Shelf Life

Category: Author event

  • MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES

    MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES

    Class Mom meets Small Admissions in MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES, a wryly-observed debut about the privileged bubble that is Liston Heights High–the micro-managing parents, the overworked teachers, and the students caught in the middle–and the fallout for each of them when that bubble finally bursts.

    A former teacher, Kathleen West keeps us amused and amazed in her book about the social stratas on an upper middle class high school where some parents (think Lori Loughlin) will stop at very little to make sure their children achieve what they see as success.

    Isobel Johnson can’t stand helicopter parents like Julia Abbott, a stage mom whose world revolves around interfering in her children’s lives. Julia resents teachers like Isobel, who effortlessly bond with students, including Julia’s own teenagers, who’ve been pulling away from her more each year.

    Isobel has spent her career in Liston Heights side-stepping the community’s high-powered families. But when she receives a threatening voicemail accusing her of Anti-Americanism and a “blatant liberal agenda,” she realizes she’s squarely in the fray. Rather than cowering, Isobel doubles down on her social-justice ideals, teaching queer theory in AP American Lit. Meanwhile, Julia, obsessed with the casting of the winter musical, inadvertently shoves the female lead after sneaking onto the school campus. The damning video goes viral and has far-reaching consequences for Julia and her entire family.

    With nothing to unite them beyond the sting of humiliation from public meltdowns, Isobel and Julia will find common ground where they least expect it, confronting a secret Facebook gossip site and a pack of rabid parents in a suburb where appearance is everything.

    Perfect for readers who loved the novels of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger, Laurie Gelman’s Class Mom and Amy Poeppell’s Small Admissions.

    A teacher for twenty years in the Minneapolis school system, West brings her experience to a novel set in a small, privileged suburban high school that explores all sides of the teacher/parent equation: the good, the bad, and the truly outrageous. MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES is a wryly-observed story about two women: Isobel, a beloved teacher whose “unconventional” teaching methods and in-classroom politics ruffles some parents’ feathers and puts her job in serious jeopardy; and Julia, a helicopter parent who becomes the subject of a viral video when she has an altercation with a student on school grounds.  MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES combines heartfelt humor with thoughtful insights into the modern challenges facing students, parents, and teachers.

    ifyougo:
    Tuesday, February 11, 2020

    6:00 PM

    Lake Forest Book Store

    Talk & Signing

    662 N Western Ave.

    Lake Forest, IL 60045-1951

    Phone: 847-234-4420

    Event link: https://www.lakeforestbookstore.com/event/author-kathleen-west-lake-forest-book-store

  • Old School Love and Why It Works

    Old School Love and Why It Works

                  A Hip Hop artist, even one who whose group has sold millions of records globally and was recently inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, isn’t the person we typically turn to when needing relationship advice.

                  That is, until, you pick up a copy of Old School Love and Why It Works (Dey St. 2020; $26.99) by Joseph “Rev Run” Simmons and his wife, Justine Simmons, long admired by friends for the longevity of their 30 year marriage.  

                  “We’ve had hard times, but we have resilience and we always knew we wanted to be together,” says Rev, front man of Run-DMC.

                  “Now people come up to us, people who see us on TV or follow us on Instagram,” says Justine about their reality shows—Run’s House, All About the Washingtons and Rev Run’s Sunday Suppers. “They ask us for advice or say we should write a book about how we make our marriage work.”

                  You can’t have a marriage without a love story, so let’s start with theirs. They met when Rev Run was just Joey but, still at the age of 15, an up and coming musician. He met Justine when performing at a roller rink. She was 14 but a vision in blue as he remembers. They went out, they liked each other, he wrote her a letter saying, “I will marry you one day.” But though they both lived in New York, the physical distance eventually worked against them. They parted. Joey became Rev Run, front man for the first rap group to earn a Grammy Lifetime Achievement honor. He was on top—fame, gold and platinum records, millions of fans, long days and crazy nights as he recalls. For some that would be all you’d ever need.

