Events

Our CWE store will be closed June 1st to count our inventory.  We'll be open again June 2.  In the meantime, visit our downtown store at 321 North 10th!

Illinois state legislature representative Jay Hoffman demonstrates that the Midwest has the resources necessary to spark a green revolution and lead the nation in job creation, clean air, and energy security. Meet at 7:00pm at Left Bank Books, and then we will walk across the street for a tour of a LEED-certified building, led by Craig Heller of Loftworks, before returning to the store to discuss Hope from the Heartland and the Midwest's role in going green.

Grannie Annie celebrates family stories with the newest volume of stories written by young authors. These young authors will read their stories and the young illustrators will show their artwork, and all will sign copies of collections new and old at this special event.

Sauce Magazine and Left Bank Books are pleased to announce a demo, tasting, and book signing with America's first female Iron Chef Cat Cora. Tickets are $65 per attendee and include a signed copy of Cat Cora's Classics with a Twist, food tastings courtesy of Moulin, beer tastings courtesy of Sam Adams, and wine tastings poured by a local wine purveyor. Cat Cora will demonstrate two of her recipes: Grilled Chile-Lime Flank Steak Soft Tacos and Grapefruit and Cherry Ambrosia with Honey Cream. Tickets are available through www.SauceMagazine.com.

A guilty liberal finally snaps, swears off plastic, goes organic, becomes a bicycle nut, turns off his power, and generally becomes a tree-hugging lunatic who tries to save the polar bears and the rest of the planet from environmental catastrophe in Colin Beavan's memoir, No Impact Man.

A young woman follows her fiance to war-torn Congo to study extremely endangered bonobo apes--who teach her a new truth about love and belonging. A fascinating memoir of hope and adventure, Bonobo Handshake traces Vanessa Woods's self-discovery while probing life's greatest question: What ultimately makes us human?

Opera Theatre St. Louis discusses and performs scenes from Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, adapted into an opera by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

For fans of Augusten Burroughs, check out this St. Louis-based memoir from Eric Poole. Poole's stories take readers on a hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking journey in which the magic in his life slowly morphs from childhood wonder to religious dogma to an understanding that the real magic is believing in oneself.

Best known for living nearly three years in a 1,500-year-old tree in the Redwood Forest, Julia Butterfly Hill is an environmentalist, motivational speaker, and best-selling author of The Legacy of Luna. The event includes a special vegetarian/vegan luncheon by Local Harvest Café, vegan cupcakes by SweetArt, a talk with Julia Butterly Hill, and an autographed copy of Legacy of Luna. Proceeds benefit Operation Food Search, and tickets are available through www.operationfoodsearch.org or by calling (314) 726-5355 ext 23.

Is the climate crisis so severe that it's time to consider cooling the planet directly through radical schemes like polluting the sky on purpose? Eli Kintisch asks -- and answers -- that provactive question in his new book, Hack the Planet, a rollicking story of a set of wild scientists and their outlandish ideas.
This event is co-sponsored by St. Louis Beacon.

Growing up in rural Uganda, Twesigye Jackson Kaguri overcame poverty to earn a degree from the national university and worked as a human rights advocate, eventually pursuing studies at Columbia University. When he returned to his village in Uganda with his wife, they were overwhelmed by the plight of his village's many AIDS orphans and vowed to open the first tuition-free school in the district for these children. The Price of Stones is the stirring story behind the founding of the Nyaka AIDS Orphans School, and will captivate all readers of Three Cups of Tea.

Summoned to Rome to examine a fragment of an ancient stone map, Jonathan Marcus stumbles across a secret that propels him on a perilous journey from the labyrinth beneath the Colosseum to the biblical-era tunnels of Jerusalem in search of a 2,000-year-old artifact.

Linda Greenlaw hadn't been bluewater fishing for ten years--not since the events chronicled in the books The Perfect Storm (and on film) and The Hungry Ocean--but she decides to take a friend up on his offer and captain a boat for a season of swordfishing. Capturing the moment-by-moment details of her journey, Greenlaw tells a story about human nature and the nature around us.

From former South America correspondent for The Washington Post Monte Reel comes the riveting true story of the men who ventured deep into the Amazon to find and protect a mysterious Indian who is The Last of the Tribe.

For those who have experienced heartbreak and are dreaming about the sheer satisfaction of sticking it to the person who stuck it to them, this fully-loaded, juiced-up book on how people devise, execute, and relish passionate revenge is a must-have. With The Down and Dirty Dish on Revenge, Eva Nagorski proceeds with "your recipe book" of revenge, a tongue-in-cheek guide to achieving vigilante justice for relationships gone bad.

This event is being held in conjuction with an exhibit on broken relationships (visit www.brokenships.com for details).

Sorry for any inconvenience, but this event has been cancelled. If an opportunity to reschedule arises we'll post it up here. 

At the age of 16, R. Dwayne Betts carjacked a man. Sentenced to eight years in an adult prison and discovering himself through books while there, Betts shares his coming-of-age story (winner of the 2009 NAACP Outstanding Literary Work - Debut Author Award) in one of the worst facilities in Virginia.

From the best-selling author of The Dogs of Babel comes an emotionally gripping and resonant mystery about a mother and her son, and about the possibility that one can never truly know another person.

Experts in psychology and human behavior examine misperception and understanding, explaining why people fail to recognize the evidence right in front of them, and providing a kind of x-ray vision that will enable readers to conquer faulty thinking.

As writers, we’re all too familiar with getting in our own way. We hear an inner voice that says something like: “Who do you think you are? You’re not a real writer.” Some of us give this voice a name like The Critic or The Judge. In this presentation, we’ll explore ways in which these obstructive figures may actually be trying to help the writing process, albeit in an unskilled way. Find out how to build an “Inside Team,” including the parts of yourselves that support us as well as those who seem to stand in the way, that enhances and deepens your writing practice.  

Alfred DePew is an author, educator, and ICF Certified Professional Coach. 

You must rsvp to attend: 314.367.6731, danielle@left-bank.com. There is a suggested donation of $25.  

In a bone-chilling true account of kidnapping, murder, and the dogged pursuit of a child's killers, John Heidenry crafts a haunting narrative of the Bobby Greenlease case from 1953. However, one question has never been solved: as Carl Austin Hall, one of the kidnappers, was being pursued around Kansas City and St. Louis, half of the ransom was lost and never recovered.

This book examines the interrelated histories of baseball and American Jews after 1948, the year Israel was established, the first full season that both major leagues were integrated, and the summer that Hank Greenberg retired.

Virginia Slachman, associate professor of English at Principia College, presents her newest collection of poetry, Inside Such Darkness. She is also the author of Heidegger's Temple and a chapbook. Among other awards, Slachman has won the Elliston Prize in Poetry.