A panel from “The Object-Lesson” (1958)—Edward Gorey
Hello, dear book lovers!
Welcome to the November edition of the Book Beat Newsletter.
As the leaves fall, so do our remaining nerves. Election season is here, and we’re feeling the tension—like we’re living in a novel with too many plot twists and an unreliable narrator. Allow Book Beat to be a refuge, where there’s no cliffhanger endings—only stacks of interesting books to provide escape or insight (or both).
This Sunday, renowned activist Bill Ayers will be at the Huntington Woods Recreation Center discussing his latest book, When Freedom Is the Question, Abolition Is the Answer: Reflections on Collective Liberation, exploring radical and common sense ideas about justice, liberation, and the path forward.
Other events include a weekend with activist Dr. Alice Rothchild, a Book Beat Holiday Gift Night, an Oakland Literacy Council benefit with bestselling author Angie Kim, A Gesu Library fundraiser and more.
Our repost this month are fragments and a top ten reading list by Ryan Standfest, artist and publisher of dark humor from Rotland Press. This week Ryan came to the bookstore with Brooklyn author and curator Dan Nadel who had just given a lecture at Oakland University. Nadel is a longtime promoter of comics, publisher at PictureBox Studio and the author of CRUMB – an authorized biography of renowned comic creator Robert Crumb coming out in the spring. Stay tuned!
Two wonderful new exhibitions are now up at the Cranbrook Art Museum. Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within presents beautiful raku ceramics, mind-blowing and cosmic in their simplified and serene forms. And How We Make the Planet Move: The Detroit Collection Part I a show focused on local Detroit artists including works by Charles McGee, Gordon Newton, Michael Luchs, Cay Bahnmiller, Tiff Massey and many others—part of the Cranbrook Art Museum’s new permanent Detroit collection, their first new collection in decades. Don’t miss it!
Stop in soon for recently signed books by Margaret Atwood, Yotam Ottolenghi, Jodi Picoult, Joe Posnanski, a MC5 biography, and a book about Detroit born artist Ray Johnson. See links below for online orders.
Thank you for your contunued support and Happy reading!
—Cary, Colleen, and the Book Beat Staff
UPCOMING EVENTS
November 9: Alice Rothchild at the Arab American National Museum
Autographed Recent additions to the Book Beat gallery
MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock’s Most Revolutionary Band (signed)
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