Events

A few years ago, finance journalist Matthew Prior quit his day job and gambled everything on a quixotic idea: a website devoted to financial journalism in the form of poetry--at the same time as his wife Lisa was siphoning off money into a misbegotten eBay figurine-resale business. Now, as the global economy collapses, Matt wakes up to find himself jobless, hobbled with debt, spying on his wife's online flirtation, and six days away from losing his home.

Former University City mayor Janet Majerus introduces a new mystery. Jessie Schroeder vows to mind her own business, but in Thicker Than Water, she fails and finds herself in the middle of a web of family intrigue that stretches back four generations.

Congregation Kol Am & KWMU’s Dennis Owsley welcome recording artist Ben Sidran. Join us for this rare opportunity to hear Ben Sidran perform and share his unique insights on Jews, Music, and the American Dream. He has hosted numerous award-winning shows for TV and radio including NPR’s "Sidran on the Record" and VH1's "New Visions." Ben has worked with some of the most acclaimed names in jazz and rock music including Diana Ross, Van Morrison, Mose Allison, Boz Scaggs and Rickie Lee Jones. Classic rock lovers will remember Sidran’s smash hit written for the Steve Miller Band, "Space Cowboy". Reception, book and CD signing will follow the performance. Hear Ben Sidran’s music at www.bensidran.com.

To purchase tickets call the Kol Am office at 636.519.0082 or visit kolamstl.org.

St. Louis native and physician David Boesch and his family embarked on a trip in 2007 that would bring them to 6 continents and 17 countries in 345 days. Boesch depicts the adventure of parenting in constant motion in this riveting, honest, and heartwarming memoir, Pins on a Map: A Family's Yearlong Journey Around the World.

Gyo Obata is an internationally recognized architect and one of the founding partners of HOK, a St. Louis-based global architecture firm. An eminently readable book, these pages not only tell the story of the various buildings that Obata has designed over the last fifty years, they encourage the belief in good design as a process that includes interested clients, professional visions, and the practical wisdom of conversations between the two. Gyo Obata joins us for this book release party, one of only three events in the U.S. for the book.

River Styx at Duff's presents poets Rodney Jones and Katherine Min. $5 at the door. Visit riverstyx.org for more details.

Powerhouse Hubertus Bigend brings Hollis Henry back onto his team again, though she doesn't know what his "team" is up to. Russian-speaking Milgrim is even more owned by Bigend, since Bigend paid for him to be cured of his addiction at a secret Swiss clinic. But extreme sports enthusiast Garreth can make things go sideways for Bigend in this new novel from "visionary, original, and quietly influential" (The Boston Globe) author William Gibson.

This edition of River Styx will feature readings from R. Dwayne Betts and Andy Cox. Left Bank Books staff will be on hand with their available books.

Left Bank Books and the St. Louis Public Library present Jonathan Franzen. Recently named Time Magazine's "Great American Novelist," National Book Award-winning author Franzen (The Corrections) brings us a darkly comic novel about family, following characters who struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world. Freedom is an epic of contemporary love and marriage while comically and tragically capturing the temptations and burdens of liberty. Franzen grew up in St. Louis and set his first novel, The Twenty-Seventh City here. Books for signing must be purchased from Left Bank Books before or at the event.

Format

Jonathan Franzen will speak for a few minutes, followed by a reading from Freedom. He will then take questions from the audience. The evening will conclude with a book signing.

Book Signing Guidelines

The book talk by Jonathan Franzen is free and open to the public.

If you would like to have Jonathan Franzen autograph copies of his books, you must purchase a copy of Freedom from Left Bank Books, which will come with a book signing line ticket. The signing line will be arranged based on your group number on that ticket.

Jonathan Franzen will sign:

• all copies of Freedom
• any number of earlier books purchased at the event
• up to six books brought from home, if time allows

Franzen's books are for sale in our stores now (399 N. Euclid & 321 N. 10th St.), online at www.left-bank.com, by phone at 314.367.6731, and will also be available at Christ Church Cathedral the night of the event.

If you are a dealer or collector with a large number of books to be signed, please contact Danielle Borsch, danielle@left-bank.com, to make arrangements.

Photographs

• Please do NOT take photographs or record video at this event.

Parking

• The St. Louis Public Library has two free lots at 15th & Olive. There will be guards in these lots for the event.
• Christ Church Cathedral has a free parking lot at 13th & Olive.
• During the evening, it is also fine to park in the U.S. Bank parking lot, which is adjacent to the Cathedral Lot.
• Street parking is available. Meters are at a fee until 7pm.
• There is also a paid parking lot on Tucker, just east of the Cathedral.

Irresistably packaged inside a potato chip bag, Potato Chip Science is the wildly imaginative book and kit that introduces 29 experiments (or snacktivities) using potato chips, spuds, bags, tubes, and lids. Kids can learn about aerodynamics, conservations of energy, desiccation, and Boyle's Law. More than a dozen items used in the projects are packaged in the bag. Allen Kurzweil will demonstrate some of his potato chip science at the event.

Thirty years in the making, Marlantes's epic debut is a dense, vivid narrative spanning many months in the lives of American troops in Vietnam as they trudge across enemy lines, encountering danger from opposing forces as well as on their home turf.About the Author:A graduate of Yale University and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. This is his first novel.

