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Events,
events, many, many events...
September
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 Thursday
9.02 7:30pm UIC
For
Asma Hasan, being a Muslim is not merely a matter
of birth, but a matter of choice. In seven chapters,
she presents seven reasons why she is committed to
Islam and why it is a viable spiritual option for
anyone. Why I Am a Muslim is
an important book that will provide readers with
an understanding and appreciation
of an often misunderstood religious tradition. Hasan
successfully articulates a vision of one of the world’s
great religions that readers within and without Islam
will find engaging and challenging.
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 Monday
9.06 7:30pm UIC
Beginning
with an alligator in his backyard...to vet school escapades...
to taking care of General Patton’s dog
and 2,000 carrier pigeons during WWII...to being a zoo
doctor, Les Fisher’s story, leading
up to his appointment as Zoo Director, bring to life his
early association with animals. But in 1962, when Dr. Fisher
was placed in charge of Lincoln Park Zoo, the fun-and the
animal stories-really began. Dr.
Fisher’s
Life on the Ark shares the entertaining, poignant, and sometimes
scary experiences of a local hero. |
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| Wednesday 9.08: |
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Noon |
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Sears Tower |
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7:30pm |
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UIC |
One
author, two events, Barbara’s is always on the
edge. At noon, Scott Turow will be signing copies
of his latest work, Ultimate
Punishment: A Lawyer’s Reflections on Dealing
with the Death Penalty, at our Sears Tower
location. In the evening, Mr. Turow will be at our
store at UIC to read from and answer questions about
this same book and the highly fraught topic it bravely
examines.
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 Wednesday
9.08 7:30pm Oak Park
In
the Hope of Rising Again, Helen Scully’s
elegant and accomplished first novel, is the story
of the Riants and the Morrows - and the wealth of
household help and extended family that make up their
circle. It is history told through one family’s
fate: the story of the South as it rose slowly and
unsteadily from the ruins of the Civil War and stuttered
into the twentieth century and the age of speculation
and boom.
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 Thursday
9.09 7:30pm Oak Park
Universe
on a T-Shirt : The Quest for the Theory of Everything,
begins with a quote from physicist Leon Lederman: “My
ambition is to live to see all of physics reduced
to a formula so elegant and simple that it will fit
easily on the front of a T-shirt.” This ‘holy
grail’ of physics, and the search
for it, is the subject of this fast paced (and understandable
by the layman) book that moves from ancient Greece,
to Newton’s discoveries, to the
theoretical physicists of today. |
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 Thursday
9.09 7:30pm UIC
Journalist
Victor Malarek exposes the international traffic
in sex slavery in The Natashas : Inside the New
Global Sex Trade. The collapse of the Soviet Union has left
the economies of its republics, and most of the rest
of Eastern Europe, in shambles; organized crime has
taken over in most places, and an attractive young
woman can be sold for $10,000 or more in some of
the countries where the sex trade flourishes. Interviews
with criminals, victims and those fighting the trade
give this work both urgency and poignancy.
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 Tuesday
9.14 7:30pm UIC
Cintra
Wilson has, through her essay collection, A Massive
Swelling, and her Salon.com column, become one
of our foremost commentators on the hideousness and
humor
of celebrity culture. In her first novel, Colors
Insulting to Nature, Wilson gives an unforgettable
anti-heroine, Liza Normal,
who
wants fame more than
she wants air, food, or life itself, and she’ll
do anything it takes to get it. Laugh, cry, cringe
with self-recognition: this is a brilliant achievement. |
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 Thursday
9.16 7:30pm Oak Park
For
Bill Ayers, educator and activist, ‘the
allure of teaching ...comes from the particularly
precious ideal that lies directly at its heart: Teaching,
at its best, is an enterprise geared toward helping
every human being reach the full measure of his other
humanity.’ In Teaching
Toward Freedom,
Ayers shows a new way of looking at education; how
it can
be
used
in
authoritarian
ways at the service
of the state, the church, or a restrictive existing
social order—an idea he abhors—or,
as he envisions it, as a way to achieve in students ‘their
fullest, democratic humanity.’ |
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 Thursday
9.16 7:30pm UIC
University
of California, San Diego literature professor and
writer Ona Russell comes to Barbara’s
to hold a workshop on the writing process and to
read from her “intense historical” mystery
O’Brien’s
Desk.
Based on true events, this suspenseful novel possesses
a unique authenticity. The year is 1923, and a prominent
judge fathers his first and only child. Though a
joyous occasion, the birth sets off a terrifying
chain of events, including blackmail and a near-fatal
breakdown. The judge’s only hope
for recovery lies with his trusted friend and colleague,
Sarah Kaufman. |
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Ted
Okuda and Jack Mulqueen |
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 Saturday
9.18 noon Marshall Fields
At
one time every station in Chicago-there were up to five
until
1964-produced or aired some kind of children’s
programming. Though often operating under strict budgetary
constraints these programs were rich with imagination,
invention, and fan loyalty. Ted Okuda and Jack Mulqueen’s
The
Golden Age of Chicago Children’s
Television is a loving look the bygone era when
Kukla, Fran and Ollie were still hanging out together,
the Gigglesnort
Hotel was still in business, and Kiddie-A-Go-Go was dancing.
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September
2004 Book Recommendations & Events Calendar