Robert Hartle Jr: The Highs & Lows of Little Five (GA): A History of Little Five Points
A Cappella Books
Saturday, February 13,6:30PM
Because, as we know, all the cool kids hang in little five:

Atlanta's Little Five Points, the city's first Neighborhood Commercial District, stands out as one of the most distinctive shopping districts in the Southeast. There have been quite a few ups and downs in the area's history, but ultimately the dedicated, passionate individuals who made L5P what it is today handled them with perseverance and foresight, creating unique, independently owned stores that draw the most eclectic mix of people found anywhere in Atlanta. The cultural melting pot created by these stores is what makes Little Five Points such a popular destination for both locals and tourists. Join author Robert Hartle Jr. as he tells the story of the revitalization of Little Five Points, including firsthand accounts from longtime L5P business owners who were actually there and who helped to save the area from the many threats to its survival.

Verb has produced hundreds of hours of radio, spoken word, music, and audiobooks over the years. Watch this space as we start highlighting bits or archives.
From the Spoken Word radio series, best selling author Bruce Feiler writes about finding spirituality in the mundane and multiculturalism in the modern world. He's even appeared on The Colbert Report. To his name we find a slew of titles including Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan (1991), Walking the Bible (2001), which sprouted a PBS miniseries, and upcoming Council of Dads. In this episode he talks in depth about his book Abraham: A Journey into the Heart of Three Faiths (2002) and his process of spiritual discovery. He artfully blends history, research, and analysis with personal philosophy, to bring us fascinating insight into Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Q&A session follows.

The Spoken Word: December 17, 2002

Pretty much unedited and unwanted, here are the notes from Monday's spot on WABE's City Cafe with John Lemley

Thomas Mullen: THE MANY DEATHS OF THE FIREFLY BROTHERS
Wednesday, February 3, 7:15
Decatur Library
Mullen, the author of the acclaimed novel The Last Town on Earth, and a resident of Decatur, joins us to help launch his eagerly anticipated new novel, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers. It's a rollicking, imaginative Depression-era tale complete with kidnappings, gangsters, heiresses and speakeasies, focused on bank-robbing duo Jason and Whit, known as the Firefly Brothers. The novel is all about what happens when you get gunned down in a police shoot-out and go on to find out the truth about your mythical lives. We think it's headed for the top of best-seller lists! Join us for a reception to honor the author.
The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers
Late one night in August 1934, following a yearlong spree of bank robberies across the Midwest, the Firefly Brothers are forced into a police shootout and die . . . for the first time.
In award-winning author Thomas Mullen's evocative new novel, the highly anticipated follow-up to his acclaimed debut, The Last Town on Earth, we follow the Depression-era adventures of Jason and Whit Fireson—bank robbers known as the Firefly Brothers by the press, the authorities, and an adoring public that worships their acts as heroic counterpunches thrown at a broken system.
Now it appears they have met their end in a hail of bullets. Jason and Whit's lovers—Darcy, a wealthy socialite, and Veronica, a hardened survivor—struggle between grief and an unyielding belief that the Firesons are still alive. While they and the Firesons' stunned mother and straight-arrow brother wade through conflicting police reports and press accounts, wild rumors spread that the bandits are at large. Through it all, the Firefly Brothers remain as charismatic, unflappable, and as mythical as the American Dream itself, racing to find the women they love and make sense of a world in which all has come unmoored.
Complete with kidnappings and gangsters, heiresses and speakeasies, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers is an imaginative and spirited saga about what happens when you are hopelessly outgunned—and a masterly tale of hardship, redemption, and love that transcends death.

Jim Wallis: THE GREAT AWAKENING: REVIVING FAITH AND POLITICS IN A POST-RELIGIOUS RIGHT AMERICA
Friday, February 5, 7pm
Jimmy Carter Library
Jim Wallis, the widely respected NPR commentator and founder and editor of Sojourner magazine, discusses his best-selling examination of America's "new" religion and politics, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America. Hailed by critics, Wallis' book argues that a "groundswell of progressive believers may accomplish a social transformation that politics and politicians cannot deliver." He is also the author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.
The Reverend Jim Wallis (b. June 4, 1948, Detroit, Michigan) is an evangelical Christian writer and political activist, best known as the founder and editor of Sojourners Magazine and of the Washington, D.C.-based Christian community of the same name.
Wallis actively eschews political labels, but his advocacy tends to focus on issues of peace and social justice, earning him his primary support from the religious left. Wallis is also known for his opposition to the religious right's fiscal and foreign policies.[1]
Speaking to a conference of clergy from the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool (The Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, Derbyshire, UK, 23 June 2009) Wallis said, "The press don't get it - they say, 'Have you replaced the religious right with the religious left?'" Rather, he says that his Christian commitment does not allow him to align with any political wing - on some issues, his views would be counted as coming from the left, on others, from the right. "Don't go left, don't go right: go deeper."

