Moleskine's Are In!

Due to popular demand, we are proud to add the Moleskine line to our inventory. We have lined and unlined, hardbound and paperback, small and large and a selection of colors. Stop by anytime to check out our display.

Coupon Faux Pas

Dear Customers, As some of you may know there was a printing mistake on the September birthday coupons. It states that the expiration date is the end of August. It does not expire until the end of September. Apologies for any confusion. Birthday coupons are good for the entire month of your birthday. If for any reason you do not get your postcard, whatever the month, and you are in our database you can come in anytime during that month and apply it to your purchase. Let us know about any updates to your address so that we can make sure that the coupons we do send will get to you. Thank you again for your understanding.

Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month

BACKBONES will be hosting a Scavenger Hunt in Chicago in honor of SCI Awareness Month. Groups will be required to have at least one person using a wheelchair for the duration of the hunt (if no one in the group is a wheelchair user, we will provide a wheelchair) with the purpose of educating people on SCI. In addition, all clues will be SCI or disability related. after-words is pleased to participate in this event by welcoming scavenger hunters on the afternoon of September 29th.

Visit their site to find out more about this remarkable organization.

www.BACKBONESONLINE.com

Or if you want to read more about living with spinal cord injuries, here are two recommendations:

Dear Marcus: A Letter to the Man Who Shot Me by Jerry Mcgill

Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence by Matthew Sanford

Groupon's Biggest Deal Ever by Frank Sennett book signing

Frank Sennett will be at After-Words books on June 14, 2012 at 7 p.m. reading from and answering questions about his book Groupon's Biggest Deal Ever: The Inside Story of How One Insane Gamble, Tons of Unbelievable Hype, and Millions of Wild Deals Made Billions for One Ballsy Joker (St. Martin’s Press/ Hardcover/ June 2012/ ISBN 978-1250000842 $25.99). Wine reception following.

In late 2010, Groupon completely lost its mind. Rather than take Google’s unheard-of $6 billion buyout offer, founder Andrew Mason turned the search giant down and decided to go it alone. The experts laughed at Mason’s audacious gamble. Groupon was little more than two years old at the time and staffed from top to bottom with inexperienced twenty-somethings.  There was no way they would ever be able to recoup that kind of money.

Well who’s laughing now?  An online discount service that offers a deal a day at local merchants in cities in more than forty-three countries, Groupon recently had the largest IPO by any Internet company since Google in 2004 and is currently the fastest-growing company in Internet history. Committed to innovating a new model for commerce, Groupon is renowned for an unorthodox office culture and editorial voice based on radical transparency and absurd humor.

Time Out Chicago Editor in Chief and author Frank Sennett has unprecedented access to Groupon and its executives including CEO Andrew Mason. His new book, Groupon's Biggest Deal Ever is the exclusive and unparalleled account of the incredible rise of discount giant Groupon and the compelling story of its offbeat founder Andrew Mason as he created a juggernaut of online commerce and ignited a consumer revolution.

FRANK SENNETT is the editor-in-chief and president of Time Out Chicago. He edited the first story ever published about Groupon and later wrote a Time Out cover story on the company that led to this book project. In the 17 months he spent reporting on the company, Frank was the only journalist with inside access to Groupon's top leaders during the SEC quiet period before the company went public; became the first and only reporter to get a full account of Groupon's sale negotiations with Google and Yahoo. He conducted the only joint interview founders Andrew Mason and Eric Lefkofsky ever gave recounting the company's first years and was the only reporter on the floor of the NASDAQ MarketSite on the day of Groupon's IPO. Frank is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana and has published seven previous books in the past decade.

Wounded I Am More Awake by Julia Lieblich book signing

Julia Lieblich will be at After-Words books on Monday, May 14^th at 6p.m. reading and signing copies of her book Wounded I am More Awake: Finding Meaning After Terror (Vanderbilt University Press, Paperback, $19.95).

