at the BookBeat this week! #bookstore #michigan #michlit

Celebrating Detroit History this Thursday, December 8th On Thursday, December 8th at 7 PM, the Book Beat (26010 Greenfield Rd. Oak Park, MI) will host a presentation by three local authors with recent books on Detroit history. Featured books will be Detroitland by Richard Bak (Wayne State University Press), Detroit Television (Arcadia Press) by Tim Kiska and Ed Golick and 313 Life in the Motor City (History Press) by John Carlisle. Keep this date open for a night of wonderful storytelling and local history.     Special Detroitland promotion: with each in-store purchase of the book Detroitland, you may purchase a special collector's edition Detroitland glass for $5.!!     Detroitland covers a century of Detroit's rich and colorful history, Bak relives the scandals, mysteries, catastrophes, triumphs, and celebrations that have rocked Detroit. He also introduces readers to the heroes, criminals, stars, and regular people who lived through them, or in some cases, set them in motion. Detroitland contains the stories behind familiar names like Frank Murphy, the infamous Purple Gang, the Lone Ranger, "Potato Patch" Pingree, and Charles Lindbergh. Yet Bak also reveals lesser-known episodes in Detroit's history, like the ambitious International Exposition & Fair of 1889; the killer heat wave of 1936, with five straight days of hundred-degree temperatures; and the attempted around-the-world flight of Ed Schlee and Billy Brock in the Pride of Detroit in 1927.     313: Life in the Motor City is a collection of 42 stories and more than 100 glossy photographs, many previously unpublished, by Detroitblogger John Carlisle of detroitblog.org fame. His blog and weekly column in Metro Times chronicle the quirky and often over-looked stories of average folks in the city. Read about a man with a strip club in his living room, the city's last gun shop, a historic church kept alive by a handful of its parishioners, a bar in a ghost town, a coffee shop for the homeless, an art gallery in a mattress store and a family who made an abandoned apartment complex their home, among many other unforgettable people and places in Detroit.       Detroit Television chronicles the history of many of the most fascinating characters in tv history. Soupy Sales turned getting a pie in the face into an art form. Mort Neff celebrated the state's outdoor charms. George Pierrot showed Detroiters the world. Other beloved personalities include: Milky the Clown, Ed McKenzie, Sonny Eliot, John Kelly, Marilyn Turner, Robin Seymour, Bill Bonds, Dick Westerkamp, Jingles, Bill Kennedy, Lou Gordon, Captain Jolly, Johnny Ginger, Auntie Dee, and many more. MEET THE ORIGINAL WHITE FANG PUPPET!!! For more info on this event or to reserve copies of any of these titles, please call Book Beat (248) 968-1190. This event is free and open to the public.     Glenn Barr Signing this Saturday,December 10th!! Detroit's favorite space-age bachelor pad artist Glenn Barr will be signing copies of his latest book, Faces at the Book Beat on Saturday, December 10 from 7-8 pm. Faces is a small book, six by six inches, filled with close-up portraits of the stars and starlets that make up Barr's fabulous forgotten world. A small selection of signed prints will be available at the event, as well as Faces and a few other titles. Put on your finest cocktail garb and zip on over.     Book Beat supports Battle of the Books The Book Beat is stocking Battle of the Books titles for Birmingham and Southfield schools. Book Beat is proud to support this challenge that encourages reading for children. You can purchase them all together in a packet or one title at a time. The Battle Books include sets for 4th graders, sets for 5th graders and Young Adult sets. Please call ahead if you need to hold a title as availability on books does fluctuate. Call 248-968-1190     Detroit: 138 Square Miles, a recent review     Artists Yasuo Tanaka & Dick Cruger; "Bones" at Book Beat Gallery The exhibition "Bones" displays the art and vision of Tokyo artist Yasuo Tanaka -up in the Book Beat gallery through January 9th. Tokyo artist Yasuo Tanaka (b.1942) is a uniquely gifted artist that uses bookmaking, design, puppetry, wire sculpture, photography, and ink drawing in fantastic and striking combinations. Tanaka has produced a curious and quietly poetic body of work, a bizarrely stylized skeleton world radiating a simple universal message and philosophy. A surreal, childlike and humorous quality pervades all of Tanaka's art that presents to us a Borgesian metaphysical vision about eternity, death and life wrapped inside his purely visual reality. Detroit book artist and sculptor Dick Cruger, began a friendship with the artist Yasuo Tanaka about 10 years ago. Dick was introduced to Yasuo through the American poet Arthur Barnard who now lives in Tokyo. Barnard thought the two artists should meet since they both shared a similar aesthetic. Each artist executes their work with technical polish, working in similar areas of storytelling, mixing visual art and sculpture. Together they have recently collaborated on Parallel Universes, book project that combines sites of Detroit and Tokyo told through skeleton and robot figures. The Book Beat gallery will display this body of work and hold the book launch in a three day opening: October 21st-23rd. Read the full article HERE.     We thank you for supporting Book Beat in its 29th year in business. Our Holiday Hours through December 23rd: MON-WED- 10AM-8 PM, THURS- SAT 10 AM- 9 PM., Sunday 12-5 PM. Sunday December 24th: 10 AM- 6 PM, New Years Eve Dec. 31st: 10 AM-6 PM,  Please call: 248-968-1190 for more information or to place an order. Book Beat is an independent locally owned bookstore serving the metro Detroit area since 1982. We appreciate your support and comments. Special orders are always welcome! For more information please call 248-968-1190 during store hours Mon.-Fri. 10 am-9 pm, Sat. 10 am-7 pm & Sun. 12-5pm. Visit us in person at 26010 Greenfield in Oak Park, MI 48237 or online 24/7 at thebookbeat.com - Thank you for reading!