Events

Brandon Sanderson - The Rithmatist - Uptown

May 18th, 2013

Science fiction writer Brandon Sanderson, author of A Memory of Light, the final book in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series, will be signing (and numbering) his new young adult novel, The Rithmatist, on May 18th from 1 ‘til 3pm at our Uptown shop. The first 50 people in attendance will receive a Rithmatist bag complete with chalk and instructions for making Rithmatist chalkings! There will be a three personalization limit for each person each time through the line, unless there is not a big crowd in which case there are no restrictions. There are no restrictions on signature-only books.

“The Rithmatist, while it’s definitely as clear and exciting as a YA novel should be, is every bit as deep and richly invented as the best of Sanderson’s adult novels…. Sanderson at his best, for adults and young readers alike.”—Orson Scott Card, New York Times bestselling author of Ender’s Game

About the book:
More than anything, Joel wants to be a Rithmatist. Chosen by the Master in a mysterious inception ceremony, Rithmatists have the power to infuse life into two-dimensional figures known as Chalklings. Rithmatists are humanity’s only defense against the Wild Chalklings—merciless creatures that leave mangled corpses in their wake. Having nearly overrun the territory of Nebrask, the Wild Chalklings now threaten all of the American Isles.

As the son of a lowly chalkmaker at Armedius Academy, Joel can only watch as Rithmatist students study the magical art that he would do anything to practice. Then students start disappearing—kidnapped from their rooms at night, leaving trails of blood. Assigned to help the professor who is investigating the crimes, Joel and his friend Melody find themselves on the trail of an unexpected discovery—one that will change Rithmatics—and their world—forever.

About the author:
BRANDON SANDERSON grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. He teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University and lives in Utah with his wife and children. Sanderson is the author of several epic fantasy novels, including the Mistborn series, its followup The Alloy of Law, Warbreaker, and The Way of Kings. He was chosen to complete Robert Jordan’s bestselling Wheel of Time series. For fascinating behind-the-scenes information about all his books, visit him at www.brandonsanderson.com.

Charles Finch - A Death in the Small Hours - Uptown

May 23rd, 2013

Charles Finch will be signing the latest book in his Charles Lenox mystery series, A Death in the Small Hours, at our Uptown location, Thursday May 23rd at 6PM.

Charles Lenox is at the pinnacle of his political career and is a delighted new father. His days of regularly investigating the crimes of Victorian London now some years behind him, he plans a trip to his uncle’s estate, Somerset, in the expectation of a few calm weeks to write an important speech. When he arrives in the quiet village of Plumley, however, what greets him is a series of strange vandalisms upon the local shops: broken windows, minor thefts, threatening scrawls.

Only when a far more serious crime is committed does he begin to understand the great stakes of those events, and the complex and sinister mind that is wreaking fear and suspicion in Plumley. Now, with his protege, John Dallington, at his side, the race is on for Lenox to find the culprit before he strikes again. And this time his victim may be someone that Lenox loves.

Charles Finch is a graduate of Yale and Oxford. He is the author of the Charles Lenox mysteries, including The Fleet Street Murders, The September Society, A Stranger in Mayfair, and A Burial at Sea. His first novel, A Beautiful Blue Death, was nominated for an Agatha Award and was named one of Library Journal’s Best Books of 2007, one of only five mystery novels on the list. He lives in Oxford, England.

Story Time with Miss Maureen - Saturdays, 11:30AM - Uptown

May 25th, 2013

We’ll read The Chicken Sisters by Laura Numeroff!

When a big bad wolf moves to town, it would seem that the chicken sisters’ fate is sealed, but in a clever twist, the eccentric trio saves the day. The unwitting wolf proves to be no match for the good intentions of these itching-sweater-knitting, off-key-singing, burnt-cookie-baking neighbors. Here’s one wolf that’s off to live with his mother!

June First Tuesday Book Club - On the Rez - Uptown

June 4th, 2013

The First Tuesday Book Club meets at our Uptown location at 5:45PM the first Tuesday of every month. June’s book is On the Rez by Ian Frazier. Book club books are always 10% off at Maple Street Book Shop.

