Arts & Culture

Creating meaningful Jewish arts and culture related experiences in Calgary.

If you are connected to the arts and Jewish culture, and you are interested in volunteering in developing meaningful events email Shula Banchik, Arts & Culture Manager (aka Manager of Fun Happenings).

Share Your WIP (Work In Progress)! Share Your Ideas, Skills and Prose—From First Draft to Publication

Tuesday, November 3, 10, 24 |  7:00pm MDT  |  Click to Register

$66  ($22 per session)

Join us for these interactive workshops facilitated by David Leach, Professor of Creative Non-Fiction Writing at the University of Victoria, author, and past presenter at the 2019 Calgary Jewish Book Festival. Share your ideas, skills, and prose – from first draft to publication. Learn to hook your reader, set your scene, create your characters, and revise and publish.

Building the Jewish& Cookbook

Pizza Napoletana with Kat Romenow of The Wandering Chew
Sunday, November 8  |  12:00pm MDT  |  Click to Register

Pizza Napoletana, a sheet-pan pizza topped with tomatoes, parsley and parmesan, was one of the most popular offerings at Corona Bakery in Montreal. This bakery was opened in 1932 by Kat’s great-grandfather, Donato Monaco, after he immigrated to Canada from Italy. While learning to make this pizza, Kat decided to replace the lard traditionally included in the recipe with vegetable shortening. This was a way to honour both her Italian and Jewish identities, and carry a tradition rooted in her upbringing forward into her Jewish (by choice) life.

This is part of the Jewish& program at the Miles Nadal JCC, explicitly gathering multi-faith, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic Jewish families for Jewish exploration, education and celebration.

Book Festival in Your Living Room

Calgary JCC has joined with the Marcus JCC in Atlanta to offer premium literary programming through this year’s virtual Book Festival. Check out our amazing lineup and join the Zoom webinar author talks!

If you missed a talk, on-demand event recordings are available of the original event. Click on tickets link for details.

Author talks are listed below at local time. Please disregard time zone difference on the checkout page.

Wednesday, September 23  |  6:00pm MDT – On-Demand Event Recording

Jodi Picoult

The Book of Two Ways: A Novel
In Conversation with Judy Blume, New York Times Bestselling Author and Owner, Books & Books, at The Studios of Key West

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Event Recording
$36 includes one copy of book (shipping included)

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things and A Spark of Light comes a riveting novel about the choices that alter the course of our lives.

Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein. She’s on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: Prepare for a crash landing. Thoughts flash through her mind. The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband but of a man she last saw 15 years ago: Wyatt Armstrong.

Dawn survives the crash, but so do all the doubts that have suddenly been raised. She has led a good life. Back in Boston, there is her husband, Brian, their beloved daughter, and her work as a death doula, in which she helps ease the transition between life and death for her clients. But somewhere in Egypt is Wyatt Armstrong, who works as an archaeologist unearthing ancient burial sites, a career Dawn once studied for but was forced to abandon when life suddenly intervened. And now, when it seems that fate is offering her second chances, she is not as sure of the choice she once made. After the crash landing, the airline offers the survivors transportation to wherever they want to go. The obvious destination is to fly home, but she could take another path: return to the archaeological site she left years before, reconnect with Wyatt and their unresolved history, and maybe even complete her research on The Book of Two Ways—the first known map of the afterlife.

As the story unfolds, Dawn’s two possible futures unspool side by side, as do the secrets and doubts long buried with them.

Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 24 novels, including A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, and My Sister’s Keeper. She is also the author, with daughter Samantha van Leer, of two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page. Picoult lives in New Hampshire.

Wednesday, September 30  |  6:00pm MDT – On-Demand Event Recording

Deepak Chopra

Total Meditation: Practices In Living the Awakened Life
With guest host Nadia Bilchik, CNN Editorial Producer

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Event Recording
$31 includes one signed copy of book (shipping included)

“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It is a way of entering into the quiet that is already there.”

