Wed, 06 Aug 2008 06:41:05 PDT News from Schwartz Bookshops http://schwartzbooks.com schwartzbooks@schwartzbooks.com (Mike Carey) en-us http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 August 6 7:00 p.m. reading, Shorewood Set in the conformist 1950s in Pine Rapids, Wisconsin, Ellen Baker's novel is the story of a newlywed who falls in love with a grand abandoned house, and begins to unravel dark secrets woven through the generations of a family. Baker explores the courage it takes to shape a life and the difficulty of ever knowing the truth about another person's desires. Paperback http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 August 7 7:00 p.m. reading, Shorewood In this suspenseful novel David Ebershoff explores the mysteries of love, history and faith in two intertwined narratives: a historical thread about Brigham Young's expulsion of his own 19th wife, Ann Eliza Young, from the Mormon church, and a modern-day murder mystery set on a polygamous compound in Utah. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 August 11 7:00 p.m. reading, Downer Ave. Pharmakon is an epic novel about family secrets and the consequences of ambition perfect for fans of John Irving. William Friedrich is a professor at Yale in 1952 who has stumbled upon a drug that promises happiness and could make him a famous man. But, his experiment goes awry and the results haunt his family forever. Wittenborn captures the quirks of an American family and the formative moments of the 20th century.

Dirk Wittenborn discusses Pharmakon in this Youtube video http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 August 13 7:00 p.m. reading, Mequon Leigh Fielding wants a life. She's been on dialysis for the past five years and just wants to make it to her 30th birthday. Thanks to a kidney transplant it looks like her wish may really come true. To celebrate she embarks on a road trip from Wisconsin to California, but her trip takes an unexpected detour when she picks up a seventeen-year-old hitchhiker. Wisconsin author Jess Riley's novel is a journey of friendship, hope and discovery. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 6 2:00 p.m. reading, Mequon Called “engrossing and thought provoking” by Schwartz Buyer Catherine Wallberg, Beside a Burning Sea, a paperback original, finds the World War II hospital ship Benevolence at one moment cruising safely through the Pacific, and in an instant it is split in two by a torpedo. A small band of survivors is able to make it to the shore of a nearby island. There, the group—including a wounded Japanese solder and the nurse he saved from death—must confront their passion and their demons. John Shors is also the author of Beneath a Marble Sky. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 8 7:00 p.m. reading, Mequon Meet the author of the bestselling Warriors series! In the latest addition to the feline adventure, Firestar’s three grandchildren have just learned that they hold the destiny of the Clans in their paws. Now they begin to discover what their power means. Meanwhile, a dark prophecy might spell disaster for the Clans. Eclipse is filled with the action, mystery, thrilling battles, betrayal and drama you’ve come to expect from this series. For middle readers http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 9 7:00 p.m. reading, Mequon In David Rosenfelt’s first standalone thriller, Tim Wallace is placed in a terrible position. A stranger bumps into him at a bar and tells him the details of a murder committed months before. Tim soon learns that the body is right where the stranger said it was. Now Tim, already a suspect in his wife’s very mysterious death less than a year ago, is between a rock and a hard place. He escaped conviction before but the cops don’t believe in coincidences and aren’t going to quit until Tim is behind bars. Tim knows he’s innocent and he realizes he’s the only person capable of connecting the murder to a larger crime looming on the horizon. Don’t Tell a Soul is the story of an ordinary man, catapulted by uncanny circumstances to the other side of the law, who must single-handedly unearth a deadly plot. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 9 7:00 p.m. talk, Downer Ave. If you or a family member has Multiple Sclerosis, take advantage of this opportunity to learn about strategies for keeping the mind sharp and engaged. Though the disease clearly affects a patient’s body, recent studies show that 65 percent of MS patients will also experience cognitive difficulties. Milwaukee author and volunteer peer supporter with the Wisconsin Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Jeffrey Gingold offers valuable cognitive strength-training techniques and strategies for patients, interviews with patients and support and advice for caregivers in his new book. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 10 7:00 p.m. talk, Brookfield Did you know that United States Senators weren’t always elected by the public? Wisconsin’s own “Fighting Bob” La Follette worked to change that and many other injustices during his tenure as a U.S. Representative, Governor of Wisconsin and a U.S. Senator. Learn more about La Follette and the many causes he fought for, including women’s suffrage and workers compensation, and about the personal tragedies he had to overcome from La Follette biographer Nancy C. Unger. