Books

A Young Mans Guide to Late Capitalism

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By Peter Mountford. Mariner, $15.95.

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If you want to be listed Submit information by mail, e-mail (books@timeoutchicago.com) or fax (312-924-9350) to Jonathan Messinger. Include details, dates, times, address of venue, nearest El station or bus routes, contact information and admission price, if any. Deadline is 10am on Monday, ten days before publication date. ] Recommended or notable

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Imagine making $19,500 a month and wanting more. But when things come that easy for young American men like Gabriel Francisco de Bayo, how could you not? Gabriels company, an avaricious hedge fund, has sent him to the heights of La Paz, Bolivia, to find out when President-elect Evo Morales will nationalize its vast supply of natural gas. If Gabriel can break this news before anyone else, his investment company stands to make millions and he will earn a cool halfmillion himself. Not bad for an entrylevel position. Turns out, it may come at the expense of the country he is enamored with, the region that bore him and the woman he loves. Gabriels international espionage and the subsequent tangle of deceit may share elements of the international thriller, but in his debut novel, Mountford is more concerned with the moral stakes of desire, whether it is pure self-interest or the considerations demanded by love. Handsome, ambitious and charming, Gabriel falls in love with Evos press secretary, Lemka, even as he leverages her for information. He does the same

Sister Souljah
Thu., April 21 at 6 p.m.
Sister Souljah, political activist, educator and the bestselling author of The Coldest Winter and Midnight: A Gangster Love Story, discusses and signs her latest novel Midnight and the Meaning of Love.

Thursday 21
to his beloved mother, a liberal firebrand who fled Chile in fear of Pinochet. Working for The Nation, his professor-activist mother invites Gabriel to accompany her on an interview with Evo. Blessed with such fortune, Gabriel is both hero and villain, duplicitously awash in the moral ambiguity of capitalism. As a younger man, Mountford wrote about economics for a nonprofit think tank that he later discovered was a hedge fund. But unfortunately, his insight into the lures and pitfalls of capitalism is limited by his focus on Gabriel. In the end, the reader wants a little less of Gabriel and a wider lens trained on the people affected by his actions.Robert Duffer
Kiratiana Freelon Alliance Francaise, 54 W Chicago Ave (312-337-1070, afchicago.org). Bus: 22, 36, 66. 6:30pm; $5, AF members free. Freelons series of guidebooks shows off the strong diasporic presence in cities around the globe. Shell discuss and sign copies of Kiratianas Travel Guide to Black Paris, which examines iconic dancer Josephine Bakers influence during the 1920s, and todays African and Caribbean residents. FREE Grown Folks Stories Silver Room, 1442 N Milwaukee Ave (773-2787130, thesilverroom.com). El: Blue to Damen. Bus: 50, 56, 72. 8pm. Cara Brigandi hosts this open-mic storytelling session inside street-savvy jewelry store Silver Room. FREE How Art Works: The Impact of Art on Chicago Movements Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, 800 S Halsted St (312-413-5353, hullhousemuseum.org). El: Blue to UIC/ Halsted. Bus: 8, 60, 126. 6pm. Project NIA director Mariame Kaba moderates this panel about the connection between artistic and social movements, featuring Open Youth Networks founder Mindy Fabe, archi-treasures director Joyce Fernandes, My Soul Speaks Publishing founder Tasleem el-Hakim and Roots and Shoots coordinator Credell Walls. FREE Ve May Barnes & Noble, 1 E Jackson Blvd (312-362-8795). El: Red, Blue to Jackson; Brown, Orange, Pink, Purple (rush hrs) to Library. 6pm. The author signs copies of her Christian inspirational novel, Dare to Live. ] FREE Wendy McClure The Book Cellar, 473638 N Lincoln Ave (773-2932665, bookcellarinc.com). El: Brown to Western. Bus: 11, 49, 81. 7pm. Humorist, childrens book author and memoirist McClure (Im Not the New Me) rediscovered her love for the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and set out to visit the various settings of the novels. She tells of her travels and discovery of a Wilder subculture in her new book, The Wilder Life. See House call, page 50. ] FREE Preservation Snapshots: Lake Point Tower: A Design History Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater, 77 E Randolph St (312-922-1742, landmarks.org). El: Red to Lake; Brown, Green, Orange, Pink, Purple (rush hrs) to Randolph. Bus: 3, 4, 6, 10, 14, 26, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 151, 157. Metra: Elec Main to Millennium Station. 12:15pm. Architect Edward Windhorst and architectural historian Kevin Harrington Lake Point Tower: A Design History coauthorstalk about the 70-story condos development. The discussion is presented by Landmarks Illinois. FREE P. Fanatics Moes Tavern, 2937 N Milwaukee Ave (773-227-2937). Bus: 56, 76, 82. 7pm. This reading series that caters to words in all forms features writers expounding on the mystery of hair. Mason Johnson hosts, and readers include Mairead Case, Mary Hamilton, Matt Rowan, Samantha Irby, Ian Dick Jones, Mark Schettler and Dan Shapiro. FREE Sister Souljah Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S State St (312-747-4300, chicagopubliclibrary.org).

Books

POETRY FEST
Sat., April 30 10 a.m. 4:30 p.m.
Celebrate National Poetry Month with the Chicago Public Librarys 12th Annual Poetry Fest. Check out a wide variety of programs including the 7th Annual Haiku Festival awards ceremony, a poetry workshop with twotime National Slam Champion Roger BonairAgard, a poetry reading with our keynote speaker Nikki Giovanni and much more!

You Think Thats Bad

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By Jim Shepard. Knopf, $24.95.

Lets talk about that title for a moment. Really, it could adorn any collection filled with the stuff of short-story collections: heartbreak and, well, more heartbreak. But the characters in this Shepard collection have it really bad. The protagonist in Minotaur is lost in the black world of secret government projects and has a crumbling marriage. The engineer at the center of The Netherlands Lives with Water faces a flood of biblical proportions and a faltering union. As in Shepards past stories, the characters are intelligent people who cant quite figure out love, and that doubt cracks their confidence in all aspects of their lives. The difference in this book is how far and wide he searches for the characters in these stories. In Gojira, King of the Monsters, Tsuburaya builds a set model for the film in postwar Japan. In Your Fate Hurtles Down at You, a researcher in 1939 lives in the Swiss Alps, studying avalanches. In both of these stories, the tragedies that animate the characters hide in the background: Hiroshima and Nagasaki are recent memories for Tsuburaya, and the researchers brother was killed in an avalanche.
TIMEOUTCHICAGO.COM

Nikki Giovanni
Sat., April 30 at 2 p.m.
Nikki Giovanni is the author of more than 30 books for adults and children, including her first book of poetry Black Feeling, Black Talk which was published in 1968 and her autobiography Gemini, a finalist for the National Book Award. She was the recipient of the 2007 Carl Sandburg Literary Award presented each year by CPL and the Chicago Public Library Foundation. Cosponsored by The Poetry Foundation
For more information, please call (312) 747 4050 or visit chipublib.org. Read, Learn, Discover!

Though other short-story masters (George Saunders, A.M. Homes) are more formally inventive than Shepard, noneand we mean it makes ambition appear so effortless. Research is often the secret ingredient to rich fiction, but it can also weigh a story down. Shepard packs so much history and empathy into each story, yet none of it feels crammed in there. And one more thing about that title: The dry, humorous shrug inherent in the phrase may be the one thing all of his varied characters have in common.Jonathan Messinger

April 2127, 2011 Time Out Chicago 51

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