In the latest mystery in the New York Times bestselling series\, Maisie Dobbs must unravel a case of wartime love and death—an investigation that leads her to a long-hidden affair between a young cartographer and a mysterious nurse.
August 1914. Michael Clifton is mapping the land he has just purchased in California's beautiful Santa Ynez Valley\, certain that oil lies beneath its surface. But as the young cartographer prepares to return home to Boston\, war is declared in Europe. Michael—the youngest son of an expatriate Englishman—puts duty first and sails for his father's native country to serve in the British army. Three years later\, he is listed among those missing in action.
April 1932. London psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs is retained by Michael's parents\, who have recently learned that their son's remains have been unearthed in France. They want Maisie to find the unnamed nurse whose love letters were among Michael's belongings—a quest that takes Maisie back to her own bittersweet wartime love. Her inquiries\, and the stunning discovery that Michael Clifton was murdered in his trench\, unleash a web of intrigue and violence that threatens to engulf the soldier's family and even Maisie herself. Over the course of her investigation\, Maisie must cope with the approaching loss of her mentor\, Maurice Blanche\, and her growing awareness that she is once again falling in love.
Following the critically acclaimed bestseller Among the Mad\, The Mapping of Love and Death delivers the most gripping and satisfying chapter yet in the life of Maisie Dobbs.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T160642Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100417T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100417T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/alison-lacroix-ideological-origins-american-federalism URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/alison-lacroix-ideological-origins-american-federalism SUMMARY:Alison LaCroix - The Ideological Origins of American Federalism DESCRIPTION:Federalism is regarded as one of the signal American contributions to modern politics. Its origins are typically traced to the drafting of the Constitution\, but the story began decades before the delegates met in Philadelphia.
In this groundbreaking book\, Alison LaCroix traces the history of American federal thought from its colonial beginnings in scattered provincial responses to British assertions of authority\, to its emergence in the late eighteenth century as a normative theory of multilayered government. The core of this new federal ideology was a belief that multiple independent levels of government could legitimately exist within a single polity\, and that such an arrangement was not a defect but a virtue. This belief became a foundational principle and aspiration of the American political enterprise. LaCroix thus challenges the traditional account of republican ideology as the single dominant framework for eighteenth-century American political thought. Understanding the emerging federal ideology returns constitutional thought to the central place that it occupied for the founders. Federalism was not a necessary adaptation to make an already designed system work\; it was the system.
Connecting the colonial\, revolutionary\, founding\, and early national periods in one story reveals the fundamental reconfigurations of legal and political power that accompanied the formation of the United States. The emergence of American federalism should be understood as a critical ideological development of the period\, and this book is essential reading for everyone interested in the American story.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T160642Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100421T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100421T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jonathan-metzl-protest-psychosis-how-schizophrenia-became-black-disease-0 URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jonathan-metzl-protest-psychosis-how-schizophrenia-became-black-disease-0 SUMMARY:Jonathan Metzl - The Protest Psychosis\: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease DESCRIPTION:Revolution was in the air in the 1960s. Civil rights protests demanded attention on the airwaves and in the streets. Anger gave way to revolt\, and revolt provided the elusive promise of actual change. But a very different civil rights history evolved at the Ionia State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Ionia\, Michigan. Here\, far from the national glare of sit-ins\, boycotts\, or riots\, African American men suddenly appeared in the asylum’s previously white\, locked wards. Some of these men came to the attention of the state after participating in civil rights demonstrations\, while others were sent by the military\, the penal system\, or the police. Though many of the men hailed from Detroit\, ambulances and paddy wagons brought men from other urban centers as well. Once at Ionia\, psychiatrists classified these men under a single diagnosis\: schizophrenia.
In The Protest Psychosis\, psychiatrist and cultural critic Jonathan Metzl tells the shocking story of how schizophrenia became the diagnostic term overwhelmingly applied to African American men at the Ionia State Hospital\, and how events at Ionia mirrored national conversations that increasingly linked blackness\, madness\, and civil rights. Expertly sifting through a vast array of cultural documents—from scientific literature\, to music lyrics\, to riveting\, tragic hospital charts—Metzl shows how associations between schizophrenia and blackness emerged during the 1960s and 1970s in ways that directly reflected national political events. As he demonstrates\, far from resulting from the racist intentions of individual doctors or the symptoms of specific patients\, racialized schizophrenia grew from a much wider set of cultural shifts that defined the thoughts\, actions\, and even the politics of black men as being inherently insane.