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 10 7:00 p.m. reading, Shorewood You might know Haven Kimmel best for her memoirs, A Girl Named Zippy and She Got Up Off the Couch, but she’s also the author of several works of fiction including her latest, Iodine. Here she explores the psychological effects of trauma through the eyes of college student Trace Pennington. After surviving a terrible childhood, Trace managed to become a successful student and assume a new identity as a girl without a past. When she falls in love, she is forced to confront her past anew, but her recovered memories do as much to obscure her story as reveal it. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 11 7:00 p.m. talk, Shorewood If only your philosophy course in school was as hilarious as Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein’s Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar. It’s a not-so-reverent crash course through the great philosophical thinkers and traditions, from Existentialism (What do Hegel and Bette Midler have in common?) to Logic (Sherlock Holmes never deduced anything). If you like to take the heavy stuff lightly, you’ll enjoy an evening of philosophy 101 with Cathcart and Klein. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 13 2:00 p.m. talk, Mequon Follow Abraham Lincoln on his historic journey—the whistle stops, his growing number of supporters, the backroom Party wheeling and dealing—to his unlikely Republican presidential nomination in May 1860 with Lincoln scholar Gary Ecelbarger. He brings a historian’s flair for detail to Lincoln’s story from the aftermath of his 1858 senatorial defeat, to a man taking his first steps toward becoming one of America’s most respected presidents. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 15 7:00 p.m. reading, Mequon The creator, writer and executive producer of the television series Cold Case Files follows up his acclaimed debut with The Fifth Floor. Private investigator Michael Kelly is back in this mystery that revives a tantalizing case buried in Chicago’s past. The trail leads Kelly to an old house on the city’s North Side where he finds a body and perhaps the answer to the question, who started the Great Chicago Fire, and why? In the ensuing investigation takes Kelly to City Hall’s fabled fifth floor where the mayor’s feeling the heat. What’s more—Kelly’s been framed for murder http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 17 7:00 p.m. program, Brookfield Go behind the scenes as Duck and his barnyard friends prepare for the annual corn maze festival. It’s going to be a lot of work, but the animals are more interested in giving Farmer Brown a hard time than a helping hand. He agrees to let the chickens use the hammers and lets the cows use the paintbrushes, and they are excited. Duck is not. No work means no special-order organic duck feed, but Duck has a plan. As Farmer Brown designs his Statue of Liberty maze, Duck does some designing of his own. Someone’s in for a big surprise!
For kids! http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 18 7:00 p.m. talk, Downer Ave. Milwaukee native Daphne Beal marks her fiction debut with a novel that finds Alex, a young American student who is spending the year in Nepal, placed in a difficult position after agreeing to help a friend. She has agreed to seek out a young Nepali woman desperate to flee to Kathmandu. But helping her has unforeseen consequences and soon Alex is embroiled in a strange triangle with her friend and the young woman where the lines between friendship, love and lust grow more tangled each day. Slowly, Alex begins to understand the pitfalls of trying to be both adventurer and savior in an unfamiliar world. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 20 10:00 a.m. reading, Mequon Meet Newbery Medal-winning author Lois Lowry and celebrate the adaptation of her novel, Gossamer, for the stage. Littlest One is a tiny creature slowly learning how to give dreams to humans with a touch as light as gossamer. Each night, she and her teacher visit an old woman’s home where she gathers happy memories and drops of old scents and sounds to turn into pleasant dreams. When the old woman takes in John, an angry foster child with a troubled past, Littlest One must learn to use her powers to protect his heart and soul against the dreaded nightmare-giving Sinisteeds. Gossamer is being adapted by Lowis Lowry for First Stage Children’s Theater (in collaboration with Oregon Children’s Theatre of Portland, Oregon). The First Stage production begins on September 19 and runs through October 5. For more information about the performances, visit First Stage Children’s Theater’s website. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 22 7:00 p.m. talk, Brookfield Find out what happened when Guardian columnist Benjamin Mee decided to uproot his family and move them to a dilapidated zoo in the English countryside. There was lots of work and things didn’t always go well—like the time the tigers broke loose, or the monkeys who wouldn’t stop fighting. On top of that, during the course of refurbishing the zoo Mee’s wife had a recurrence of cancer and passed away. He and their children resolved to continue work on the zoo in her memory. He’ll share more details from his family’s moving and unexpected journey to their new home. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 24 7:00 p.m. talk, Downer Ave. This event is a must-attend for anyone who is concerned about our city’s environment. A river can be the lifeblood of a city, standing as a symbol of economic prosperity, harmony with nature, and communal life. The Menomonee River is such an anchor for the Milwaukee area. Eddee Daniel will guide you down its course to reveal how preserving urban rivers is key to modern-day city life. Learn more about the preservation efforts in place to rescue the river from pollution and neglect, and see how parks and nature are crucial to Milwaukee’s quality of life and economic success. Daniel is a photographer and works with Friends of Milwaukee’s Rivers. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 25 7:00 p.m. talk, Shorewood Acedia is an ancient word meaning “soul weariness,” a feeling author Kathleen Norris (The Cloister Walk; Amazing Grace) had experienced at different times in her life since she was a teenager. In Acedia & Me she explores the concept not only as it relates to her own life—in her marriage and the challenges of grave illness; in her interest in the monastic tradition—but also as it relates to society as a whole, which Norris contends seems to be suffering from “restless boredom, frantic escapism, commitment phobia and enervating despair.” http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 25 7:00 p.m. reading, Mequon The grandson of Ludwig Bemelmans, author of the original Madeline books, John Bemelman’s Marciano offers the first new Madeline book in nearly fifty years, Madeline and the Cats of Rome. The Paris skies are gray, so Miss Clavel and the twelve little girls are leaving for brighter weather—spring in Rome. There are wonderful sights and delicious things to eat, but Madeline also finds unexpected adventure involving a thief, a chase, and many, many cats.
For kids! http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 29 7:00 p.m. talk, Downer Ave. The author of the landmark bestseller What’s The Matter With Kansas? examines conservative misrule and the blundering and corrupt Washington it has brought us. Casting back to the early days of the conservative revolution, Thomas Frank describes the rise of a ruling coalition dedicated to dismantling government. But rather than cutting down the big government they claim to hate, conservatives have simply sold it off, deregulating some industries, defrauding others, but always turning public policy into a private sector bidding war. Frank offers a forceful argument that resurrecting equitable intelligent government starts with understanding how the present plutocracy came about.

Tickets are required for this event. An admission ticket is included with Thomas Frank’s The Wrecking Crew only when the book is purchased from Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops or online. One ticket will grant admission for up to two (2) people. Attendees are encouraged to arrive early, as seating is limited. Due to this special event, our Downer Ave. location will close to the general public at 6 p.m. on the day of this event. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 15 7:00 p.m. reading, Shorewood Wisconsin author Isabel Sharpe tells the story of Ann Reading, successful corporate executive, who finds herself completely out of place at a women’s retreat designed to help heartbroken women overcome failed relationships and begin life anew. Ann wants nothing to do with sitting around the campfire singing “I Am Woman,” but when she befriends two fellow inmates she begins to see that the camp may have its benefits after all. The three strangers are about to bond on an adventure they didn’t ask for and discover that lives they thought were as good as it got suddenly get a lot better. http://schwartzbooks.com/events.php#2008-08-06 September 23 7:00 p.m. talk, Downer Ave. Milwaukee author Mordecai Lee will discuss a largely forgotten chapter of American urban history, the creation of Bureaus of Efficiency as part of the civic reform agenda during the Progressive era at the beginning of the twentieth century. The goal of the bureaus was to fight political corruption and sought to professionalize local government through civil service systems, open competitive bidding, separation of public administration from politics and reorganizing departments to reduce duplication. Lee compares and contrasts the bureaus in Milwaukee and Chicago, and discusses why efficiency in government is likely to remain a viable and powerful concept well into the twenty-first century.