Wounded I Am More Awake follows the story of Esad Boskailo, a doctor who survives six concentration camps in Bosnia and emerges with powerful new lessons for healing in an age of genocide. This gripping account raises questions for healers, survivors, and readers striving to understand the reality of war and the aftermath of terror. Is it possible to find meaning after enduring crimes against humanity? Can people heal after trauma?  Human rights journalist Julia Lieblich takes the reader through Boskailo's early years under Tito to the wars when friends turned on friends. She documents his harrowing experiences in the camps, where the men he once joined for coffee murder his best friend from childhood.  But the story does not end there. Boskailo moves to the United States and decides to become a psychiatrist so he can guide survivors through the long-term process of restoring hope. Today, inspired by the late psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, Boskailo uses his own experience to help patients mourn their losses and find meaning in the aftermath of terror.

Julia Lieblich is an award-winning human rights journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, Time, Life, and Ms. A former religion writer for the Chicago Tribune and the Associated Press, she is an assistant professor of journalism at Loyola University Chicago.

World Book Night

WHO: From Kodiak, Alaska, to Key West, Florida, in 6,000 towns and cities across America, volunteers will give away half a million free books on one day: April 23, 2012. Come meet those volunteers and hear the stories of where they will be distributing their books — as varied and colorful as the people themselves, and as engaging as their book choices.

WHAT: World Book Night U.S. is an ambitious campaign to give away half a million free, specially printed books across America. Volunteer book lovers will help promote reading by going into their communities and distributing free copies of a book they enjoy to new or light readers, reaching them especially in underserved places – and even some fun spots. Volunteers from your area will be picking up the books they selected to share in locations as diverse as VA hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, ballparks, mass transit, diners, and more.

We are proud to be a community partner for the first World Book Night in the U.S., following the impressive launch of this campaign by our bookstore, library, author, and publisher colleagues in the UK and Ireland last year.

We will be hosting activities the week before World Book Night, in preparation for the givers going out into the community on April 23.

http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/ 

California Girl Chronicles by Michelle Gamble-Risley book signing

Michelle Gamble-Risley will be at After-Words books on April 11 at 7p.m. signing copies of her book California Girl Chronicles (3L Publishing, Paperback, $12.95).

Michelle Gamble-Risley, author of the internationally critically-acclaimed new book, California Girl Chronicles, kicks off her book tour at After-Words Bookstore.

One of the sexiest hot sellers this summer will be the new internationally critically acclaimed book, California Girl Chronicles: Brea and the City of Plastic which is a sexy, witty romp that takes readers into the life of Brea Harper as she tries to break into Hollywood as a screenwriter only to be continually distracted by her romantic escapades. Numerous reviewers have praised the book, and author Michelle Gamble-Risley has been chosen by Chicago-based bookstore, After-Words, to launch her spring and summer book tour with a wine reception on April 11, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. 

“After-Words Bookstore is the ideal bookstore to launch this fun and fascinating story about a sexually empowered, adventurous woman, who is confident and secure enough to pursue her dreams whether in the entertainment industry or the bedroom,” said Gamble-Risley, who is also the CEO of the highly successful independent publishing company, 3L Publishing (www.3LPublishing.com). “I wanted to write a strong female protagonist like Sookie Stackhouse in the Charlaine Harris series. Only this time, I didn’t want the girl to be violated in extreme ways and then return to her attacker’s arms. I feel like I’ve seen enough of the victimization of women in literature. I felt it was time to put the true ‘girl power’ back into the girl and imagine a woman, who under no circumstances, would return to a man who would violate her. I think that sends the wrong message to younger and older women alike.”

The result of Gamble-Risley’s effort is the witty, wonderful and sexy Brea Harper. Gamble-Risley is pleased to report that many reviewers have indeed lauded the fact that Brea is a woman who knows what she wants and goes for it. While also flawed and sometimes just misguided, she is self-aware enough to know she’s making mistakes when she makes them. “You know we get to repeat our lessons until we learn them,” said Gamble-Risley. “Brea takes a few hard falls, but you will see as the series progresses, she does learn, change and evolve – that’s what makes her so interesting and relatable to younger and older women.”

You can now watch the new California Girl Chronicles book trailer on You Tube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDiZdVC08Mc