Ultimately\, The Protest Psychosis provides a cautionary tale of how anxieties about race continue to impact doctor-patient interactions\, even during our current\, seemingly post-race era of genetics\, pharmacokinetics\, and brain scans.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T160642Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100423T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100423T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/writers-record-peter-carey URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/writers-record-peter-carey SUMMARY:Writers on the Record\: Peter Carey DESCRIPTION:From the two-time Booker Prize–winning author comes an irrepressibly funny new novel set in early nineteenth-century America.
Olivier—an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville—is the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English printer. They are born on different sides of history\, but their lives will be connected by an enigmatic one-armed marquis.
When Olivier sets sail for the nascent United States—ostensibly to make a study of the penal system\, but more precisely to save his neck from one more revolution—Parrot will be there\, too\: as spy for the marquis\, and as protector\, foe\, and foil for Olivier.
As the narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier\, between their picaresque adventures apart and together—in love and politics\, prisons and finance\, homelands and brave new lands—a most unlikely friendship begins to take hold. And with their story\, Peter Carey explores the experiment of American democracy with dazzling inventiveness and with all the richness and surprise of characterization\, imagery\, and language that we have come to expect from this superlative writer.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T160642Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100424T190000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100424T190000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/craig-robinson-game-character-family-journey-chicagos-south-side-ivy-league-beyond URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/craig-robinson-game-character-family-journey-chicagos-south-side-ivy-league-beyond SUMMARY:Craig Robinson - A Game of Character\: A Family Journey from Chicago's South Side to the Ivy League & Beyond DESCRIPTION:In A Game of Character\: A Family Journey from Chicago’s Southside to the Ivy League and Beyond\, Craig Robinson takes readers behind the scenes to meet his family and the other important influences in his life who have contributed to his success both on and off the basketball court. The result is a stunning tribute to his parents\, coaches\, and other mentors who have contributed to his ongoing search for what it truly means to have character.
Craig shares rich\, heartwarming stories of what life was like growing up with Fraser and Marian Robinson and his sister\, Michelle - from days playing street basketball while excelling academically\; to dodging third-grade girls chasing him home thanks to Michelle’s sisterly protection\; to family outings to the drive-in and grandparents’ homes\; to summers at Dukes Happy Holiday Resort\; to admission to Princeton University\, where he was twice named Ivy League Player of the Year. The fundamentals Craig learned from his family are evidenced today in his coaching style and family life.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T160642Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100430T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100430T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/sam-munson-november-criminals URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/sam-munson-november-criminals SUMMARY:Sam Munson - The November Criminals DESCRIPTION:A darkly funny\, pot-infused novel of teenage maladjustment in the tradition of Beautiful Children from a compelling new voice in American fiction.
For a high school senior\, Addison Schacht has a lot of preoccupations. Like getting into college. Selling drugs to his classmates. His complicated relationship with his best friend (NOT his girlfriend) Digger. And he's just added another to the list\: the murder of his classmate Kevin Broadus\, and his own absurd\, obsessive plan to investigate the death. When presented with an essay question on his application to the University of Chicago—What are your best and worst qualities?—Addison finds himself provoked into giving his final\, unapologetic say about all of the above and more.
Addison Schacht finds good company among American literature's cadre of unsettled\, restless youth\, from Huck Finn to Holden Caulfield. The November Criminals takes on the terrain of the classic adolescent truth-telling novel and—with nerve and erudition—carves out its own unique territory.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T160642Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100505T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100505T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/james-shapiro-contested-will-who-wrote-shakespeare URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/james-shapiro-contested-will-who-wrote-shakespeare SUMMARY:James Shapiro - Contested Will\: Who Wrote Shakespeare? DESCRIPTION:For more than two hundred years after William Shakespeare's death\, no one doubted that he had written his plays. Since then\, however\, dozens of candidates have been proposed for the authorship of what is generally agreed to be the finest body of work by a writer in the English language. In this remarkable book\, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays. Among the doubters have been such writers and thinkers as Sigmund Freud\, Henry James\, Mark Twain\, and Helen Keller. It is a fascinating story\, replete with forgeries\, deception\, false claimants\, ciphers and codes\, conspiracy theories—and a stunning failure to grasp the power of the imagination.