For the last thirty years, Deepak Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution in the West. His new book Total Meditation offers a complete exploration and reinterpretation of the physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual benefits that this practice can bring.

“Stop. Take three deep breaths and smile everywhere in your body, observing what’s happening in your body. Proceed now with kindness and understanding.”

Join New York Times bestselling author Deepak Chopra as he guides you on how to wake up to new levels of awareness that will ultimately cultivate a clear vision, heal suffering in your mind and body, and help recover who you really are.

Dr. Chopra will be leading a short meditation.

Deepak Chopra, MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. He is the author of 90 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”

Tuesday, October 13  |  4:30pm MDT – On-Demand Event Recording

FOR KIDS! (Ages 5 to 8)

Brad Meltzer and Christopher Eliopoulos (illustrator)

I Am Anne Frank & I Am Benjamin Franklin (Ordinary People Change the World Series)
In Conversation with Holly Firfer, CNN Journalist

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Event Recording
$6 or $23 for one virtual ticket and copy of either book (shipping included) or $40 for one virtual ticket and copy of both books (shipping included)

In a time when heroes are in high demand, Book Festival fan favorite Brad Meltzer returns with his talented illustrator, Christopher Eliopoulos, to present two new books in his “Ordinary People Change the World Series: I Am Anne Frank & I Am Benjamin Franklin. These books are the 21st and 22nd books in Brad’s and Christopher’s series of biographies for kids that focuses on the traits that made these ordinary heroes great–the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically themselves. Each book tells the story of an icon in a lively, conversational way that works well for the youngest nonfiction readers. Each book includes an excellent timeline and photos. One book tells the story of Anne Frank, whose courage and hope during a time of terror are still an inspiration for people around the world today, while the second recounts the tale of Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the US and a man whose scientific contributions continue to define the society we live in today.

Parents: have pencils and paper ready – Christopher will teach our youngest viewers how to draw their ordinary heroes!

Brad Meltzer is the New York Times bestselling author of Heroes for My Son, Heroes for My Daughter, and a number of suspense novels like The Escape Artist. He is also the host of the History Channel television shows Brad Meltzer’s Decoded and Brad Meltzer’s Lost History (in which he helped find the missing 9/11 flag). He lives in Florida with his wife and their three children.

Christopher Eliopoulos began his illustration career at Marvel Comics, and has worked on thousands of comics, including Cosmic Commandos, Monster Mayhem, Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius, Pet Avengers, and Cow Boy, all of which he wrote and illustrated. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and their identical twin sons (when the boys are home from college).

Thursday, October 15  |  6:00pm MDT – On-Demand Event Recording

Steve Madden

The Cobbler: How I Disrupted an Industry, Fell from Grace, and Came Back Stronger Than Ever
In conversation with Holly Firfer, CNN Journalist

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Event Recording
$11 for one virtual ticket or $36 for one virtual ticket and copy of book (shipping included)

Everyone knows Steve Madden’s name and his shoes, but few are familiar with his story. Over the past thirty years Steve Madden has taken his eponymous shoe company from the fledgling start-up he founded with a mere $1,100 to a global, multi-billion-dollar brand. But Madden’s mistakes, from his battle with addiction to the financial shortcuts that landed him in prison, are as important to his story as his most iconic shoes. In this raw, intimate, and ultimately inspiring book, Madden holds nothing back as he shares what it took to get here and the lessons he’s learned along the way. From his unconventional hiring strategies to his slavish devotion to product, Madden offers a business perspective that is as unique as his styles. In The Cobbler, readers are treated to the wild ride though his rise, fall, and comeback. But they will also walk away uplifted by a man who has owned up to his mistakes and come back determined to give back and use his hard-won platform to create positive change.

Steven Madden is an entrepreneur, an award-winning designer, and a business titan whose eponymous company is currently worth 3 billion dollars. On the flip side, he is an ex-con, a recovering addict, and a devoted family man. Considered the fashion footwear mogul of the 21st century, Madden has an innate sense of what’s hot, what’s next, what’s exciting, and more importantly, how this will translate to the customer. He is also an active philanthropist and mentor who supports a number of organizations that help those in need of a second chance.

