Left Bank Books | Independent Since 1969 - Events Feed

Current Affairs: Common as Air by Lewis Hyde

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:50:01 -0400

Start: 05/16/2012 - 12:00pm

End: 05/16/2012 - 12:00pm

Common as Air offers a stirring defense of our cultural commons, that vast store of art and ideas we have inherited from the past and continue to enrich in the present. Suspicious of the current idea that all creative work is "intellectual property," Lewis Hyde turns to America's Founding Fathers in search of other ways to imagine the fruits of human with and imagination, discovering a rich tradition of knowledge as a commonwealth, not a private preserve.

Bill Donius - Thought Revolution

Tue, 15 May 2012 19:05:37 -0400

Start: 05/16/2012 - 6:00pm

End: 05/16/2012 - 6:00pm

Venue: Left Bank Books - Downtown | Thought Revolution applies science to help us learn to think differently. This book cites Bill Donius's experience over the past twelve years and with hundreds of interview subjects in demonstrating how to enable the creative, intuitive right hemisphere to weigh in our thought procesesses to help us better understand the obstacles we face and the lies we may be telling ourselves. Find out what awaits in the subconscious!

Richard Paul Evans - The Road to Grace

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:35:02 -0400

Start: 05/17/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 05/17/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: First Unitarian Church | Join one of America's beloved storytellers on a walk like no other: one man's unrelenting search for hope. Reeling from the sudden loss of his wife, his home, and his business, Alan Christofferson has left everything he knew behind and set off on an extraordinary cross-country journey. Now almost halfway through his trek, Alan sets out to walk the nearly 1,000 miles between South Dakota and St. Louis in the third novel in The Walk series. Richard Paul Evans is the #1 best-selling author of The Christmas Box, as well as The Walk series and the Michael Vey books for young readers.

Lesbian Reading Group: Gender Outlaws Ed. by Kate Bornstein & S. Bear Bergman

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:55:33 -0400

Start: 05/17/2012 - 7:30pm

End: 05/17/2012 - 7:30pm

Part coming-of-age story, part mind-altering manifesto on gender and sexuality, coming directly to you from the life experiences of a transsexual woman, Gender Outlaws breaks all the rules and leaves the reader forever changed. This book includes essays, commentary, comic art, and conversations from a diverse group of trans-spectrum people who live and believe in barrier-breaking lives.

John Sandford - Stolen Prey

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:44:31 -0400

Start: 05/18/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 05/18/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: St. Louis County Library | In the small Minnesota town of Deephaven, an entire family has been killed. It looks an awful lot like the kind of scorched-earth retribution Lucas Davenport has seen in drug killings sometimes. But this is a seriously upscale town, and the husband was an executive vice president at a big bank. It just doesn't seem to fit. Until it does. John Sandford is the author of numerous Prey novels, including this new book, Stolen Prey.

Writers Read Reading Group: Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:10:22 -0400

Start: 05/19/2012 - 4:00pm

End: 05/19/2012 - 4:00pm

In this stunning companion to The Wednesday Wars, two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt expertly weaves multiple themese of loss and recovery in a story teeming with distinctive, unusual characters and invaluable lessons about love, creativity, and survival.

Diana Abu-Jaber - Birds of Paradise

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 13:12:25 -0400

Start: 05/23/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 05/23/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: Left Bank Book - Central West End | Award-winning author Diana Abu-Jaber joins us for the paperback release of her stunning novel. At thirteen, Felice Muir ran away from home to punish herself for some horrible thing she had done leaving a hole in the hearts of her pastry-chef mother, her real estate attorney father, and her foodie-entrepreneurial brother. After five years of scrounging for food, drugs, and shelter on Miami Beach, Felice is now turning eighteen, and she and the family she left behind must reckon with the consequences of her actions and make life-affirming choices about what matters to them most.

Chrissie Wellington: An Evening with the 4-Time Ironman World Triathlon Champion

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:04:09 -0400

Start: 05/23/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 05/23/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: Skip Viragh Center for the Arts | Come hear Chrissie share the intimate details of her journey to success, along with the diet, training, and motivational techniques that keep her going through the Ironman, one of the world’s most grueling athletic events. Learn more about the story of her rise to the top, including all the incredible challenges she faced; from eating disorders, to the years spent traveling around the world as an aid worker in developing countries. These intimate details are chronicled in her book: A Life Without Limits. Tickets are $10, available here: https://www.bikereg.com/Net/15887. You may also pre-order her book at that link. A portion of all ticket and book sales will benefit St. Michael's School's Tri-Art Summer Camp.