    But there must have been something missing because years later when his cousin asked him if he remembered a girl named Justine, Rev Run asked him to get her number. He called and just like that the relationship was on again.

      So what makes a marriage last, I ask Rev and he refers me to the chapter he wrote about that very subject. It’s simple but it all makes sense. “If you want to go partying and clubbing and carousing and drinking, here’s a better piece of advice: Do. Not. Get. Married.” Instead just stay single.

                  He has more to say.

                  “Be selfless, not selfish,” he tells me. “Pay attention, listen to what your spouse is saying, don’t let it be in the background. “If I can see she really wants something or if she doesn’t see my point of view, then I back up.  One of the biggest takeaways I want for this book is that it’s important to listen to the whispers to avoid the screams later.”

                  Takeaways are a big component of their book. Each of the chapters, written alternately by Rev and Justine end with a page of “Takeaways” or their advice on nourishing relationships. 

                  Here’s a big one from Justine.

                  “Both my parents were divorced and remarried,” she says. “If you have children and go into another relationship, make sure that they love your kids like they love you. And make sure you love their kids. If not, then don’t marry that person for your own selfish reasons because your child or their children will suffer.”

                  Luckily, when Justine met Rev she loved his three daughters. When the two adopted after the death of their infant daughter, they all blended into one family. Parenting became so important that the couple wrote Take Back Your Parenting: A Challenge to America’s Parents about how to make it all work.

                  Which brings us to this. Both Rev and Justine, who are a deacon and deaconess, want to help guide others—whether it’s in parenting or love. Helping is what they are all about.

                  One last thought. The letter 15-year-old Rev wrote the note pledging to marry Justine one day—well, she saved it and when they reconnected, she gave it to him.

    What: Rev Run and Justine Simmons presentation, Q&A and book signing event.  Old School Love and Why It Works

    When: Friday, January 31, 7- 9 pm

    Where: Wentz Concert Hall, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville, IL

    Cost: Each ticket includes a copy of the book and admits one or two people. You will receive your book when you arrive at the event. They will not be available for pick up before that time. Rev Run and Justine will be signing each attendees book and posing for photographs after their presentation.

    fyi: For more information and to purchase tickets, 630-355-2665; andersonsbookshop.com

  • F*ck Your Diet and Other Things My Diet Tells Me

    F*ck Your Diet and Other Things My Diet Tells Me

            “I didn’t come out of the womb  craving Oreos,” says comedian and journalist Chloe Hilliard, who is launching her new book, F*ck Your Diet and Other Things My Thighs Tells Me, this Monday and Tuesday at Zanies Comedy Night Club in Chicago. “Our food choices and our image of ourselves are part of our culture.”

            Hilliard, who writes about Hip Hop culture and has been featured on C-Span, CNN Headline News, ABC News and Our World with Black Enterprise, has long had an adversarial relationship with food.  Over 6-foot tall at the age of 12, she also wore both a size 12 dress and shoe at that time. In other words, she was different and she knew it.

            “Fitting in was never an option for me,” Hilliard said in a phone interview, noting that she was the loser of the fat trilogy—someone with a slow metabolism, baby weight that didn’t go away and big bones. “Growing up, it was unfair that people said just do this or that to lose weight. But now I understand it’s about acceptance, to be comfortable and to be healthy and okay with who you are.”

            It was a truth that Hilliard came to only after a long time of trying to change her body with the help of fad diets, intense workouts, starving herself and consuming diet pills. Now she looks at her body image in a different way and understands how much our culture negatively impacts the way we perceive ourselves, how corporations including the diet industry also reinforces our image of ourselves. It was enlightening and freeing. But it wasn’t easy.

            “I thought the book was going to be way more lighthearted,” says Hilliard. “I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to write. But it helped me understand where I was at different times in my life.”

            But being Hilliard, who made her national TV debut on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing.” the book is not only informative but laugh out loud funny as well. Afterall, she has a message for readers—you’re okay.

            “I use a lot of facts and figures,” she says. “I didn’t want the book to be voyeuristic, I wanted it to be about how culture effects our relationship with food and our waistline and teaches us that we are nothing without a perfect body. I want to help people get away from that. Be healthy, be fit. It’s a new year but you don’t need to be a new you, just yourself.”

