Acclaimed Chinese-American scholar, journalist and author Helen Zia will be at Barbara’s Bookstore at UIC to discuss her career, and the writing and research of such books as ASIAN-AMERICAN DREAMS and MY COUNTRY VERSUS ME. Please call Barbara’s UIC at 312.413.2665 (BOOK) for further details.

STAGE FRIGHT: In Music Performance and Its Relationship to the Unconscious is the perfect book for anyone who has ever longed to take the stage, but has been held back by fear. Local musician Mike Goode examines case histories of famous performers, as well as psychological and medical perspectives, to offer practical solutions to this common, sometimes crippling, problem.

Beloved author of Tumbling, Diane McKinney-Whetstone,has worked for five years on what is her most powerful novel to date—LEAVING CECIL STREET. Inspired by the ‘forbidden’ neighborhood blocks of her Philadelphia childhood, Leaving paints a portrait of an African-American community moved and influenced by block parties, jazz, Vietnam, the Black Panthers and religion. It is both evocative and unforgettable.

Summer is almost here, time to hit the road. Editor Raphael Kadushin and contributor Brian Bouldrey will be on hand to share stories of adventure from WONDERLANDS: Good Gay Travel Writing—a perfect, armchair start to the travel season. These 19 works criss-cross the globe, from Edmund White’s journey through the desert to Matthew Link’s visit to Antarctica.

HOMESICK: A Memoir of Family, Food and Finding Hope is a startlingly plainspoken and unflinching first person account by the niece of fashion icon Ralph Lauren. Jenny Lauren details her wrenching struggle with bulimia, and speaks powerfully to the widespread failure of the medical community to understand eating disorders.

They are always with us, no matter how hard we try to get rid of them, no matter how much we want to pretend they don’t exist. No, not our student loans, but something just as resilient and omnipresent. Robert Sullivan has written the definitive history of our hairy neighbors in RATS: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants.

Alive and dead alike, all of the characters in Paula (Penitent, with Roses) Peterson’s short stories of women with AIDS and HIV are as authentic as the woman sitting next to you. Kirkus review said of this remarkable collection, "Twenty years into the epidemic, a work with something truly new to say about AIDS : that’s quite an achievement."

The second event in Barbara’s and NewCity’s Booked series takes us from fiction to the intersection of life and art with Rachel Cohen’s A CHANCE MEETING. Beautiful, unique moments have brought together American artists and writers-Gertrude Stein and William James, Alfred Stieglitz and Hart Crane, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston-changing their art, and our lives, forever.