Off-Topic

We invite visiting authors and scholars to submit a beloved book or list of books that unexpectedly and/or provocatively dovetails from their own field or subject. Check each post for details on related events!

January 19th, 2019
Patricia Toht's Off-Topic Reads

 

Patricia Toht is a poet, picture book author, and school library associate. She once owned a children'ss bookshop before turning a love of books into a love of writing. She is the author of ALL ABOARD THE LONDON BUS, illustrated by Sam Usher, and PICK A PINE TREE, illustrated by Jarvis. She also has two upcoming books in 2019 – DRESS LIKE A GIRL and PICK A PUMPKIN. Find her online at patriciatoht.com and on Twitter as @PatriciaToht. Patricia Toht will discuss DRESS LIKE A GIRL on February 2nd at 10:30 AM at 57th Street Books

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November 22nd, 2018
Marcia Bjornerud's Off-Topic Reads

Marcia Bjornerud is professor of geology and environmental studies at Lawrence University. She is the author of Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earthand a contributing writer for Elements, the New Yorker’s science and technology blog. Marcia Bjornerud will discuss Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World...

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November 18th, 2018
Adam Kotsko's Off-Topic Reads

Adam Kotsko teaches in the Shimer Great Books School of North Central College. He is the author of The Prince of This World and Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television...

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October 6th, 2018
Ken Taylor's Off-Topic Reads

Ken Taylor is the co-founder and contributing editor of Lute & Drum, an online journal of poetry and poetics. He is the author of self-portrait as joseph cornell (Pressed Wafer, 2016) and the chapbooks: dog with elizabethan collar (selva oscura press, 2015) and first the trees, now this (Three Count Pour, 2013). His poetry has appeared...

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September 16th, 2018
Trudi Trueit's Off Topic Reads

Trudi Trueit has written more than a hundred books for young readers, both fiction and nonfiction. Her love of writing began in fourth grade when she wrote, directed, and starred in her first play. She went on to become a TV news reporter and weather forecaster, but she knew her calling was in writing. Trueit is a gifted storyteller for middle-grade audiences, and her fiction novels include The Sister Solution, Stealing Popular, and the Secrets of a Lab Rat...

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July 3rd, 2018
Peter Coviello's Off-Topic Reads

Peter Coviello has written about Walt Whitman, Mormon polygamy, Steely Dan, the history of sexuality, queer children, American literature, stepparenthood, and Prince. This work has appeared in The Believer, Frieze, Avidly, Raritan, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Two scholarly works on the topics include: Intimacy in America: Dreams of Affiliation in Antebellum Literature and Tomorrow's Parties: Sex and the Untimely in Nineteenth-Century America ...

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May 31st, 2018
Max Elbaum's Off-Topic Reads

Max Elbaum's latest book Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che is a definitive study of how radicals from the sixties movements embraced twentieth-century Marxism, and what movements of dissent today can learn from the legacies of Lenin, Mao and Che. Elbuam draws on his personal experiences as a member of Students for a Democratic Society at University of...

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May 24th, 2018
Matthew Rohrer's Off-Topic Reads

Matthew Rohrer was awarded the 12th annual The Believer Book Award for his novel-in-verse, The Others. Congratulations Matthew! ...

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May 5th, 2018
Lisl H. Detlefsen Off-Topic Reads

 

 

 

 Lisl H. Detlefsen is the author of a growing number of picture books. Her first, Time for Cranberries (Macmillan/Roaring Brook Press, Fall 2015; illustrated by Jed Henry) was a Junior Library Guild selection, a 2016 Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People, and the 2017 Wisconsin Ag in the Classroom Book of the Year. Lisl also has three forthcoming picture books, ...

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May 4th, 2018
Vicki Huddleston's Off-Topic Reads

Ambassador Vicki Huddleston served under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush as Chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. She also served as U.S. Ambassador to Madagascar and Mali. Her report for the Brookings Institution about normalizing relations with Cuba was adapted for President Obama's diplomatic opening with Raúl Castro in 2014. She has written opinion pieces in the New York Times, Miami Herald, and Washington Post. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ambassador Huddleston will discuss her new book Our Woman in Havana on Friday, 5/11, 6pm at the Co-op....

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