    Ifyougo:

    What: Chloe Hilliard is launching her new book and performing at Zanies Comedy Night Club.

    When: Monday, January 6 and Tuesday, January 7 at 8 p.m.

    Where: Zanies Comedy Night Club, 1548 N Wells St, Chicago, IL  

    Cost: General admission is $25.

    FYI: 312-337-4027;chicago.zanies.com

  • REPUTATION: Everybody’s got something to hide

    REPUTATION: Everybody’s got something to hide

                   Sitting in the bar of a posh hotel, Kit Manning-Strasser fumes that the Hawsers, the mega donors she flew into town to wine, dine and hit up for a huge donation to the university where she works, canceled at the last minute. Back at the offices of Aldrich University Charitable Giving, her subordinate Lynn Godfrey is also angry. She’s the one who spent hours and hours grooming the Hawsers for the big kill but it’s Kit who’ll get the credit when the check arrives.

    Sara Shepard

                   A text flashes on Lynn’s phone. Get ready, it reads and as she’s pondering its meaning and who sent it, every computer in the office goes dark. They’ve been hacked and their data stolen. But as disastrous as that is, there’s opportunity as well. For one quick moment a master list containing every file for every employee appears. Does Kit have secrets she might be able to use, Lynn wonders, as she click to open her file.

                   And so begins Sara Shepard’s latest novel, Reputation, a take on modern technology and the old fashioned premise that everybody’s got something to hide.

                   “Reputation is a book about different members of a university community and how they react to a school-wide email hack– and a subsequent murder,” says Shepard, author of the New York Times best seller, Pretty Little Liars. “There are a lot of different perspectives, a lot of scandals, and a lot of twists, but the crux of the novel deals with two estranged sisters, Willa and Kit, and how they come together again in a time of crisis. “

                   Willa is Kit’s younger sister, who scarred by an incident in her hometown, took off for California when young. Throughout the years, Willa has avoided returning to her college town or having any semblance of a real relationship with her older sister, who followed the more traditional path, remaining at home. Marrying, Kit had two daughters and then became a widow. But from the outside, anyway, she appears to have upgraded her life to a bigger house, great vacations and a cushy life, with her remarriage to a wealthy doctor.

                   “But maybe it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be,” says Shepard. “It’s Kit’s husband who ends up being murdered because of rumors about him that come out in the hack– and suddenly, all eyes are on Kit, wondering what she might have done. But did Kit kill her husband? And maybe Willa is hiding a dark secret no one in her family knows, too.”

                   Shepard conceived of this book at the newspapers were filled with stories about the Sony hack.

    “I couldn’t believe that people’s run-of-the-mill emails were suddenly broadcast everywhere for everyone to read,” says Shepard. “It got me thinking about what I’d do if my emails were on a similar server– or emails inboxes of people I knew. We all have things we aren’t proud of, you know. As for setting the novel in a college town, it seems like colleges are a big target for hackers– and for scandals. Try Googling “college scandal.” You’ll get so many varied results, your head will spin! And terribly, I remember pitching an idea of an unethical coach before the whole Larry Nassar / USA gymnastics scandal broke. It was eerie– and terrible– to see an imagined scenario come true.”

    Though she’s never had to deal with the intense scandals her characters have endured, Shepard says she tries to relate to how they feel.

    “We’ve all been betrayed,” she says. “We’ve all felt watched and judged. We’ve all felt lost and small and scared. We’ve all felt the complications of motherhood and marriage and, perhaps, being with a partner we don’t entirely trust– or, at the very least, someone who turns out differently than what we imagined.”

    Ifyougo:

    What: Sara Shepard in conversation with New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Mary Kubica.

    When: Thursday, December 5 at 7 p.m.

    Where: Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville, 123 W Jefferson Ave, Naperville, IL

    Cost: This event is free and open to the public. To join the signing line, please purchase the author’s latest book, Reputation, from Anderson’s Bookshop. To purchase please stop into or call Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville (630) 355-2665 or order online.

