LITERATI NEWSLETTER • SEPTEMBER 7, 2017 #MichLit via @LiteratiBkstore ‏

LITERATI NEWSLETTER  • SEPTEMBER 7, 2017  Events, book clubs, store goings-on...  Welcome to Night Vale! On October 23rd, 7pm at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater, we are thrilled to welcome Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor, creators of the #1 international podcast Welcome to Night Vale, for their new book It Devours!   Tickets are general admission and are the cost of the novel with tax. Books are to be picked up at the venue the night of the event. Jospeh and Jeffrey will be in-conversation with a guest TBA, followed by an audience Q&A and signing.  We're thrilled to bring Joseph and Jeffrey back to Ann Arbor, and we're looking forward to this special evening. More info here.  Buy Tickets Kerrytown BookFest this Sunday! Sunday, join us for the Kerrytown BookFest! Panels, booths, vendors, author signings, interactive experiences, this is a truly fun afternoon of books.  Join us 11-5pm, stop by our booth and say hello! Read more... John U. Bacon On Thursday, Sept 14, 7pm, staff-favorite John U. Bacon returns to Literati to launch his brand new book, Playing Hurt, about legendary sportscaster John Saunders. "During his three decades on ESPN and ABC, John Saunders became one of the nation's most respected and beloved sportscasters. In this moving, jarring, and ultimately inspiring memoir, Saunders discusses his troubled childhood, the traumatic brain injury he suffered in 2011, and the severe depression that nearly cost him his life." If you've ever seen John U. Bacon in person, you know his book events are not to be missed! Read more... Oliver Uberti: Where The Animals Go On September 12 at 7pm, our very good friend Oliver Uberti (the artist who designed our typewriter sign and wall mural) launches his new book, Where The Animals Go.  This is a beautiful, informative, entertaining book and we're thrilled to learn more about all the incredible research and design that went into making this book possible. "Where the Animals Go is beautiful and thrilling, a combination of the best in science and exposition, and a joy to study cover to cover." —Edward O. Wilson "This book is beautiful as well as informative and inspiring. There is no doubt it will help in our fight to save wildlife and wild habitats." - Jane Goodall  Please join us! Read more...  Upcoming readings & events... All events are free and at 7pm, unless otherwise indicated.  Sept 7: David Daley Sept 8: Yooper Talk Sept 9: Vital Talks at the Stamps Gallery Sept 11: Amos N. Guiora Sept 13: The Poetry of Aimé Césaire and the Art of Translation  Sept 15: Derek Palacio & Peter Ho Davies Sept 18: N.J. Campbell & Annie Hartnett Sept 21: Sam Walker Sept 22: Celeste Ng, with Douglas Trevor Sept 25: Robin Sloan Sept 27: Marta McDowell Sept 28: Annie Spence: Dear Fahrenheit 451 August Book Clubs... All book clubs are free.  Buy from us, get 15% off.  To gauge numbers, we kindly request you RSVP by using the links below.  Sept 19: Feminist Book Club discusses "Stay With Me." RSVP. September 20: Eco Book Club discusses "The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature." RSVP. Sept 23: Poetry Book Club discusses "Stag's Leap". RSVP. Sept 26: Literati Book Clubdiscusses "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me". RSVP. Staff Pick of the Month: My Absolute Darling, by Gabriel Tallent "I did not want to like this book. I read the first fifty pages and found myself so deeply and uncomfortably moved that I put it down and swore I could not finish it. Turtle Alveston—young girl, wanderer, viciously brave survivor—has a terrible secret, one that I worried the author would not be able to lend the kind of respect it deserves. But after hearing other booksellers and friends talk about the book with a whole lot of love, I decided to give it another chance. I was not disappointed. Gabriel Tallent, in writing so lush and vividly moving, has penned an empathetic and miraculous kind of ode to Turtle and to the rugged, beautiful, dangerous place she has made her own. My Absolute Darling is all at once disturbing, heartening, and unbelievably sad. But it is also--without reservations and with a great deal of beauty--worth it. Turtle's story will stick with me forever." - Claire Buy here.  Buy more staff reviews here.  Letters from Literati:  A storewide reorganization...  A bookstore moves. A bookstore ebbs and flows.  A bookstore is alive. This past Labor Day, several of us Book Ninjas spent the day laboring over a store overhaul. We reorganized and let certain sections expand and breathe (fiction, science fiction, essays... enjoy the fresh air). In fiction, instead of one table display, there are two. The end of the alphabet (T-Z) has their own cases. Poetry moved to the middle of the main floor, next to staff picks. Middle reader and YA are found on shorter cases for still-growing book browsers.  Our basement was also reorganized. Memoir, drama, and writing moved downstairs. Other sections found new homes, like film and music, sports, humor, travel. Nearly every section (except for cooking) was moved, relocated, reanalyzed, and curated. We also changed our main floor infrastructure setup. We noticed book browsers crammed near the end of fiction, especially during the holidays. So, we flip-flopped our main floor structures. Now, fiction is browsable and the main floor is more navigable.  There's more on the horizon. We're conjuring new signage and apparel items for our coffee shop, Literati Coffee. We've got fantastic events coming up, with authors like Celeste Ng, Robin Sloan, John U. Bacon, Jeffrey Eugendes, David Lagercrantz (new author of the popular Lisbeth Salander series), and the creators of Welcome to Night Vale. (And more.)  But this store reorganization has been a priority, and our Inventory Team did an outstanding job (Jeanne Joesten and Kelsey Lapping, in particular). And while the store may not seem that different, to us, considering we've only ever moved around main floor sections once or twice before, it's a large change.  Books are lively creatures. They have told us they wanted to stretch their arms, get some elbow room, see some new neighbors. So we let them.  We hope you'll like the changes.  Thank you, as always, for your support, and for keeping a bookstore alive. -Mike, Hilary, and the Literati Book Ninjas Typewriter quote of the week:  "having a crush on a best friend is equal parts the best thing and the worst thing" -Note left on our typewriter.  Join our Signed First Editions Club!