heck it out, Chicago author Audrey Niffenegger talks about her upcoming novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, in the following book trailer.

oug Seibold, President and Publisher of Chicago-based Agate Publishing was recently featured at The Front Table, the web magazine of the Seminary Co-op Bookstores. His subject: Leonard Pitts, Jr., who you might remember from our two reviews of his most recent novel Before I Forget, published by Agate’s imprint that focuses on African American authors and subjects, Bolden. In his article, Seibold highly praises both the author and the book, which focuses on black fatherhood over three generations.

“As he has walked the unique and highly public cultural tightrope that has carried him to the presidency, Barack Obama—himself both a black father and a largely fatherless son (as well as the most famous member, I believe, of the Seminary Co-op)—has made African-American fatherhood one of the very, very few ‘racial’ issues that he has addressed repeatedly since he began his run for that office. I can’t imagine another reader who would better appreciate the work of Leonard Pitts, Jr.”

Red Mud, a rather large collection of poetry by Patricia Goodrich (Or maybe just average-sized. I am far too used to chapbooks these days.), is divided into three progressive sections: Clay, Muck Land, and Red Mud. I found that each section built upon the last. Clay had a feeling of a beginning, just as soft mold-able clay might. Here we find poems about amputation and loss–the narrator has lost a leg in an accident. Throughout the book, and quite heavily in this section we see a connection to nature. The first poem, in fact, details roadkill which makes a stark comparison to the narrators own body, her leg being lost in a motorcycle accident. ¶ View In Entirety… →

t turns out that I missed the boat the first time around on The Time Traveler’s Wife, so in light of the movie’s imminent release, I thought it might be a good idea to see what this novel is all about. As a Chicago resident and book lover, not to mention romantic, I found myself incredibly pleased with this book. At this point, almost everyone in the literary world has either read or heard about this book, and countless others are soon to see the movie (though I recently learned in a conversation with the author, Audrey Niffenegger, the movie might now be worth the ten bucks you’ll spend on it), and now I know why. This book is quite frankly one of the most fantastic love stories I have ever read, and it’s not just a love story.

¶ View In Entirety… →

or all you guys (and girls) out there who can’t get enough of the crazy partying and philandering portrayed on the HBO show Entourage, get ready to meet Tucker Max. What started out as a website created for the purpose of meeting girls and dedicated to getting a date, soon turned into a blog filled with wildly entertaining, and not to mention hilarious, stories about drinking, partying, and hooking up. Upon the success of Tucker Max’s blog, he decided to go ahead and turn it into a book, each chapter more hilarious than the next. ¶ View In Entirety… →

or those of you who managed to miss the Victorian-inspired dresses made from recycled paper at the Publisher’s Ball last Friday, check out this video, courtesy of Amy Guth:

For more info on the Publishers Ball, check out all of Amy’s interviews from the event.

In Other News:
–Now that Blagojevich’s book The Governor is up for pre-order on Amazon, customers can tag the book with keywords such that it might come up when one searches for “moron.”
–To promote his new book, Chicago author Marcus Sakey is holding a twitter/facebook-based contest in which the winner will receive not only a signed copy of The Amateurs, but also a ton of other books.
–Newcity Lit takes a look at the Chicago literary scene.
–The first review is in of Nabokov’s “The Origin of Laura,” published by Playboy, and it isn’t pretty.