    FYI: 630-355-2665; andersonsbookshop.com

  • The Survivors: A Story of War, Inheritance, and Healing

    The Survivors: A Story of War, Inheritance, and Healing

    “This is the book I needed to write,” says Adam Frankel who worked as President Barack Obama’s Special Assistant and Senior Speechwriter.

    But Frankel’s book isn’t about those heady days in the White House. Instead, the story he tells in his recently released book, The Survivors: A Story of War, Inheritance, and Healing, about identity, family trauma and how in family those who came before us impact our own lives. It begins with his maternal grandparents, both Holocaust survivors who ultimately were able to make it to the United States and settled in Connecticut. But their trauma during those years didn’t end with the freedom and safety they found in New Haven. It echoed through the generations first to their daughter, who suffered from depression and was prone to violent outbursts and then to Frankel himself. But there was more trauma to come for Frankel.

    “Shortly before joining the Obama campaign in 2007 I learned that my father was not my dad, a secret my mother had kept from us,” says Frankel, now the vice president of External Affairs at Andela. “In order to wrap my head around it, I had to go back in the past to my grandparents and my mom who had mental health issues.”

    When he was writing The Survivors, Frankel says many of his relatives lobbied him to abandon the project. Besides pushback from family, he also had to deal with his own feelings.

    “This was a very difficult book to write,” says Frankel, noting that he often had to take hours and sometimes days to step away before he could go back to exploring his family’s story. “Only by writing about it could I process it.”

    Frankel, a graduate of Princeton University and the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he was a Fulbright Scholar, describes putting his thoughts on paper as a form of expressive writing where one receives physical benefits when writing about thoughts and issues that are weighing them down.

     “My goals in writing were to be as honest as I could and also to tell the story honestly about how World War II reverberated within my family,” he says. “All families have trauma somewhere and there’s nothing disrespectful about being open and acknowledging that. That’s the way we heal.”

    Ifyougo:

    What: Adam Frankel talk and book signing

    When: Tuesday, November 19, 7 to 9:30 p.m.

    Where: Northbrook Public Library, 1201 Cedar Lane, Northbrook, IL

    Cost: Free

    FYI: 224-406-9257; jccchicago.org

  • You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life

    You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life

    Taking complex psychological concepts and turning them into easily understood bites of practical and usable techniques is one of the strengths of Neil Pasricha, The New York Times million-copy bestselling author. In his latest book, You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life (part of his Book of Awesome Series), Pasricha shows use a path forward and a way to achieve resiliency—the ability to accept and learn from failure.

    “Some people think my concepts are simple,” says Pasricha. “That’s fine. They are. I take big concepts and hundreds of scientific studies and my work is to distill, distill, distill until it is in its simplest and most actionable form. Each of my recent books takes years of reading hundreds of books and research studies, about three-to-six months to write, and about ten deep edits back and forth over about two years.”

    Because his concepts are so simple, Pasricha says some people might initially reject them but he developed them as a way to work through his own double whammy Within a short period of time his wife left him as well.

    “The reason I began writing my blog, 1000 Awesome Things, and my first book, The Book of Awesome, is because I felt terrible,” he says about those times. “I define resilience as the ability to see that thin sliver of light right between the door and the frame right after you hear the latch click.”

    Though he seems amazingly upbeat, Pasricha doesn’t see himself as an optimist, just a person who is resilient enough to face life’s crisis. It’s a lesson, he says, that may seem obvious, but we often overlook.    In psychological terms some of his techniques would be called cognitive reframing, the ability to view and experience events, ideas, concepts and emotion to find more positive alternatives. Or as Pasricha puts it in his book, “Don’t magnify. Don’t Biggify. Don’t amplify.” By building resiliency and the ability to overcome, it breaks a vicious cycle that holds us back.

    Any last words of advice I ask him.

