Happenings, Week of August 27

Here's what's in the hopper for the Week of August 27. Lots of great stuff! As always, let us know you happenings so we can post them (nativehomeofhope@blogspot.com).
 
Week of August 27

Utah Book Month, via The Bluestocking Society

Vegas Valley Book Festival Pre-festival events, August 13 to September 21 - Nominations Open For Crystal Bookmark Award, August 15 to November 3 - Wish I Was There! - international postcard project and exhibition, August 26 to October 5 - "Spark!" Poetry Contest (grades 9-12) entries, Las Vegas, NV


MONDAY, AUGUST 27

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 7 p.m., Politics & Prose, Washington, DC

Literature Discussion Book Club on The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, 7 p.m., Barnes and Noble, Boise, ID

Pauls Toutonghi, Evel Knievel Days, Prairie Lights, Iowa City, IA


TUESDAY, AUGUST 28


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Book Release

 

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, by Jonathan Evison

Benjamin Benjamin has lost virtually everything—his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. With few options, Ben enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving, where he is instructed in the art of inserting catheters and avoiding liability, about professionalism, and on how to keep physical and emotional distance between client and provider.

But when Ben is assigned to tyrannical nineteen-year-old Trevor, who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, he soon discovers that the endless mnemonics and service plan checklists have done little to prepare him for the reality of caring for a fiercely stubborn, sexually frustrated adolescent with an ax to grind with the world at large.

Though begun with mutual misgivings, the relationship between Trev and Ben evolves into a close camaraderie, and the traditional boundaries between patient and caregiver begin to blur as they embark on a road trip to visit Trev’s ailing father. A series of must-see roadside attractions divert them into an impulsive adventure interrupted by one birth, two arrests, a freakish dust storm, and a six-hundred-mile cat-and-mouse pursuit by a mysterious brown Buick Skylark.

Bursting with energy, this big-hearted and inspired novel ponders life’s terrible surprises and the heart’s uncanny capacity to mend.

Buy The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving at IndieBound or at Amazon

 

 

 Jonathan Evison is an American writer best known for his debut novel All About Lulu published in 2008, which won critical acclaim, including the Washington State Book Award. In 2009, Evison was awarded a Richard Buckley Fellowship from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. A second novel, West of Here, will be released in February 2011 from Algonquin. Editor Chuck Adams (Water for Elephants, A Reliable Wife, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers Homes in New England) has called West of Here the best novel he's worked on in over four decades of publishing. In his teens, Evison was the founding member and frontman of the Seattle punk band March of Crimes, which included future members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Born in San Jose, California, he now lives on an island in western Washington.

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Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 11:45 a.m., The Book Stall, Winetka, IL

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 7 p.m., Anderson’s, Naperville, IL

Ruben Martinez, Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West, 5 p.m., Skylight Books, Los Angeles, CA

Pauls Toutonghi, Evel Knievel Days, with Patrick Somerville, This Bright River, Magers & Quinn, Minneapolis, MN


WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29

Douglas Brinkley, Cronkite, 7 p.m., Barnes and Noble River Oaks Shopping Center, Houston, TX

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 7:30 p.m., Tattered Cover Colfax, Denver, CO

Susan Shulten, Mapping the Nation, 7:30 p.m., Tattered Cover LoDo, Denver, CO

Lysley Tenorio, Monstress, 7 p.m., San Francisco Public Library Excelsior Branch, San Francisco, CA


THURSDAY, AUGUST 30

Before There Is Nowhere to Stand: Palestine – Israel: Poets Respond to the Struggle, a reading for a poetry anthology, Joan Dobbie, Sandy Polishuk, Willa Schneberg, Scot Siegel, Sabena Stark, and Ingrid Wendt, 7:00 p.m., Broadway Books, Portland, OR

Maggie Nelson, The Art of Cruelty and Bluets, 6 p.m., UW Art Museum, Laramie, WY

Lysley Tenorio. Monstress, 7 p.m., San Francisco Public Library Main Branch, San Francisco, CA


FRIDAY, AUGUST 31

American Indian Sign Language Conference, Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning, Montana


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1

American Indian Sign Language Conference, Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning, Montana

Helen Hegener, Matanuska Colony Barns, Wineck Barn, Alaska State Fair, hour's drive north of Anchorage

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

American Indian Sign Language Conference, Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning, Montana