Thursday, October 22  |  6:00pm MDT – On-Demand Event Recording

Judy Gold

Yes, I Can Say That: When They Come for the Comedians, We Are All In Trouble
In Conversation with Mara Davis, Atlanta Media Personality

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Event Recording
$11 for one virtual ticket or $30 for one virtual ticket and copy of book (includes shipping)

“No one makes me laugh harder than Judy Gold. If I had to pick one comedian to write a book about free speech, it would be Judy.” – Amy Schumer

In Yes I Can Say That, comedy veteran Judy Gold argues that “no one has the right to tell comics what they can or cannot joke about… Laughter is a unifier. It’s the best medicine…” For Gold, nothing is more insidious than enforcing silence and repressing jokes—the job of a comedian is to expose society’s demons, and confront them head-on, no prisoners allowed. In ten impassioned polemics, she frames comedy as a tool of empowerment, a way to reclaim hateful rhetoric and battle the democracy-crushing plight of censorship.

Uninhibited and bold, Gold is as skilled at making readers laugh as she is at exposing uncomfortable truths about our culture and society. In this era of partisan politics and gaping inequalities, Yes I Can Say That is the refreshingly candid, wickedly funny and deliciously blunt manifesto we need.

Judy Gold is an American standup comedian, actress, television writer, and producer. She won two Daytime Emmy Awards for her work as a writer and producer on The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and has starred in comedy specials on HBO, Comedy Central, and Logo. She has also written and starred in two critically acclaimed, Off-Broadway hit shows: The Judy Show―My Life as a Sitcom and 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother (which she performed in the MJCCA’s Morris And Rae Frank Theater. She is currently the host of the hit podcast Kill Me Now.

Thursday, October 29  |  6:00pm MDT

Mike Leven

Can’t Do It Yourself: How Commitment to Others Leads to Personal Prosperity

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  | Click for Tickets
$11 for one virtual ticket or $36 for one virtual ticket and copy of book (shipping included)

Mike Leven, a storied hotel executive and respected Jewish leader, served at the helm of the Days Inn, Holiday Inn, Las Vegas Sands, and other noteworthy hospitality businesses and most recently as the CEO and chairman of the Georgia Aquarium. In his new book, Can’t Do It Yourself, Leven takes the reader on a journey through his life, from growing up in a multi-generational household with Russian immigrant grandparents in a close-knit Jewish community in Boston, through his time in Alpha Epsilon Pi at Tufts University, and then his career as an executive for some of the most noteworthy hotel chains. Each chapter ends with 11 different lessons to live by in business and life.

Part memoir, part business book, Can’t Do It Yourself recounts a range of fascinating stories from the late 1930s to present-day, from his family vacation to the segregated south as a teenager, to his central role in founding the Asian American Hotel Association to support Indian immigrant franchisees overcome discrimination and build their businesses, to his first job working as a social worker for civil rights leader John Moreland, to his time at the helm of the Las Vegas Sands in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Mike Leven has served as the president and chief operating officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, in addition to roles of the chairman and chief executive officer of US Franchise Systems, the president and chief operating officer of Holiday Inn Worldwide, the president of Days Inn of America, and most recently was the volunteer chief executive officer and chairman of the Georgia Aquarium.

He is a longtime leader of the Jewish community in Atlanta and nationally, including with the Atlanta Jewish Federation. In 2019, he co-founded the Jewish Future Pledge – a national movement to inspire individuals and families to pledge 50% or more of the charitable giving in their estate plan to Jewish and Israel-related causes.