     “Life is short,” says Pasricha. “Time is short. And the master attention manipulators of cell phones, news media, and big tech have deep claws. If you managed to momentarily break free and read my book, or listen to my podcast, or read any book for that matter, then you broke out of the matrix. Congrats.”

    ifyougo:

    When: Wednesday, November 13, 2019 at 7:00 PM 

    Where: Anderson’s Bookshop La Grange, 26 S. La Grange Rd, La Grange, IL

     Cost: This event is free and open to the public. To join the signing line, please purchase the author’s latest book, You are Awesome, from Anderson’s Bookshop. To purchase please stop into or call Anderson’s Bookshop La Grange (708) 582-6353.

    FYI: andersonsbookshop.com

  • Honoring Chicago’s South Side Architecture

    Honoring Chicago’s South Side Architecture

    Foster House & Stable home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright located in the West Pullman area.

    World famous for its architecture, Chicago boasts works by such greats ranging from the Frank Lloyd Wright to William LeBaron Jenney, designer of the world’s first skyscraper. No other city in the world has more Ludwig Mies van der Rohe buildings than Chicago. Yet for many, the largest landmass in the city is like an uncharted territory when it comes to outstanding architectural design.

     “60% of Chicago is the South Side,” says noted photographer and journalist Lee Bey. “It’s geographic area that is twice the size of Brooklyn and the size of Philadelphia. But over the years it’s been ignored by many Chicagoans as well as the architectural press, architectural tours and lecturers.”

    Chicago Vocational High School at 2100 E. 87th Street—the largest Art Deco building that’s not a skyscraper in Chicago

    Bey, who is considered an architectural expect, grew up on the South Side and has long appreciated the treasures found there.  He shares this passion in his recently releases book Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side, which he describes as a wake-up call.

    Author and photographer Lee Bey

    “You can’t have anything that big and ignore it,” says Bey who is also a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute. “Chicago can’t be a world class city if they overlook the South Side and the West Side.”

    Because I grew up in Northwest Indiana, I am familiar with the South Side and some of its architectural marvels such as the sprawling Chicago Vocational High School at 2100 E. 87th Street—the largest Art Deco building that’s not a skyscraper in Chicago  and the Middle Eastern/Moorish/Persian-style building with a  towering minaret at 79th and Stony Island that’s on the right when turning on to Stony Island from the Chicago Skyway.

    But I didn’t know about The National Pythian Temple, The Overton Hygienic Building and The Chicago Bee Building or that there was a Frank Lloyd Wright home that was over a century old for sale in the West Pullman area. Known as the Foster House and Stable, it was designated a Chicago landmark in 1996 and can be had for around $200,000.

    “That house would sell for a lot more in other parts of Chicago,” says Bey, noting the home is in good condition.

    Even Bey sometimes comes across an unknown find.

    “I was caught by surprise when I saw Stony Island Church of Christ at1600 E. 84th,” he recalls. “It looked like it was designed by Ray Stuermer and I went home and looked it up and it was,” says Bey.

    While watching a documentary of Eero Saarinen and discovering they’d left out his buildings for the University of Chicago, Bey knew he had to rectify the neglect of architect on the South Side.

    “If they could leave out Eero, then something needed to be done,” he says, writing in his book that “for decades


    ” For decades, most of the buildings in that vast area have Bey writes.

    most of the buildings in that vast area have been flat-out ignored by the architectural press, architectural tours, and lectures — and many Chicagoans.”

    It’s a call to action, he says noting that Bowen High School would be a city landmark and on the National Register if it were located on the North Side. After all, the Carl Schurz High School on the Northside were built the same year and both were designed by the same architect, Dwight Perkins, chief architect of the Chicago Board of Education between 1906 and 1909. But Schurz has been a city landmark since 1978 and made the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. Bowen, located in a mostly black and Latino South Side community, has neither.

    “It’s astounding what’s there, he says. “There’s architecture on the South Side by architects that people would immediately recognize. People should care about them and get out and see them,”

    Ifyougo:

    What: Ley Bey talks and book signings.

    When & Where: Epstein Global is hosting Lee Bey on November 7th from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Bey will be speaking in their offices, 600 West Fulton, Chicago, IL.

