September/October Events
bdvo...@aol.com
September 11th, 2024
On this somber anniversary, I am feeling oddly hopeful.
Maybe it is the smell of the fall greenery newly planted in my yard this week, or the warmth of the sun. We have really had a beautiful summer here in Chicago.
Maybe it is the great new fall book releases we have been receiving over the past couple of weeks. Books like Matt Haig’s latest novel, or the autobiography of our first Black, Female Supreme Court Justice.
Maybe it is excitement over the slate of events we have coming to our event space over the next few weeks – a conversation about femme fatales between two local authors, a half-dozen performances of a play by a local theatrical group, a book club meeting.
Or maybe it is just the imminent finale of a seemingly never-ending election season, and the magnificent woman who might just lead us into the future.
If you get the chance, join us in our celebration of reading and all things literary this month. And maybe read a book that has been challenged or banned in commemoration of Banned Books Week. More on that below.
September 19th, 2024
Join us for a book release party in the after-words event space
Fatally Femme:
A Conversation
In celebration of Snake Oil
Featuring
Kelsey Ray Dimberg and Layne Fargo
6:30pm
Three women. One will die. One might be a murderer. The third becomes a reluctant detective. In the neo-noir Snake Oil by Kelsey Ray Dimberg, we meet them all.
In this feminist thriller, the ladies are in charge. And they aren’t dissuaded by the male chauvinism rampant in tech culture.
We’ll have some wine and snacks, and celebrate the release of a great new thriller!
September 24th, 2024
after-words Banned Books Club – meeting #4
6:30pm
after-words Event Space
This quarter, we are reading a novel by one of the great American novelists of the Twentieth Century, Toni Morrison.
The works of Toni Morrison have been challenged more frequently than those of any other individual writer in the past 30 years. And in 2023, the sixth most challenged book was the Bluest Eye.
In Morrison's acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove--an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
If you are interested in attending, there are no rules. You can read some of thebook, all of the book, or none of the book. No purchase necessary.
Please join us on Tuesday, September 24th at 6:30pm for our discussion.
September 22nd -28th, 2024
Our annual banned books display has been up for about 6 weeks now. If you are interested in why some books have been challenged around the country, please drop by and pay that display a visit.
On it, we keep books that have been challenged. Inside each volume is a bookmark. The bookmark lists where, when, and why it was challenged or banned – or at least one such instance. There are many books that get challenged over and over again.
In honor of Banned Books Week, we have some promotions and goodies for our customers.
Banned books week promotions:
  |
|||
Spend $100 or more you get:
T-shirt, enamel pin and Constitution
*While Supplies Last
September 27th -29th, 2024
October 4th-6th, 2024
after-words event space
Ghostlight Ensemble presents Alabama Story by Kenneth Jones
A live theatrical event
As the Civil Rights movement is brewing, a controversial children’s book about a black rabbit marrying a white rabbit stirs passions. Specifically, those of a segregationist State Senator and a no-nonsense State Librarian. Welcome to the Montgomery, Alabama of 1959.
A contrasting story of childhood friends—an African American man and a woman of white privilege, reunited in adulthood—provides private counterpoint to the public events swirling in the state capital. Political foes, star-crossed lovers, and one feisty children’s author inhabit the same page in a Deep South of the imagination that brims with humor, heartbreak, and hope. Inspired by true events.
Visit our website for more information, and tickets.