Sunday, November 8  |  11:00am MST

Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy

Never Alone

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Tickets
$6 for one virtual ticket or $36 for one virtual ticket and copy of book (shipping included)

Never Alone is a classic account of courage, integrity and belonging. In 1977, Natan Sharansky, a leading activist for the democratic dissident movement in the Soviet Union and the movement for free Jewish emigration, was arrested. He spent nine years as a political prisoner, convicted of treason against the state. In Never Alone, Natan Sharansky and historian Gil Troy show how Sharansky’s years in prison, many spent in harsh solitary confinement, prepared him for his public life, bringing extraordinary moral clarity and uncompromising honesty to his work as an Israeli politician and the head of the Jewish Agency. Never one who placed expediency ahead of consistent values, Sharansky was an often-awkward political colleague but always visionary as to where the real threats to freedom lay. Never Alone is suffused with reflections from his time as a political prisoner, from his seat at the table as history unfolded in Israel and the Middle East, and his passionate efforts to unite the Jewish people. Written with frankness, affection, and humor, the book offers us profound insights from a man whose fight for individual freedom in the face of overt tyranny would come to define the rest of his life.

Natan Sharansky is an Israeli politician, human rights activist and author. He served as Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018.

Gil Troy is the award-winning author of The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s which will be published this October by Thomas Dunne Books of St. Martin׳s Press. A Professor of History at McGill University since 1990, he is a leading presidential historian, writing about the history of American presidential elections, the importance of moderation in American democracy, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s fight as US Ambassador to the UN against the infamous Zionism is Racism resolution.

Sunday, November 8  |  6:00pm MST

Joan Lunden

Why Did I Come Into This Room?
A Candid Conversation About Aging In Conversation with Holly Firfer, CNN Journalist

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Tickets
$11 for one event ticket or $36 for one event ticket and copy of book (includes shipping)

A funny “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” for the aging woman, acclaimed journalist and Baby Boomer Joan Lunden delves into various phases of aging in her most candid and revealing book yet. Lunden takes the dull and depressing out of aging, replacing it with wit and humor. Whether you’re in your 40s, 50s, 60s, or more, this book is full of helpful information. Lunden goes where others fear to tread, openly sharing her anxieties and breakthroughs and how she’s coping with the realities of aging – wrinkles and age spots, expanding waistlines, diminished energy (my get-up-and-go got up and went), weak pelvic floors (yes, we’re talking about leaking), hot flashes, disrupted sleep, changes in sex drive (oh yeah, she goes there), ageism (it exists and it pisses us off), and yes, the real reasons we find ourselves always searching for those car keys! Why Did I Come into This Room? explores the science of aging and how it impacts the body and brain.

An award-winning journalist, bestselling author, motivational speaker, and women’s health and wellness advocate, Joan Lunden has been a trusted voice in American homes for more than 30 years. For nearly two decades, Lunden greeted viewers each morning on Good Morning America bringing insight to the day’s top stories. As the longest-running female host ever on early morning television, Lunden reported from 26 countries, covered five presidents, five Olympics, and kept Americans up-to-date on how to care for their homes, their families, and their health.

Monday, November 9  |  6:00pm MST

Esther Safran Foer

I Want You to Know We’re Still Here: A Post Holocaust Memoir
In conversation with one of her sons — TBD

5:45pm: Opens with Kristallnacht Commemoration — Rabbi Brian Glusman  |  Click for Tickets
Free virtual ticket or one virtual ticket and one copy of book for $35 (includes shipping)

Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too terrible to speak of. The child of parents who were each the sole survivors of their respective families, for Esther the Holocaust loomed in the backdrop of daily life, felt but never discussed. The result was a childhood marked by painful silences and continued tragedy. Even as she built a successful career, married, and raised three children, Esther felt herself searching. When Esther’s mother casually mentions an astonishing revelation—that her father had a previous wife and daughter, both killed in the Holocaust—Esther resolves to find out who they were, and how her father survived. Armed with only a black-and-white photo and a hand-drawn map, she travels to Ukraine to find the shtetl where her father hid during the war. What she finds reshapes her identity and finally gives her the opportunity to mourn. The poignant and deeply moving story is not only of Esther’s journey, but of four generations of survivors, storytellers, and memory keepers living in the shadow of the Holocaust, determined not just to keep the past alive and imbue the present with life and more life.