    Anyone interested in attending, please contact Noel Abbott at Epstein. (312) 429-8048; nabbott@epsteinglobal.com.

    When & Where: November 12 at 6:30 pm at the Evergreen Park Public Library, 9400 S. Troy, Evergreen Park, IL

    708-422-8522; evergreenparklibrary.librarymarket.com

  • W. Bruce Cameron: A Dog’s Promise

    W. Bruce Cameron: A Dog’s Promise

                W. Bruce Cameron continues the story of Bailey, now an angel dog, in his latest book, A Dog’s Promise.

                “Bailey has been sent to a boy in a wheelchair whose family is really struggling with many issues and is being torn apart,” says Cameron, who’s other two books featuring Bailey are the bestsellers A Dog’s Purpose and A Dog’s Journey. “Bailey’s mission to fulfill a promise to help these people out.”

                Cameron’s last two books have been made into movies starring Dennis Quaid, the scripts of which he and his wife, author and comedian Cathryn Michon, co-authored with several other writers. There’s little doubt that A Dog’s Promise will be too. But these wonderful heartwarming stories about Bailey (who is joined by another special dog name Lacey in this book) might never have been written if Cameron’s first writing dream had come true.

                “I started off thinking I’d write thrillers for adults,” he says. “I’d turn out one once a year just like Michael Connelly.”

                Bailey as a cop, government agent or spy?

                Luckily it didn’t happen that way. Instead, hoping to convince Michon, who was heartbroken over her loss of a beloved dog, to let them adopt another dog, Cameron spun a canine tale to tell her. She was so taken that she insisted he should turn his story into a book. That morphed into his A Dog’s Purpose series (there’s also a puppy’s purpose series as well). The two married and now have adopted what Cameron describes as a “mixed DNA” dog they named Tucker.

                “He’s sitting here right now as we’re talking,” says Cameron who is currently working on a Christmas novella about a dog and a new series, Lily’s to The Rescue starting in 2020. “He may be expecting me to cook for him.”

                Ah, a dog’s life.

                If writing all these books, many of which are New York Times and USA Today best sellers, seems to indicate a well-organized mind, Cameron disagrees.

                “My brain has always been a cluttered attic full of stories,” he says. “I was the kid who instead of paying attention in class, was writing stories.”

                But just as Bailey has a purpose, so does Cameron. One of the take-aways he’d like readers to get from his books is this: if people would adopt canine values—respect, love, support and caring—the world would be a much better place.

                “I think A Dog’s Promise is a story that can help us come together,” he says. “We build up all these barriers. But if you just follow the path of this dog or any dog, you can overcome what keeps us apart.”

    Ifyougo:

    What: W. Bruce Cameron presentation and book signing

    When: Tuesday, October 15 at 7 p.m.

    Where: Stevenson Hall in the Wentz Science Center on the campus of North Central College, 131 S. Loomis St., Napier, IL

    Cost: A ticket for one person cost $32.00 ($34.59 w/service fee). Includes a copy of the new book with a personalized signing and photo. The ticket package for two is $42.00 ($45.09 w/service fee). Admits two people and includes one copy of the new book with a personalized signing and photo. To purchase tickets, brownpapertickets.com/event/4343095

    FYI: (630) 355-2665; andersonsbookshop.com

  • After the Flood

    After the Flood

    A dream of a tsunami sweeping across the plains of Nebraska helped form the plot of Kassandra Montag’s After the Flood, her novel about a time in the future when rising waters engulf the earth, leaving only small chunks of land suitable for living.

    Montag, who is from Nebraska, had just moved back from Amsterdam when she had not only a dream as well as a vision.

              “I was pregnant with my first child and I saw the image of a mother with her daughter sailing on a boat in a future flooded world but separated from her other daughter,” she says. “Then I re-discovered a line from a journal I had kept— ‘a group of people huddle around a campfire, struggling to survive and looking for a safe haven.’ Group dynamics has always been an interest of mine and these story lines—a mother separated from her daughter and people trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world all came together and were part of the inspiration for writing the book.”

