Events

Support the Soulard School by purchasing your books from LBB this weekend!

The critically acclaimed, first-ever collection of original stories devoted to the topic of growing up gay or lesbian, or with gay or lesbian parents or friends, Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence features works by Marion Dane Bauer, Lois Lowry, Francesca Lia Block, Bruce Coville, James Cross Giblin, M.E. Kerr, William Sleaton, Jane Yolen, and others. Each of these stories is original and is by a noted author for young adults. Am I Blue? Won the 1995 ALA Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Task Force book award for literature.

Peter Hessler, a native of Columbia, Missouri, began his interest in China as a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1990s. He has since lived in Beijing for most of a decade. His first book, River Town, is concerned with geography or sense of place; Oracle Bones is about history or sense of time. His lecture will center on Lishui, a small city in southeastern China that produces goods for export to the United States and Europe. Hessler is a keen observer of local entrepreneurs, factory workers, and migrants--their culture, attitudes, and daily challenges in one of the most economically vibrant countries in the world. This event, sponsored by Lee Institute, is free and open to the public; books for signing may be purchased from Left Bank Books and at the event.

Left Bank Books and City Church present Timothy Keller for a discussion and book signing. The New York Times best-selling author of The Reason for God and The Prodigal Son and a nationally renowned minister, Timothy Keller exposes the error of making good things "ultimate" in his latest book, and shows readers a new path toward a hope that lasts. Success, true love, and the live you've always wanted. Many of us placed our faith in these things, believing they held the key to happiness, but with a sneaking suspicion they might not deliver. The recent economic meltdown has cast a harsh new light on these pursuits. In a matter of months, fortunes, marriages, careers, and a secure retirement have disappeared for milllions of people. No wonder so many of us feel lost, alone, disenchanted, and resentful. We made lesser gods of these good things--gods that can't give us what we really need. Keller's powerful message will cement his reputation as a critical thinker and pastor, and comes at a crucial time--for both the faithful and the skeptical.

This event is back on!

Everything Matters. Indie bookstores matter. Author events matter. Ron Currie, Jr. and his new book, Everything Matters!, matter. Indie booksellers unite for one giant event to support Ron Currie, Jr. and his triumpant novel, Everything Matters! In infancy, Junior Thibodeaux is encoded with a prophesy: a comet will obliterate life on Earth in thirty-six years. Alone in this knowledge, he comes of age in rural Maine grappling with the question: "Does anything I do matter?" Ron Currie, Jr., whose fiction has won several prizes, gets to the heart of character, and the voices who narrate this uniquely American tour de force leave an indelible, exhilerating impression. Join Pudd'nhead Books, Subterranean Books, Main Street Books, and Left Bank Books at this exciting collaborative event. 

Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, is a thirty-something ranch wife, mother of four, moderately-agoraphobic middle child who grew up on a golf course in the city before falling in love with a rugged cattle rancher. Her popular website, thepioneerwoman.com, includes blog posts, pictures of ranch life, and recipes… full of Ree Drummond's hilarious (and tasty) insights. The recipes feature step-by-step photos of her cowboy-friendly dishes, and now for the first time, she's sharing her treats in a cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Due to the popularity of Ree's events around the country, we've moved the event down the street to Christ Church Cathedral so everyone can get a seat, get a book, and enjoy the discussion and signing. The event is free and open to the public, but we encourage you to buy your books from us so we can continue to bring sensational authors like Ree Drummond to St. Louis. 

For many people, the election of Barack Obama seems to signify the end of racism as a pervasive social force in the United States, but is this true? Is black success making it harder for whites to see the problem of racism or will it challenge stereotypes to such an extent that racism will diminish?

In Marcus's world, battles are fought everyday--on the street, at home, and in school. Angered by his sister's death and his father's absence, and pushed to the brink by a bullying classmat, Marcus fights back with his fists. One punch away from being kicked out of school and his home, Marcus encounters CM, an unlikely chess master who challenges him to fight battles on the chess board. Inspired by inner-city school chess enrichment programs, Chess Rumble explores the ways this strategic game empowers young people with the skills they need to anticipate and calculate their moves through life. Award-winning filmmaker and author G. Neri and artist and illustrator Jesse Joshua Watson will discuss this poetic and empowering book for young adults. Chess Rumble is especially popular among reluctant readers and young males.