Esther Safran Foer was the CEO of Sixth & I, a center for arts, ideas, and religion. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Bert. They are the parents of Franklin, Jonathan, and Joshua, and the grandparents of six. According to Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, “Esther Safran Foer is a force of nature: a leader of the Jewish people, the matriarch of America’s leading literary family, an eloquent defender of the proposition that memory matters. And now, a riveting memoirist.”

Tuesday, November 10  |  6:00pm MST

Dale Berra

My Dad, Yogi
ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Tickets
$11 for one virtual ticket or $24 for one virtual ticket and paperback copy of book (shipping included)

Everyone knows Yogi Berra. The American icon was the backbone of the New York Yankees through ten World Series Championships, managed the National League Champion New York Mets in 1973, and had an ingenious way with words that remains an indelible part of our lexicon. But no one knew him like his family did. My Dad, Yogi is Dale Berra’s chronicle of the unshakeable bond with his father and an intimate portrait providing a unique perspective on one of the great sports figures of the 20th Century. Throughout Dale’s youth, he had a firsthand look at the Major Leagues alongside his dad and Berra’s lifelong family friends Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford. It’s no coincidence that all three Berra sons became professional athletes. Dale came up with the Pittsburgh Pirates, emerging as one of baseball’s most talented young players until he was implicated in a major cocaine scandal, cutting short his promising career. He writes candidly about his drug problem and of the support he received from Yogi, who eventually staged the intervention that would save Dale’s life. My Dad, Yogi is Dale’s tribute to his dad — a treat for baseball fans and a poignant story for all fathers and sons.

Dale Berra, the son of Yogi Berra, is a former Major League Baseball infielder who played from 1977 to 1987 for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the New York Yankees, and the Houston Astros. He is one of the principles of LTD Enterprises, which maintains the brand and legacy of his Hall of Fame dad. Dale lives in New Jersey with his wife and their two daughters.

Wednesday, November 11  |  6:00pm MST

Cameron Douglas

Long Way Home
In Conversation with Mara Davis, Local Atlanta Media Maven

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Tickets
$11 for one virtual ticket or $24 for one virtual ticket and paperback copy of book (shipping included)

From the scion of Hollywood royalty–son of Michael Douglas, grandson of Kirk Douglas–a moving, often shocking, ultimately inspiring memoir detailing his struggle to regain his dignity, humanity, and place in society after many years of drug abuse and almost eight years in prison. Cameron Douglas is born into wealth, privilege, and comfort. His parents are glamorous jet-setters, his father a superstar, his mother a beautiful socialite, his grandfather a legend. On the surface, his life seems golden. But by the age of thirty, he has taken a hellish dive: he’s become a drug addict, a thief, and–after a DEA drug bust–a convicted drug dealer sentenced to five years in prison, with another five years added to his sentence while incarcerated. Eventually he will spend two years in solitary, where he manages, nonetheless, to hold fast to the brutal ethos of prison survival . . . until: he begins to reverse his savage transformation, to understand the psychological turmoil that has tormented him for years, and to prepare for what will be a profoundly challenging, but eventually deeply satisfying and successful, reentry into society at large. Sparing no one in his sphere–least of all himself–Cameron Douglas gives us a raw and unstintingly honest recounting of his harrowing, remarkable, and, in the end, inspiring life story.

Cameron Douglas is an actor. He lives in Los Angeles.

Saturday, November 14  |  6:00pm MST

Lawrence Wright

The End of October: A Novel

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Tickets
$11 for one virtual ticket or $35 for one virtual ticket and copy of book (shipping included)

“An eerily prescient novel about a devastating virus that begins in Asia before going global… A page-turner that has the earmarks of an instant bestseller.” — New York Post

In this riveting medical thriller–from the Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author, Lawrence Wright –Dr. Henry Parsons, an unlikely but appealing hero, races to find the origins and cure of a mysterious new killer virus as it brings the world to its knees.