    After the Flood tells the story of Myra and her seven-year-old daughter Pearl who live on their small fishing boat and visit what’s left of dry land to trade for goods and gather information. When Myra learns her long missing daughter, Row, who was kidnapped by her father, has been seen near the Arctic Circle, she and Pearl make their way through the north treacherous  and frozen waters. Their hope is that Row will still be there when they arrive. During their voyage the two join up with others who are also struggling to survive.

              To create this alternate universe, Montag studied a variety of subjects including stories of the Bajau, a group of nomads in Southeast Asia who are sea dwellers, so used to spending time in the water they can hold their breath for up to 13 minutes.

              “I also researched ancient seafarers like the Vikings, read guidebooks on how to build fires, fish and other survival skills,” says Montag. “And I watched sailing videos while eating my lunch.”

              Montag, who is a published poet, says that she was surprised at the reaction to her book, which is scheduled to become a television series.

              “As a poet, you don’t get this type of interest,” she says.

    Ultimately, she says, the book is about what parts selfishness and selflessness play in the fight for survival.

    “It interested me how the survival instinct can be inherently selfish in a dangerous world without enough resources and others transcended those feelings,” she says. “I was also interested in the way that survival can be seen as selfless as well, as an act of love carrying on.”

    Ifyougo:

    What: Reading and Q & A with Kassandra Montag

    When: Thursday, October 17 at 7 p.m.

    Where: Anderson’s Bookshop La Grange, 26 S La Grange Rd, La Grange, IL

    FYI: (630) 355-2665; andersonsbookshop.com

  • Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity

    Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity

              For those who were totally uncool in high school, not to worry. Neither was Felicia Day, actress (Supernatural, The Magicians), producer and bestselling writer.

              “I wasted a lot of time early in my career trying to conform to what I thought Hollywood would approve of,” says Day, who has five million social media fans. “It wasn’t until I abandoned that mindset and started creating things based on my unique point of view, that I finally found success. The things that make us different are our creative superpowers. I truly believe that.”

    In her latest book Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity, Day shows how to tap into our inner weirdness.    The book functions as a journal, a guide and a workbook that not only helps with personal growth but also in overcoming the anxiety, uncertainty and fear many of us experience. Day, who loves self-help books sees it as a hands-on follow up to her memoir, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir.

              “I heard a lot of feedback after I wrote my memoir, that my story inspired people to start creating, and/or get help around anxiety and depression,” says Day. “Hearing that motivated me to write a book where the focus is more on the reader and not myself. I wanted to make the process of self-improvement funny, interactive, and just a touch geeky.”

              Her book is full of advice and techniques she’s cobbled together over the years as she worked towards getting to the core of who she is as a creator. The process of refining those techniques was a long one though and she constantly asked herself if the reader would be discovering something new about themselves when reading this section or doing this exercise? If it didn’t pass that sniff test, Day threw it out and started all over again.

              When asked if she had any advice for readers in how to begin the process of getting weird, Day recommended everyone put down their phones when they can and instead carry a little notebook to for writing down their thoughts, dreams and observations.

              “You’d be amazed at all the creative ideas we let pass us by just because we don’t give ourselves the mental space to come up with them in the first place,” she says.  “I am just excited for people to dive in and learn how to start incorporating more creativity in their lives in a fun and funny way. Being able to show the world who you truly are through your creativity is, in my opinion, the ultimate freedom.”

    Visit Felicia at @feliciaday on Twitter and Instagram, or at FeliciaDayBook.com.

     Ifyougo:

    What: Felicia Day presentation.

    When: October 5 at 4pm 

    Where: Sponsored by Anderson’s Bookshop but the event is being held at the Community Christian Church, 1635 Emerson Lane, Naperville, IL.

    Cost: Ticket for one person is $20.00 ($21.99 w/service fee) admits one person and includes one copy of the new book, pre-signed; ticket package for two is $30.00 ($32.49 w/service fee) admits two people and includes one copy of the new book. Each ticket holder gets a photo with the author.       

    FYI: For more information or to buy a ticket, visit feliciaday2andersons.brownpapertickets.com/ or call (630) 355-2665.