Getting to Happy is an exuberant return to the four unforgettable heroines of Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale 15 years later. Each is at her own midlife crossroads. All four are learning to heal past hurts and to reclaim their joy and their dreams. They've exhaled; now they are learning to breathe. This is a ticketed event. Purchase one copy of Getting to Happy from Left Bank Books to receive two tickets to the event.

As we anticipate robust attendance, this event will have a couple "housekeeping" guidelines:

• Turnout at the event will determine Terry's signing style. Essentially, if it's a smaller crowd, she'll be happy to personalize Getting to Happy and her older titles while signing them, but if it's a larger crowd she'll have to focus on just signing Getting to Happy--without personalization--to make sure there's time for everyone to get a book signed.
• Also, we request that no photos be taken during Terry's reading, but pictures taken during the signing will be fine.

In the late 1880s, Frank Lenz of Pittsburgh dreamed of cycling around the world. He finally got his chance by recasting himself as the champion of the downsized "safety-bicycle" with inflatable tires, the forerunner of the modern bike that was about to become wildly popular. In the spring of 1892 he set out west to cover 20,000 miles over three continents. He never made it. Uncover the mystery and adventure in The Lost Cyclist.

Actress Holly Robinson Peete, perhaps best known for her television roles in 21 Jump Street, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, For Your Love, and Like Family, will be signing copies of her books at Saks. In 2006, she won, along with fellow writer Daniel Paisner, the Quills Award in Sports for her book, Get Your Own Damn Beer, I'm Watching the Game!: A Woman's Guide to Loving Pro Football. She and her daughter, Ryan Elizabeth, co-wrote a children's book, My Brother Charlie, in 2010. Also in 2010, Peete participated in the 3rd season of Celebrity Apprentice, playing for her own charity, the HollyRod Foundation, which provides support for families with autism. She will co-host The Talk, a CBS daytime talk show, starting October 18, 2010.

With The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World, Chris Guilllebeau seeks to radically shift how readers think about earning a living and spending their time. Readers will discover: how to fight authority and win, graduate school vs. the blogosphere, how to build your own small army, travel trips and tricks, how to create your legacy, and more. Chris has traveled to more than 100 countries around the world, all while continuing to run his own business and make a positive contribution to the world, and he's been featured in the New York Times and is a regular contributor to CNN.com, Business Week, the Huffington Post, and other outlets.

Garnett Kilberg Cohen's How We Move the Air tells the story of musician Jake Doyle's suicide and how it haunts those who knew him. In seven linked stories, Cohen explores the complex ways in which people choose to remember--or not remember--the past.

From the author of The Official Preppy Handbook comes a new take on the old world that Lisa Birnbach turned into an international best-selling phenomenon thirty years ago. True Prep looks at how the old guard of natural-fiber-loving, dog-worshipping, G&T-soaked preppies adapts to the new order of the Internet, cell phones, rehab, political correctness, reality TV and… polar fleece. No texting at the table, please, but do join us for a special preppy evening with author Lisa Birnbach at Saks Fifth Avenue. Come in through the gifts entrance anytime after 5pm. Refreshments will be served. Books for signing must be purchased in advance or at the event from Left Bank Books.

New York Times best-selling author T. R. Reid takes his bum shoulder around the world and shows how industrialized democracies other than the United States provide health care for their citizens at a reasonable cost in The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.

EDIT: This event has been cancelled. We apologize for any inconvenience dismay this may cause. 

Rebecca Robbins is a woman on a mission: to sell the roller rink she inherited in her rural hometown and get back to her life in Chicago. Fast. What she didn't count on was discovering a dead body head-first in a rink toilet. Rebecca sets out to discover the identity of the murderer in this debut mystery.

Sorry -- this event has been cancelled.  Our apologies if this has caused any inconvenience. Keep on eye out, though: if the event is rescheduled, it'll likely appear here first. (We recommend signing up for our e-mail list here.)

In Be Great: The Five Foundations of an Extraordinary Life, serial entrepreneur turned social entrepreneur, Peter H. Thomas, shares his business experience to show readers what it means to be successful in business and in life. He shares his five foundations by storytelling--giving examples of his and other people's challenges and resulting successes--by following their core values that helped unlock their greatest potential. Peter H. Thomas will be donating some profits from book sales on his tour to local Boys & Girls Club chapters.

Women are emerging as religious leaders in unprecedented numbers and in many different roles in faith traditions across the board. Religious women have yet to reach “nirvana” in the quest for equality, but the overall trend is at a “tipping point” in many faith traditions. Gender equality has become an accepted norm, culturally and theologically. It’s just a question of how soon the new order of equality is actually realized.

Women are not only denominational and organizational leaders, but leading theologians and scripture scholars, prolific writers in the field of spirituality, prominent activists for social justice, peace and ecological sanity, leaders in forging positive
interfaith relations, and leaders in religious media.

This is the thesis of a new book, Breaking Through the Stained Glass Ceiling. It features transcripts of radio interviews with women leaders from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and other traditions.

Maureen Fiedler is the host of Interfaith Voices, a public radio show, heard on 70 radio stations in North America. She has been involved in interfaith activities for more than three decades as an active participant in coalitions working for social justice, racial and gender equality, and peace. Her special interests lie at the intersection of theology and public policy. She is the editor of Breaking Through the Stained Glass Ceiling: Women Religious Leaders in Their Own Words which highlights the growing leadership of women in the world of religion. She is a Sister of Loretto, and holds a Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University.