Dear Friends and Readers,
September is here, and with it comes the beginning of another season at Book Beat. We have several good events coming up, including a Molly Crabapple signing at U.of D., Josh Malerman and the Wow Town Players at Planet Ant, and Donald Levin with Yvonne Osborne talking crime and noir mystery/ romance at Book Beat.
The Book Beat Journal this month takes a look into the early history of photography and lands in the Decadent era of the late 1890s with “F. Holland Day, Books, Beauty and Desire,” exploring how this quiet bibliophile, photographer and publisher, along with Aubrey Beardsley, Oscar Wilde, and others, broke with convention and brought the avant-garde to America.
In his new feature,”Russia: Past, Present & Future,” Tom Bowden strings together some recent translations of Russian lit covering the past 100 years. We also have another installment of “i arrogantly recommend…”, #78 of Tom’s ongoing choice and quirky picks from small and independent presses.
We had a terrific signing last week for Bevery Bantam author of Maxine Powell: Motown’s Maven of Class, Style, and Refinement. While we had cookies and sipped proseco, Beverly dished out stories about Sonny Wilson and Michigan’s legendary up north Idlewild nightclub, (which Maxine was a part owner of), her modeling business, and the “No-Hit” Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Barry Gordy, Jackie Wilson and others. Those were the days!
“Maxine Powell quietly shaped Motown style, and a new book tells it all” was the headline review by Brian McCullum in the Detroit Free Press this week. “It was that attention to polished style that separated Motown from its label competitors across the country, the author contends. Powell was part of Gordy’s artist-development pipeline, a process that endures today via the Motown Museum’s Hitsville Next youth programs. “In being an image builder — she wasn’t fond of being called an etiquette teacher — she wanted people to understand it wasn’t about etiquette,” Bantom says. “She felt it was the personal image you portrayed that was important, to be that glamorous person.”
The new book includes forewords by Martha Reeves and Claudette Robinson, along with contributions from fellow Motown alums such as Paul Riser, Pat Cosby and the just-deceased Janie Bradford.
Beverly is an energetic MC of the Motown style, who carries with her the beauty and legacy of the trail blazing Maxine Powell. Signed copies of Maxine Powell Motown’s Maven are available in store or online. The book is a great gift for fans of Motown or Detroit history -order a copy soon. Beverly printed just a small number and copies won’t last long!
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Our last reading group meeting was especially good. Ithel Colquhoun’s alchemical novel The Goose of Hermogenes, brought up an intense and weird discussion on magic, poetry, religion, and other worlds. Colquhoun’s travel studies and essays on Cornwall, Britan’s westernmost county is also filled with mystery and myth, bringing the ancient Celtic past into the present, along with her gorgeous woodcuts, found in the newly released, The Living Stones Cornwall is another gem. A customer recently said, “I love everything being published by Pushkin Press.” We also have a few of her monographs from the Tate: Between Worlds still available. One great detail inside is the reproduction of her complete deck of taro cards (taro is the way she spells tarot) created using surrealist automatism techniques -a way of painting guided by the subconscious she perfected. There’s an increasing interest in Colquhoun, one of the most esoteric of the surrealists and we’ll feature more of her titles in a future post.
A little peace from the Book Beat shelves.
We are working to develop the Book Beat Journal into a more interesting review for our customers locally and outside of Detroit. Several writers are now on our staff and we hope you’ll find something here that sends you off in an unexpected direction. Thank you for reading, thank you for supporting Book Beat and please pass the journal/newsletter on to a friend or someone who might be interested in new books and ideas.
As the Jewish New Year approaches, we’d like to wish all of our Jewish friends, customers, and readers a happy and peaceful Rosh Hashanah.
Shanah Tovah!
—Cary, Colleen & the Book Beat staff
DOLLY PARTON + IMAGINATION
A little Dolly Parton for the September newsletter: we’re giving away a unique print by Detroit artist and printer Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., featuring Dolly’s words:
“Storms make trees take deeper roots.”
We were saddened to hear of the passing of Dolly on August 26, 2026.
Two days later on our 44th anniversary we received a dozen prints made by Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., asking us to give a donation or give the cards away. We are doing both.
Dolly Parton’s favorite charity was the Imagination Library. She said she began it because her father had a poor education and couldn’t read or write. Dolly wrote, “Before he passed away, my Daddy told me the Imagination Library was probably the most important thing I had ever done.”
The chairty provides free books to children from birth to age five and has already given away over 300 million books.
If you’d also like to make a donation in honor of Dolly, you can so so at: Imagination Library.-let us know if you did and we’ll mail you a card.
International Day of Peace — September 21
Every September 21, the world observes the
International Day of Peace, a day established by the United Nations
to promote peace and nonviolence around the world.
This year’s theme is
“Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.”
The idea is a simple but important one: peace isn’t made only at negotiating tables.
It is built every day—in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, families, and communities.
“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”
— Albert Einstein
Learn more and find ways to participate through the
United Nations International Day of Peace
and
Peace One Day
.
Author Events
A repost from 2022:
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“In a t
“The creative adult is the child who survived.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin