrows the mysterious phrase "Tekeli-li" from Poe's work. In a letter to August Derleth, Lovecraft wrote that he was trying to achieve with his ending an effect similar to what Poe accomplished in Pym.[6]
Another proposed inspiration for At the Mountains of Madness is Edgar Rice Burroughs' At the Earth's Core (1914), a novel that posits a highly intelligent reptilian race, the Mahar, living in a hollow earth. "Consider the similarity of Burroughs' Mahar to Lovecraft's Old Ones, both of whom are presented sympathetically despite their ill-treatment of man," writes critic William Fulwiler. "[B]oth are winged, web-footed, dominant races; both are scientific scholarly races with a talent for genetics, engineering, and architecture; and both races use men as cattle." Both stories, Fulwiler points out, involve radical new drilling techniques; in both stories, humans are vivisected by nonhuman scientists. Burroughs' Mahar even employ a species of servants known as Sagoths, possibly the source of Lovecraft's shoggoths.[7]" -
"Long acknowledged as a master of nightmarish visions, H. P. Lovecraft established the genuineness and dignity of his own pioneering fiction in 1931 with his quintessential work of supernatural horror, At the Mountains of Madness. The deliberately told and increasingly chilling recollection of an Antarctic expedition's uncanny discoveries - and its encounter with untold menace in the ruins of a lost civilization - is a milestone of macabre literature." This exclusive new edition presents Lovecraft's masterpiece in fully restored form, and includes his acclaimed scholarly essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature." This is essential reading for every devotee of classic terror.
H. P. LOVECRAFT is one of the seminal horror authors of the twentieth century. He wrote more than one hundred stories, and achieved popular acclaim in such publications as Astounding Stories and Weird Tales. Though he died in 1937, the small press publisher Arkham House was established in 1939 to preserve Lovecraft’s works for future generations
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