Gay Men's Reading Group: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:56:29 -0400

Start: 05/24/2012 - 7:30pm

End: 05/24/2012 - 7:30pm

Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and funny, readers are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. Apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. Note: Alison Bechdel will speak at Left Bank Books Downtown about her new graphic memoir (Are You My Mother?) on May 6.

Persona Poetry Reading: A Face to Meet the Faces

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:41:08 -0400

Start: 05/29/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 05/29/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: Left Bank Books - Central West End | The literary tradition of persona, of writing poems in voices or from perspectives other than the poet's own, is ancient in origin and contemporary in practice. Stacey Lynn Brown and Oliver de la Paz have selected a superb collection of approximately 200 poems, embodying characters from popular culture, history, the Bible, literature, mythology, and more. Contributors from the St. Louis area will join us for a reading of persona poems.

Maryville Talks Books: Frank Deford - Over Time

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:43:48 -0400

Start: 05/30/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 05/30/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: Maryville University Auditorium | Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter is as unconventional and wide-ranging as Frank Deford's remarkable career, in which he has chronicled the heroes and the characters of just about every sport in nearly every medium. From the Mad Men-like days of Sports Illustrated in in the 1960s and the "bush" years of the early NBA, to Deford's visit to apartheid South Africa with Arthur Ashe, Over Time is packed with intriguing people and stories. Deford--whose commentaries can be heard on NPR's Morning Edition--lovingly traces the arc of American sportswriting in this funny and touching book.

Teen Reads: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:03:38 -0400

Start: 05/30/2012 - 7:30pm

End: 05/30/2012 - 7:30pm

Venue: Left Bank Books - Central West End | Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, Marcus (a.k.a. w1n5t0n) has no trouble outwitting his high school's intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems. But when his city becomes a police state where every citizen is treated like a political terroris, he is left with only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

Amanda Hodgkinson - 22 Britannia Road

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:54:16 -0400

Start: 05/31/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 05/31/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: Left Bank Books - Central West End | A searing debut novel, 22 Britannia Road takes readers from war-torn Poland to England and chronicles how damaged people try to become, once again, a true family. With World War II finally over, Silvana and her seven-year-old son, Aurek, board the ship that will take them to England and to Silvana's husband, Janusz. But after years spent hiding in the forests of Poland, Aurek is wild, almost feral. And Silvana and Janusz cannot forget their wartime acts.

The Grannie Annie Family Story Celebration

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:23:57 -0400

Start: 06/02/2012 - 2:00pm

End: 06/02/2012 - 2:00pm

Venue: Left Bank Books - Downtown | Young people who are published in the Grannie Annie anthologies will read their family stories or talk about their illustrations, and will sign copies of the books. The Grannie Annie is a nonprofit organization based in St. Louis that receives submissions from across the country and around the world. Its seventh volume is hot off the press.

The Grannie Annie Family Story Celebration

Fri, 04 May 2012 18:29:16 -0400

Start: 06/02/2012 - 2:00pm

End: 06/02/2012 - 2:00pm

Maryville Talks Books: Douglas Brinkley - Cronkite

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:04:00 -0400

Start: 06/04/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 06/04/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: Maryville University Auditorium | Douglas Brinkley presents the definitive, revealing biography of an American legend: renowned news anchor Walter Cronkite. An acclaimed author and historian, Brinkley has drawn upon recently disclosed letters, diaries, and other artifacts at the recently opened Cronkite Archive to bring detail and depth to this deeply personal portrait. He has also interviewed nearly 200 of Cronkite's closest friends and colleagues, including Andy Rooney, Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, Katie Couric, Bob Schieffer, Jimmy Buffett, and many more.

Laurell K. Hamilton Launch Party for "Kiss the Dead"

Mon, 07 May 2012 17:48:58 -0400

Start: 06/05/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 06/05/2012 - 7:00pm

Join us for a special book launch party! St. Louis's own--and New York Times best-selling--author Laurell K. Hamilton celebrates the release of her newest book. In Kiss the Dead, a fifteen-year-old girl is abducted by vampires, it's up to U.S. Marshal Anita Blake to find her. The ticket package to the launch party is $30, admits two people to the event, and includes one copy of Kiss the Dead. Tickets are available online at Brown Paper Tickets and at Left Bank Books. Bridge will provide a cash bar at the event.

