Featured

Friday, April 20, 7pm
Left Bank Books

The Magnificoes! present a staged reading of The Life and Death of King John by William Shakespeare. Join us at 7:00pm on Friday, April 20^th as we read for you the best parts of King John.

The Magnificoes! are interested and interesting folks who gather once a month to talk plays, poems, criticism, history, and fiction! The group began in May of 2012 just in time for that year’s production of Othello #InTheGlen by Shakespeare Festival St. Louis. Our long-term goal is to read all of the plays in the canon (38 of them) while enjoying the many creative works written that illuminate, complicate, and build on them. By December, we’ll have read 28 of the plays; our plan is to finish the canon in 2020.

This story of accidents, betrayals, and failed diplomacy gives us flawed leaders, cunning women, and constant reversals of fortune in the grand tapestry of British and French histories. Never fear, there is little fact and much entertainment here. We’ve honed it down to under an hour and kept only the best parts to share.

“Be great in act as you have been in thought:
Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time, be fire with fire,
Threaten the threat’ner and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviours from the great,
Grow great by your example, and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.”

—Philip Falconbridge, The Bastard Act 5 Scene 1 46-54

This event is presented as part of Shakespeare Festival St. Louis’ SHAKE 38, a free, five-day community marathon of Shakespeare’s 38 plays. For more information and a full schedule, visit www.sfstl.com.

Wednesday, May 9, 7pm
Left Bank Books

Left Bank Books welcomes author, Literary Death Match founder, and former St. Louisan Adrian Todd Zuniga, who will sign and discuss his new novel, Collision Theory!

Thomas Mullen is struggling. Everything for him feels at risk, spiked with threat, since he witnessed a woman jump to her death fifteen months ago. Now there are the pleading calls from his parents to come home, please come home. But it is not until his best friend shows up unannounced that Thomas is awakened. He soon finds himself on an unpredictable journey in which he is forced to confront difficult truths: girlfriends leave, mothers fall ill, and attempts to deny pain will ultimately fail. A dazzling debut from Adrian Todd Zuniga, Collision Theory is a headlong and heartaching modern masterwork. It’s suddenness, unexpectedness, humor, and humanity make for an unforgettable read.

“Collision Theory is hard book to categorize—part ghost story, part slacker comedy, part grief chronicle—but an easy one to enjoy. Adrian Todd Zuniga’s first novel is creepy, funny, and full of dark surprises.” —Tom Perrotta

This event is free and open to the public, but proof of purchase of Collision Theory from Left Bank Books will be required to enter the signing line. 

Parking: Lot one block north; street parking (meters free after 7pm). For directions and public transportation information, click here.

Tuesday, May 1, 7pm
Left Bank Books

Left Bank Books welcomes award-winning author Seamus McGraw, who will sign and discuss his new book, A Thirsty Land: The Making of an American Water Crisis!

As a changing climate threatens the whole country with deeper droughts and more furious floods that put ever more people and property at risk, Texas has become a bellwether state for water debates. Is it in the nature of Americans to adapt to nature in flux? The most comprehensive—and comprehensible—book on contemporary water issues, A Thirsty Land delves deep into the challenges faced not just by Texas but by the nation as a whole, as we struggle to find a way to balance the changing forces of nature with our own ever-expanding needs.  Part history, part science, part adventure story, and part travelogue, this book puts a human face on the struggle to master that most precious and capricious of resources. 

"A timely, important book that manages to be a romp, too. You’ll meet dreamers, schemers, and even a few genuine heroes who have been fretting and feuding over the water woes of the Lone Star State for centuries . . . Seamus McGraw raises urgent questions that we will all have to face to avoid a parched future." —Dan Fagin

This event is free and open to the public, but proof of purchase of A Thirsty Land from Left Bank Books will be required to enter the signing line. 

Parking: Lot one block north; street parking (meters free after 7pm). For directions and public transportation information, click here.