Poet and post-punk hero Eileen Myles has always operated in the art, writing, and queer performance scenes as a kind of observant "flaneur." Myles travels the city--wandering on garbage-strewn New York streets in the heat of summer, drifting though the antiseptic malls of La Jolla, and riding in the van with Sister Spit--seeing it with a poet's eye for detail and with the consciousness that writing about art and culture has always been a social gesture. Culled by the poet from twenty years of art writing, the essays in "The Importance of Being Iceland" make a lush document of her--and our--lives in these contemporary crowds.

Chicana. Goth. Dykling. Desiree Garcia knows she's weird and a weirdo magnet. To extinguish her strangeness, her parents ship her to Saint Michael's Catholic High School, then to Mexico, but neurology can't be snuffed out so easily: screwy brain chemistry holds the key to Desiree's madness. Combining the spark of Michelle Tea, the comic angst of Augusten Burroughs, and the warmth of Sandra Cisneros, Mexican American author Myriam Gurba has created a territory all her own. Dahlia Season not only contains the title novella, but also several of Gurba's acclaimed stories.

How do you"experience" feminism? How do you "do" your feminism? Doyou even "realize" you're a feminist? These are just some of thequestions Nona Willis Aronowitz and Emma Bee Bernstein seek to answer inGirldrive. In October 2007, Nona and Emma embarked on a cross-country roadtrip, meeting with nearly 200 women from different walks of life to discusstheir thoughts and feelings about feminism. The results of these interviews,Girldrive is a look at what feminism means to each of these profiled women.Examining the regional and individual differences of feminism, the authorsoffer up their interviews, photographs, profiles, and analyses from thesemeetings, portraying a braod picture of what it means to be a feminist.

Sarah Dunant is the author of the international bestseller The Birth of Venus. Her new novel, Sacred Hearts, is set in the year 1570 on the northern Italian city of Ferrara, in the convent of Santa Caterina, where one hundred women live inside God's protection. But any community, however smoothly run, suffers tremors when it takes in someone by force. Serafina's dramatic forced admission into the convent sets in motion a chain of events that will shake the institution to its core. Sarah Dunant will be finishing up a semester of teaching at Washington University in St. Louis. Join us in giving her a proper send-off at this special reading and signing before she returns to her home in London. We'll bring the wine.

 Rebecca Ellis and gaye gambell-peterson will read poetry, showcase books and art on thenight of the full moon, Wednesday,December 2, 2009.  RebeccaEllis will read her own work and from the various chapbooks in the MidwestWomen Poets Series from Cherry Pie Press. gaye gambell-peterson will read from two recently published chapbooks,and provide a peek at original artwork used as illustrations.

Rebecca Ellis lives in southern Illinois.  She has poems published in So to Speak, Natural Bridge, qarrtsiluni.com,Quiddity, RHINO, and Sweet (sweetlit.com).  Recently, she won first place in a 48-hourpoem-writing contest by Contemporary Verse 2.  Through Cherry Pie Press, she edits andpublishes poetry chapbooks by midwestern women poets.  She also writes reviews of poetry chapbooksby other small presses.

Cherry Pie Press is anindependent press that has produced nine chapbooks.  It began five years ago, fueled in part bythe work of the women’s poetry collective LooselyIdentified to produce an anthology of their work, andfrom discussions with women writers about the relative absence of women makingeditorial decisions about local poetry. Cherry Pie Press is a venue for both new and well-published womenwriters, with the goal of increasing the audience for their work andencouraging more women writers to showcase their poetry.

gaye gambell-peterson is a degreed visual artist and self-taughtpoet.  Two chapbooks were published in2009, both featuring her poems and her collages.
Cherry Pie Press published pale leaf  floating, the most recent chapbook in its Midwest Women PoetsSeries.  Her own imprint, Agog Press, hasjust released
MYnd mAp.

