Author Adam Levin at West Town Branch Library
Author event: Adam Levin
Please join us at 2pm Saturday Nov. 2 for a reading by local author Adam Levin, followed by a Q&A and book signing. Books will be available for purchase at the library, 1625 W. Chicago Ave.
Levin is the author of the novel “The Instructions,” winner of both the 2011 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and the inaugural Indie Booksellers Choice Award, and finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction.
“Hot Pink,” his collection of short stories, was a New York Times Editor's Choice pick and a Shelf Unbound Top 10 book of 2012. It contains stories that have won the Summer Literary Seminars Fiction Contest as well as the Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Prize.
His work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Tin House, Esquire, Playboy, and New England Review. He lives in Chicago, where he teaches Creative Writing at the School of the Art Institute.
Please join us at the West Town Branch at 6:30pm Tuesday, Nov. 5 as we discuss the former “One Book, One Chicago” selection “The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City” by Carl Smith.
The Chicago History Book Club explores the City’s history through reading and discussing books on events, themes, time periods, and personalities that have contributed to making Chicago what it is today. If you cannot join us this time, please stop by the branch pick-up our next book “The Great Chicago Fire” by Robert Cromie.
POV Film Screening
On Thursday, Nov. 7 the West Town Branch will screen the documentary “In the Light of Reverence” at 6pm to celebrate Native American Heritage Month and as part of our ongoing POV film series.
Devils Tower. The Four Corners. Mount Shasta. All places of extraordinary beauty and impassioned controversy as Indians and non-Indians struggle to co-exist with very different ideas about how the land should be used. For Native Americans, the land is sacred and akin to the world's greatest cathedrals. For others, the land should be used for industry and recreation.
Narrated by Peter Coyote and Tantoo Cardinal (Metis), “In the Light of Reverence” is a beautifully rendered account of the struggles of the Lakota in the Black Hills, the Hopi in Arizona and the Wintu in California to protect their sacred sites. This event is in collaboration with the award-winning documentary series POV (www.pbs.org/pov).
The Money Smart series returns to West Town on Tuesday, Nov. 12. Come at 6:30pm to learn concepts and strategies you may not have learned in school or at the bank to become debt free and financially independent. Learn basic concepts concerning insurance, debt elimination, credit, investing, and savings. These will be taught in an illustrative, interactive format so bring your notebooks.
Please join us for our last book discussion of 2013. On Thursday, Nov. 21 we will be talking at 6 pm about the book “This is Where I Leave You” by Jonathan Tropper.
POV Film Screening
On Thursday, Nov, 21 at 6pm the West Town Branch will screen the documentary “Standing Silent Nation” to celebrate Native American Heritage Month and as part of our ongoing POV film series.
What does a family have to endure to create a future for itself? In April 2000, Alex White Plume and his Lakota family planted industrial hemp on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota after other crops had failed. They put their hopes for a sustainable economy in hemp's hardiness and a booming worldwide demand for its many products, from clothing to food.
Although growing hemp, a relative of marijuana, was banned in the U.S., Alex believed that tribal sovereignty, along with hemp's non-psychoactive properties, would protect him. But when federal agents raided the White Plumes' fields, the Lakota Nation was swept into a Byzantine struggle over tribal sovereignty, economic rights and common sense.
Sneak peek at next month’s events
December will include another Chicago History Book Club meeting, holiday card making with our friends from the Letter Writers Alliance, and especially exciting for local history enthusiasts, on Thursday, Dec. 5 a screening at 6:30pm of the film “Chicago Drawbridges” followed by a filmmaker Q&A.
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