As Contested Will makes clear\, much more than proper attribution of Shakespeare's plays is at stake in this authorship controversy. Underlying the arguments over whether Christopher Marlowe\, Francis Bacon\, or the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare's plays are fundamental questions about literary genius\, specifically about the relationship of life and art. Are the plays (and poems) of Shakespeare a sort of hidden autobiography? Do Hamlet\, Macbeth\, and the other great plays somehow reveal who wrote them?
Shapiro is the first Shakespeare scholar to examine the authorship controversy and its history in this way\, explaining what it means\, why it matters\, and how it has persisted despite abundant evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays attributed to him. This is a brilliant historical investigation that will delight anyone interested in Shakespeare and the literary imagination.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T160642Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100506T010000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100506T010000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/andrzej-stasiuk URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/andrzej-stasiuk SUMMARY:Andrzej Stasiuk DESCRIPTION:Polish writer Andrzej Stasiuk is one of the brightest new literary talents to emerge in East and Central Europe since the fall of communism. Novelist\, essayist\, playwright\, and public intellectual\, Stasiuk has carved out a place for himself as a highly original thinker and stylist\, conveying the bittersweet realities of the "\;New Europe"\; with grace\, irony\, and insight. His work has been widely translated throughout Europe\; four of his books have been made available in English\, including Tales of Galicia\, Nine and Fado (the last two translated by our collaborator Bill Johnston of Indiana University).
Andrzej Stasiuk will read from his work in Polish and in English translation\, and will discuss his writing in the context of present-day Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. He will be accompanied by his partner\, Monika Sznajderman\, publisher of Wydanictwo Czarne\, one of Poland's premier literary presses.
This event marks Andrzej Stasiuk's first appearance in the U.S.\; from Bloomington he travels to New York to take part in the opening reading of the PEN World Voices Festival\, alongside such writers as Salman Rushdie and Patti Smith.
Please click here to purchase tickets for this event.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T160642Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100511T003000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100511T003000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jhumpa-lahiri URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jhumpa-lahiri SUMMARY:Jhumpa Lahiri DESCRIPTION:From the internationally best-selling\, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake\, comes Unaccustomed Earth\, a superbly crafted new work of fiction\: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers\, fathers and mothers\, daughters and sons\, and friends and lovers.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T160642Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100511T233000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100511T233000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/fred-donner-muhammad-and-believers URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/fred-donner-muhammad-and-believers SUMMARY:Fred Donner - Muhammad and the Believers DESCRIPTION:The origins of Islam have been the subject of increasing controversy in recent years. The traditional view\, which presents Islam as a self-consciously distinct religion tied to the life and revelations of the prophet Muhammad in western Arabia\, has since the 1970s been challenged by historians engaged in critical study of the Muslim sources.
In Muhammad and the Believers\, the eminent historian Fred Donner offers a lucid and original vision of how Islam first evolved. He argues that the origins of Islam lie in what we may call the "\;Believers' movement"\; begun by the prophet Muhammad - a movement of religious reform emphasizing strict monotheism and righteous behavior in conformity with God's revealed law. The Believers' movement thus included righteous Christians and Jews in its early years\, because like the Qur'anic Believers\, Christians and Jews were monotheists and agreed to live righteously in obedience to their revealed law. The conviction that Muslims constituted a separate religious community\, utterly distinct from Christians and Jews\, emerged a century later\, when the leaders of the Believers' movement decided that only those who saw the Qur'an as the final revelation of the One God and Muhammad as the final prophet\, qualified as Believers. This separated them decisively from monotheists who adhered to the Gospels or Torah.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T160642Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100512T233000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100512T233000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/travis-nichols-aaron-michael-morales URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/travis-nichols-aaron-michael-morales SUMMARY:Travis Nichols & Aaron Michael Morales DESCRIPTION:Travis Nichols &\; Aaron Morales will read from and discuss their novels\, published by Coffeehouse Press.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T160642Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100514T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100514T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/george-anastaplo-christian-heritage-problems-prospects URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/george-anastaplo-christian-heritage-problems-prospects SUMMARY:George Anastaplo - Christian Heritage\: Problems & Prospects DESCRIPTION:The Christian Heritage delves into the history of the western Christian heritage. Challenges to the Christian heritage\, a heritage nourished both by Judaism and by the western classics\, have been stimulated by the very success of the way of life that is promoted\, a way of life that is somehow responsible for the emergence of modern science with its revolutionary technology.
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