Her art has been juriedinto national art shows, and has graced covers for several literarypublications.  Her poems have beenawarded in contests sponsored by
St. Louis Poetry Center,St. Louis Writers Guild, and Cherry Pie Press. Poems have appeared in Mid Rivers Review (art, too) and UntamedInk.  Her poetry and cover art werepart of Loosely Identified’santhology: Breathing Out.

Agog Press serves twopurposes.  Established in memory ofgaye’s mother (A grand
ole girlwho always believed a book was possible), the press is unique because a
full-color illustration companions each and every poem.

The subtitle says it all. Larry's Kidney (or) How I Found Myself in China with My Black Sheep Cousin and His Mail Order Bride, Breaking Chinese Law to Get Him a Transplant--and Save His Life is a best-selling memoir from Daniel Asa Rose. The Washington Post called it "an enjoyable testament to the lengths we sometimes go to help family." Byron Kerman, an Arts and Entertainment writer for Sauce and St. Louis Magazine will introduce Daniel Asa Rose at the event. A portion of the proceeds from each sale of Larry's Kidney goes to Donate Life America for educating the public about the essential steps to becoming an organ donor. 

Do you have a habit you really want to change, but still can't? Maybe you know how dangerous smoking is but can't put down the pack, or have mmassive credit card debt but can't help making another purchase. With St. Louis author Meg Selig's new book, move beyond willpower and succeed with changepower--the synergy that comes from combining willpower with other resources, useful outside supports, and wise strategies. Changepower! is organized around the step-by-step stages proven to accomplish successful change. Lively and engaging true stories will offer humor and support as you pick and choose from 37 secrets in Changepower! to find the strategies that work best for you. 

Join us for this special KMOX/Fontbonne University Book Club with Charlie Brennan event for featured author Tim Page. Page, a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic, describes living with Asperger's syndrome in his new book Parallel Play. A poignant portrait of a lifelong search for answers, Parallel Play provides a unique perspective on Asperger's and the well of creativity that can spring forth as a result of the condition. The book has had stunning reviews all around, and The New York Times calls it, "An improbably lovely memoir… In fascinatingly precise detail and often to pricelessly funny effect [Page] describes ways in whixch his efforts to feign normalcy have backfired." Tim Page has long been a supporter of Left Bank Books, so we hope you'll come support him with us!

KMOX radio personality John Carney brings it back up to a boil with John Carney's Another Taste of Restaurant Tuesday, his second collection of assorted recipes from St. Louis-area restaurants. The cookbook encompasses a multitude of options to sample some of the cities' best dishes, while offering delicious meal ideas for different budgets, palates, culinary talents and agaes. For the past 18 years, Carney has acquired hundreds of recipes from restauant interviews on his weekly radio talk show, Restaurant Tuesday. He also shares some of his personal recipes in the chapter called "Carney Classics." A portion of the proceeds from Another Taste of Restaurant Tuesday will be donated to the not-for-profit Carney's Kids Foundation. 

It Shined is an exposes of the life and times of the band, The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, in and out of the spotlight, and on and off of the stage. Follow the path of the band from its beginnings at the New Bijou Theater in 1971 to their gig on the stage of the Shrine Mosque in 2004. In between those dates, you'll find a cornucopia of stories--some good, some bad, some ugly, all entertaining. St. Louis native Michael Supe Granda has had his songs recorded by luminaries, such as Chet Atkins, Augie Meyers, Walter Egan, and Billy Brenner, and his essays about music, politics, and baseball have appeared in newspapers, periodicals, magazines, and other books. He helped form the Daredevels at the end of the 1960s and continues to write and record songs in Nashville.

Do you have a habit you really want to change, but still can't? Maybe you know how dangerous smoking is but can't put down the pack, or have mmassive credit card debt but can't help making another purchase. With St. Louis author Meg Selig's new book, move beyond willpower and succeed with changepower--the synergy that comes from combining willpower with other resources, useful outside supports, and wise strategies. Changepower! is organized around the step-by-step stages proven to accomplish successful change. Lively and engaging true stories will offer humor and support as you pick and choose from 37 secrets in Changepower! to find the strategies that work best for you. Plus, enjoy coffee and light snacks, courtesy of the author.