At an internment camp in Indonesia, forty-seven people are pronounced dead with acute hemorrhagic fever. When Henry Parsons–microbiologist, epidemiologist–travels there on behalf of the World Health Organization to investigate, what he finds will soon have staggering repercussions across the globe: an infected man is on his way to join the millions of worshippers in the annual Hajj to Mecca. Now, Henry joins forces with a Saudi prince and doctor in an attempt to quarantine the entire host of pilgrims in the holy city… A Russian émigré, a woman who has risen to deputy director of U.S. Homeland Security, scrambles to mount a response to what may be an act of biowarfare… Already-fraying global relations begin to snap, one by one, in the face of a pandemic… Henry’s wife, Jill, and their children face diminishing odds of survival in Atlanta… And the disease slashes across the United States, dismantling institutions–scientific, religious, governmental–and decimating the population. As packed with suspense as it is with the fascinating history of viral diseases, Lawrence Wright has given us a full-tilt, electrifying, one-of-a-kind thriller.

Lawrence Wright is a staff writer for The New Yorker, a playwright, a screenwriter, and the author of ten books of nonfiction, including The Looming Tower, Going Clear, and God Save Texas, and one previous novel, God’s Favorite. His books have received many honors, including a Pulitzer Prize for The Looming Tower. He and his wife are longtime residents of Austin, Texas.

Sunday, November 15  |  1:00pm MST

Raffi Berg

Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad’s Fake Diving Resort

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Tickets
$11 for one virtual ticket or $35 for one virtual ticket and copy of book (shipping included)

Inspired the Netflix drama, The Red Sea Diving Resort! In the early 1980s, on a remote part of the Sudanese coast, a new luxury resort opened for business. Catering to divers, it attracted guests from around the world. Little did the guests know that the staff members were undercover spies, working for the Mossad, Israel’s secret service. Written by longtime BBC Middle East correspondent Raffi Berg, this page-turner tells the true story that inspired the recent Netflix drama The Red Sea Diving Resort. What began with one cryptic message pleading for help turned into the secret evacuation of thousands of Ethiopian Jews and the spiriting of them to Israel.

Raffi Berg is the Middle East editor of the BBC News website, and has extensive experience reporting on Israel and the wider region. His article scratching the surface of this story was the most-read original feature in the history of the site, with more than five and a half million readers to date. 

Monday, November 16  |  6:00pm MST

Ariel Sabar

Veritas: A Harvard Professor, A Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk + Q & A  |  Click for Tickets
$11 for one virtual ticket or $36 for one virtual ticket and copy of book (shipping included)

From National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Ariel Sabar, the gripping true story of a sensational religious forgery and the scandal that shook Harvard. In 2012, Dr. Karen King, a star professor at Harvard Divinity School, announced a blockbuster discovery at a scholarly conference just steps from the Vatican: She had found an ancient fragment of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene “my wife.” The tattered manuscript made international headlines. If early Christians believed Jesus was married, it would upend the 2,000-year history of the world’s predominant faith, threatening not just the celibate, all-male priesthood but sacred teachings on marriage, sex and women’s leadership. Biblical scholars were in an uproar, but King had impeccable credentials as a world-renowned authority on female figures in the lost Christian texts from Egypt known as the Gnostic gospels. “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife”–as she provocatively titled her discovery–was both a crowning career achievement and powerful proof for her arguments that Christianity from its start embraced alternative, and far more inclusive, voices.

As debates over the manuscript’s authenticity raged, award-winning journalist Ariel Sabar set out to investigate a baffling mystery: where did this tiny scrap of papyrus come from? His search for answers is an international detective story–leading from the factory districts of Berlin to the former headquarters of the East German Stasi before winding up in rural Florida, where he discovered an internet pornographer with a prophetess wife, a fascination with the Pharaohs and a tortured relationship with the Catholic Church.