Laura Moriarty - The Chaperone

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:26:05 -0400

Start: 06/07/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 06/07/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: St. Louis Public Library - Schlafly Branch | Only a few years before becoming a famous actress and an icon for her generation, a fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita to make it big in New York in 1922. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone, Cora Carlisle, who is neither mother nor friend. The five weeks they spend together will change their lives forever.

Read This Play: The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:52:17 -0400

Start: 06/07/2012 - 7:30pm

End: 06/07/2012 - 7:30pm

A brilliant feminist art historian tries to keep her bearings and her sense of humor on an elevator ride from the radical sixties to the heartless eighties. Specially chosen for Pride Month, The Heidi Chronicles is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

Lindsey Hilsum - Sandstorm

Fri, 04 May 2012 16:52:19 -0400

Start: 06/08/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 06/08/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: St. Louis County Library | Lindsey Hilsum, an international editor for Britain's Channel 4 News, made four trips to Libya in the eight months of the 2011 revolution, embedding herself with the rebels and covering the situation from their perspective. In Sandstorm, she not only captures that fraught time, but also describes Gaddafi's years of rule (or misrule), as well as looks to the future with the upcoming June 2012 elections.

Carmela Ciuraru - Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:51:34 -0400

Start: 06/10/2012 - 4:00pm

End: 06/10/2012 - 4:00pm

Venue: Left Bank Books - Central West End | A wide-ranging examination of pseudonyms both familiar and obscure, Nom de Plume is part detective story, part exposé, part literary history, and an absorbing psychological meditation on identity and creativity. These stories reveal the complex motives of writers who harbored secret identities. Carmela Ciuraru will appear in coversation with local science-fiction writer Mark Tiedemann, and Carmela will do a special quiz (with prizes!) involving the audience.

Maryville Talks Books: Buzz Bissinger - Father's Day

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:49:22 -0400

Start: 06/11/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 06/11/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: Maryville University Auditorium | Buzz Bissinger, the best-selling author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August (about his three-day interview with Tony LaRussa), takes a different path in his new memoir, Father's Day, in which he journeys across the country and into the psyche of his son and traveling companion, Zach. As father and son travel from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, they see the best and worst of America and each other, and Bissinger finds not only the remarkable skills and debilities known as savantism, but a host of qualities we should all emulate.

Ron Tanner - From Animal House to Our House

Fri, 04 May 2012 16:44:02 -0400

Start: 06/11/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 06/11/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: Left Bank Books - Central West End | Ten years ago, Ron and Jill bought a condemned property--a big Victorian brownstone that had formerly belonged to Baltimore's most notorious fraternity--and vowed to bring it back to its original glory. A book for lovers, dreamers, do-it-yourselfers, and fans of old houses, From Animal House to Our House offers inspiration, insight, and hilarity as Ron and Jill hammer away at the American Dream of home ownership and true love. Ron and Jill now live in a big Baltimore brownstone and run the popular website, houselove.org.

William Deresiewicz - A Jane Austen Education

Fri, 04 May 2012 16:35:26 -0400

Start: 06/12/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 06/12/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: Left Bank Books - Central West End | A self-styled intellectual rebel, William Deresiewicz never thought Jane Austen's novels would have anything to offer him. But when he was assigned to read Emma as a graduate student, something extraordinary happened. Weaving his own story--and Austen's--around the ones her novels tell, Deresiewicz shows how her books are both about education and themselves an education. A Jane Austen Education is a testament to the transformative power of literature.

Russ Kick - The Graphic Canon Vol. 1

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:38:38 -0400

Start: 06/13/2012 - 7:00pm

End: 06/13/2012 - 7:00pm

Venue: Left Bank Books - Central West End | The Graphic Canon is a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind trilogy that brings classic literatures of the world together with legendary graphic artists and illustrators. Volume 1 takes us on a visual tour from the earliest literature through the end of the 1700s. Along the way, we're treated to eye-popping renditions of the human race's greatest epics, religious literature, Greek and Shakespearean plays, plus a few unexpected twists, such as an Incan play, bawdy essays by Benjamin Franklin, and more. "Information archeologist" Russ Kick guides us through The Graphic Canon at this event.