On the Rez is a sharp, unflinching account of the modern-day American Indian experience, especially that of the Oglala Sioux, who now live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the plains and badlands of the American West. Crazy Horse, perhaps the greatest Indian war leader of the 1800s, and Black Elk, the holy man whose teachings achieved worldwide renown, were Oglala; in these typically perceptive pages, Frazier seeks out their descendants on Pine Ridge—aka “the rez”—which is one of the poorest places in America today.

Newcomers are welcome.

Erin Greenwald - A Company Man - Uptown

June 12th, 2013

Wednesday, June 12th, at 6PM, Erin Greenwald will be signing A Company Man: The Remarkable French-Atlantic Voyage of a Clerk for the Company of the Indies.

Recently rediscovered and never before published, Marc-Antoine Caillot’s buoyant memoir recounts a young man’s voyage from Paris to the port city of Lorient, across the Atlantic to Saint Domingue, and up the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Only twenty-one when he set sail as a clerk for the French Company of the Indies in 1729, Caillot was in many ways the ultimate company man. His descriptions of flora, fauna, and native peoples mirror the sentiments and literary conventions of his class and his era. He would spend his entire adult life in service to the company, rising high in its ranks before dying, at the age of fifty-one, in a shipwreck off the coast of India.

Yet in other ways Caillot was fully his own man, possessed of a voice both witty and prescient. An incorrigible rake—if not an outright rogue—he documents with gusto a string of pranks, parties, and romantic escapades. He stakes narrative claim to New World terrain, and he speaks with immediacy across the centuries, illuminating racial and ethnic politics, environmental concerns, and the birth of New Orleans’s distinctive cultural melange.

Brilliantly introduced and annotated by Erin Greenwald, translated by Teri Chalmers, and enlivened by Caillot’s own exquisite illustrations, A Company Man provides an intimate look at the early history of one of America’s most storied cities, placing New Orleans and the fledgling colony it anchored within the nexus of the French-Atlantic empire.

The original manuscript, Relation du voyage de la Louisianne ou Nouvelle France fait par le Sr. Caillot en l’annee 1730, is housed in the Williams Research Center of The Historic New Orleans Collection, where it is a capstone of the institution s rich archival holdings documenting life in French-colonial Louisiana.

ERACE's 20th Anniversary Gala - Southport Hall

June 20th, 2013

ERACE, a nonprofit organization committed to fighting racism (co-founded by Maple Street Book Shop’s former owner, Rhoda Faust) is hosting their 20th Anniversary Gala from 7-10Pm June 20th, at Southport Music Hall (200 Monticello Avenue). It’s a celebration, but also a fundraiser for an expansion of their school project to erase Racism by connecting classrooms with culturally diverse students nationally (and eventually internationally) to engage them in intergroup dialogues. They’d also like to hire their first staff.

More information about their mission can be found here.

Individual tickets to the gala are $50.00 and will include a night of food, drinks, and dancing.

You can also support ERACE by buying an ERACISM bumper sticker, which are available at our Uptown bookshop for $1.00 (all of which goes directly to ERACE).

July First Tuesday Book Club - Never Let Me Go - Uptown

July 2nd, 2013

The First Tuesday Book Club will be meeting July 2nd at 5:45PM at our Uptown location. They’ll be discussing Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Pick up your copy today! Newcomers are always welcome.

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss. As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.

Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special—and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together. Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, Never Let Me Go is another classic by Ishiguro.

August First Tuesday Book Club - In the Sanctuary of Outcasts - Uptown

August 6th, 2013

The First Tuesday Book Club will be meeting Tuesday, August 6th, at 5:45PM at our Uptown location, to discuss In the Sanctuary of Outcasts.

Neil White wanted only the best for those he loved and was willing to go to any lengths to provide it—which is how he ended up in a federal prison in rural Louisiana, serving eighteen months for bank fraud. But it was no ordinary prison. The beautiful, isolated colony in Carville, Louisiana, was also home to the last people in the continental United States disfigured by leprosy—a small circle of outcasts who had forged a tenacious, clandestine community, a fortress to repel the cruelty of the outside world. In this place rich with history, amid an unlikely mix of leprosy patients, nuns, and criminals, White’s strange and compelling new life journey began.

An extraordinary memoir at once funny, poignant, and uplifting, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts reminds us all what matters most.