Ariel Sabar is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, The Washington Post, and many other publications. He is the author of My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Wednesday, November 18  |  6:00pm MST

TWO-AUTHOR EVENT:

Michael Ian Black

A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son

Cleo Stiller

Modern Manhood

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Tickets
$11 for one virtual ticket or $32 for one virtual ticket and copy of either book (shipping included), or $50 for one virtual ticket and copy of both books

Michael Ian Black, A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son
A poignant look at boyhood, in the form of a heartfelt letter from comedian, actor, and author, and father Michael Ian Black to his teenage son before he leaves for college, and a radical plea for rethinking masculinity and teaching young men to give and receive love. In a world in which the word masculinity now often goes hand in hand with toxic, Black offers up a way forward for boys, men, and anyone who loves them. Part memoir, part advice book, A Better Man reveals Black’s own complicated relationship with his father, explores the damage and rising violence caused by the expectations placed on boys to “man up,” and searches for the best way to help young men be part of the solution, not the problem. “If we cannot allow ourselves vulnerability,” he writes, “how are we supposed to experience wonder, fear, tenderness?” Black skillfully navigates the complex gender issues of our time and delivers a poignant answer to an urgent question: How can we be, and raise, better men?

Michael Ian Black is an actor, comedian, and writer who started his career with the sketch comedy show The State, on MTV, and has created and starred in many other television shows. Movie appearances include Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, and Sextuplets. Black is the author of several books for children, including the award-winning I’m Bored, I’m Sad, and I’m Worried. As a stand-up comedian, Michael regularly tours the country and has released several comedy albums. His podcasts include Mike & Tom Eat Snacks, with Tom Cavanagh; Topics, with Michael Showalter; How to Be Amazing; and Obscure.

Cleo Stiller, Modern Manhood: Conversations About the Complicated World of Being a Good Man Today
Here are a few self-evident truths: Predatory men need to go, sexual assault is wrong, and women and men should be equal. If you’re a man and disagree with any of the aforementioned, then this book isn’t for you.

But if you agree, you’re probably one of the “good guys.” That said, you might also be feeling frustrated, exasperated, and perhaps even skeptical about the current national conversation surrounding #MeToo (among many other things). You’ve likely found yourself in countless experiences or conversations lately where the situation feels gray, at best. You have a lot to say, but you’re afraid to say it and worried that one wrong move will land you in the hot seat. From money and sex to dating and work and everything in between—it can all be so confusing! And when do we start talking about solutions instead of putting each other down?

In Modern Manhood, Emmy- and Peabody Award-nominated reporter Cleo Stiller sheds light on all the gray areas out there, using conversations that real men and women are having with their friends, their dates, their family, and themselves. Free of judgment, preaching, and sugarcoating, Modern Manhood is engaging, provocative, and, ultimately, a great resource for gaining a deeper understanding of what it means to genuinely be a good man today.

Cleo Stiller is a Peabody Award–nominated, Emmy Award–nominated, and Gracie Award–winning reporter and a self-identified “relationship nonexpert” obsessed with exploring stories about health, gender, and technology among millennials. Her acclaimed television show Sex.Right.Now. explored deeply personal and political stories about health and identity. She has been featured in The New York Times, Self, Variety, Bustle, Essence, and Lifehacker.

Thursday, November 19  |  6:00pm MST

Rachel Bloom

I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are
Music and Multi-Media Presentation!

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Tickets
$36 for one virtual ticket and copy of book (shipping included)

From the charming and wickedly funny co-creator and star of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a collection of hilarious personal essays, poems and even amusement park maps on the subjects of insecurity, fame, anxiety, and much more. Rachel Bloom has felt abnormal and out of place her whole life. In this exploration of what she thinks makes her “different,” she’s come to realize that a lot of people also feel this way; even people who she otherwise thought were “normal.” In a collection of laugh-out-loud funny essays, all told in the unique voice (sometimes singing voice) that made her a star; Rachel writes about everything from her love of Disney, OCD and depression, weirdness, and Spanx to the story of how she didn’t poop in the toilet until she was four years old; Rachel’s pieces are hilarious, smart, and infinitely relatable (except for the pooping thing).

Rachel Bloom is best known as the star and co-creator of the CW musical dramedy, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, for which she earned a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award for her performance as “Rebecca Bunch” as well as an Emmy Award for the show’s songwriting. As a live performer, she has sold out Radio City Music Hall and The London Palladium and recently had a residency at the Just for Laughs comedy festival. In April, she starred in the movie Trolls World Tour as “Barb.” She will be writing the music and lyrics for The Nanny on Broadway.

Transgender Day of Remembrance: Friday, November 20  |  12:00pm MST

Mimi Lemay

What We Will Become: A Mother, Son, and a Journey of Transformation

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Tickets
FREE or $35 for one virtual ticket and copy of book (shipping included)

Mimi Lemay recounts her memoir of her transgender child’s odyssey, and her journey outside the boundaries of the faith and culture that shaped her.

From the age of two-and-a-half, Jacob, born “Em,” adamantly told his family he was a boy. While his mother Mimi struggled to understand and come to terms with the fact that her child may be transgender, she experienced a sense of déjà vu—the journey to uncover the source of her child’s inner turmoil unearthed ghosts from Mimi’s past and her own struggle to live an authentic life.

Mimi was raised in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family, every aspect of her life dictated by ancient rules and her role as a woman largely preordained from cradle to grave. As a young woman, Mimi wrestled with the demands of her faith and eventually made the painful decision to leave her religious community and the strict gender roles it upheld.

Having risen from the ashes of her former life, Mimi was prepared to help her son forge a new one — at a time when there was little consensus on how best to help young transgender children. What We Will Become is a powerful testament to how painful events from the past can be redeemed to give us hope for the future.

Mimi Lemay is an international advocate for transgender youth and the author of the viral essay A Letter to My Son Jacob on His 5th Birthday. Lemay and her family meet regularly with legislators, business leaders, educators, and clergy to share their vision of a more equitable world. She is a member of the Parents for Transgender Equality National Council at Human Rights Campaign and holds a master’s in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She was recently named one of the Commonwealth Heroines of 2020 by the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women.

Sunday, November 22  |  11:00am MST

FOR KIDS! (Ages 8 to 14)

Melissa Clark

Kid in the Kitchen: 100 Recipes and Tips for Young Home Cooks

ZOOM Webinar Author Talk and Q&A  |  Click for Tickets
FREE for one virtual ticket or $30 for one virtual ticket and copy of book (shipping included)

Melissa Clark, the New York Times food columnist and beloved home cooking authority, spins 100 all-new recipes for a robust new audience of home chefs: kids ages 8-14!

Clark, who has more range than any food writer today (and a young daughter to boot), marries the flavours beloved by adult fans of her bestselling cookbooks and her work in the New York Times with recipes that any kid, whether cooking-curious or already kitchen-puttering, can make and build on, including Brown Butter French Toast, Sweet or Savory Dutch Babies, Burgers with Kimchi Mayo, Gingerbread Snacking Cake, and No-Machine Ice Cream. These one hundred recipes (each with allergy and special diet info) are unmistakably Melissa, just simplified.

With 75 full-color photographs and helpful lessons on topics such as how to measure, the ingredients you really need (anchovies, guys!), stuff you can fudge (herbs), and how to clean up like nothing ever happened, this must-have resource is both friendly and authoritative.

Melissa Clark is the author of the New York Times bestseller Dinner in French, as well as Dinner, Dinner in an Instant, and Comfort in an Instant, and is a staff writer for the New York Times Food section, where she writes the wildly popular column A Good Appetite. The winner of multiple James Beard and IACP awards, Melissa is the host of the Weeknight Kitchen podcast from The Splendid Table. Her work has been selected for the Best American Food Writing.