Kevin and Hannah Salwen: THE POWER OF HALF
Wednesday, February 3rd, 7pm
Barnes & Noble Buckhead
It all started when 14-year old Hannah Salwen, idealistic but troubled by a growing sense of injustice in the world, had a eureka moment when a homeless man in her neighborhood was juxtaposed against a glistening Mercedes coupe. "You know, Dad,” she said, pointing, “If that man had a less nice car, that man there could have a meal.”
This glaring disparity led the Salwen family of four, caught up like so many other Americans in this age of consumption and waste, to follow Hannah's urge to do something, to finally just do something. And so they embarked on an incredible journey together from which there would be no turning back. They decided to sell their Atlanta mansion, downsize to a house half its size, and give half of their profits to a worthy charity. At first it was an outlandish scheme. “What, are you crazy? No way!" Then it was a challenge. “We are TOTALLY doing this.” Each week they met over dinner to discuss their plan. It would transport them across the globe and well out of their comfort zone. Along the way they would inspire so many others wrestling with the same questions: Do I give enough? How much is enough? How can I make an impact in the world? In the end the Salwens' journey would bring them closer as a family, as they discovered, together, that half could be so much more.
Warm, funny, deeply moving and wholly uplifting, THE POWER OF HALF is the story of how one family slammed the door on the status quo and threw away the key.
Kevin Salwen was reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal for over 18 years. After his tenure at The Wall Street Journal, he started a magazine, Motto. He serves on the board for Habitat for Humanity in Atlanta, and works with the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Hannah Salwen will be a junior at the Atlanta Girls' School, where she plays for the varsity volleyball team, and is her grade's representative to the student council. She has been volunteering consistently since the 5th grade at the Atlanta Community Food Bank and Cafe 458, among others.

Watching this video, it becomes apparent that Tom Hanks is trying out for some role as a new media specialist. I guess he went completely method shaving his head and then he making up the unlikely name "Clay Shirky" and even landing a spot at this Web 2.0 conference.
OK, I actually talk about Clay Shirky often. And this probably isn't Tom Hanks, but watch a little bit, and tell me your sure. Shirky's first book Here Comes Everybody is quite brilliant, and I'm impatiently waiting for his next one, due this year.
His argument here is really on target for the publishing world. The only real question about how does publishing evolve is "What does the filter look like?"
The publishers only have one real function anymore--filter, and they do a lousy job at it. Proof lies at both ends of the mechanism. How many rejection letters did Kathryn Stockett get? Something like three dozen, I believe. When she finally does get published, The Help just sells and sells and sells. That's a bad filter at work.
Ask any publisher how many books they pulp each year. That's a bad filter at work.
The reason that self-publishing is such a challenge is that there is no trusted filter from the writer to the reader. As a consumer, there is no one to tell you which self-pubbed book is any good. If that mechanism is created, then Random House is in big trouble. And that filter is coming sooner or later.

'Catcher in the Rye' author J.D. Salinger dies - Yahoo! News
No other author in the last sixty years has so shaped the voice and characters of writers of subsequent generations.

Who Knew? He drives everywhere. I mean everywhere
Decatur News Online: Decatur Life - George Winston: A Man for All Seasons and for Eddie & Agnes

Thomas Mullen: THE MANY DEATHS OF THE FIREFLY BROTHERS

Georgia Center for the Book
Decatur Library
Wednesday, February 3rd, 7:15pm
Late one night in August 1934, following a yearlong spree of bank robberies across the Midwest, the Firefly Brothers are forced into a police shootout and die . . . for the first time.

In award-winning author Thomas Mullen's evocative new novel, the highly anticipated follow-up to his acclaimed debut, The Last Town on Earth, we follow the Depression-era adventures of Jason and Whit Fireson—bank robbers known as the Firefly Brothers by the press, the authorities, and an adoring public that worships their acts as heroic counterpunches thrown at a broken system.

Now it appears they have met their end in a hail of bullets. Jason and Whit's lovers—Darcy, a wealthy socialite, and Veronica, a hardened survivor—struggle between grief and an unyielding belief that the Firesons are still alive. While they and the Firesons' stunned mother and straight-arrow brother wade through conflicting police reports and press accounts, wild rumors spread that the bandits are at large. Through it all, the Firefly Brothers remain as charismatic, unflappable, and as mythical as the American Dream itself, racing to find the women they love and make sense of a world in which all has come unmoored.

Complete with kidnappings and gangsters, heiresses and speakeasies, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers is an imaginative and spirited saga about what happens when you are hopelessly outgunned—and a masterly tale of hardship, redemption, and love that transcends death.

Week of January 25th

David Orr: DOWN TO THE WIRE
Tuesday January 26, 2010, 7:30 PM
Agnes Scott College
Won a Lyndhurst Prize acknowledging “persons of exceptional moral character, vision, and energy.”

Professor Orr’s latest book, Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse, has been deemed by Ray Anderson, Founder and Chair of Interface, Inc. to be “a sweeping synthesis of science, politics, history, and public policy…this very important book envisions a road map to a livable future.” The book is significant for any individual institution that has made the commitment to help address climate change locally, regionally or nationally.
Before the words “sustainability” and “climate change” were in the daily vocabulary on most college campuses, Professor Orr was challenging students and teachers to consider the consequences of our actions on the environments. In previous books he has set a high standard for including the environment in education that has become well known in the field.
His career as a scholar, teacher, writer, speaker, and entrepreneur spans fields as diverse as environment and politics, environmental education, campus greening, green building, ecological design, and climate change. He is the author of six books and co-editor of three others. Ecological Literacy (SUNY, 1992), described as a “true classic” by Garrett Hardin, is widely read and used in hundreds of colleges and universities. A second book, Earth in Mind (1994/2004) is praised by people as diverse as biologist E. O. Wilson and writer, poet, and farmer, Wendell Berry.
In 1987 he organized studies of energy, water, and materials use on several college campuses that helped to launch the green campus movement. In 1989 Orr organized the first ever conference on the effects of impending climate change on the banking industry. Co-sponsored by then Governor Bill Clinton, the conference featured prominent bankers throughout the mid-South and leading climate scientists including Stephen Schneider and George Woodwell.
In 1996 he organized the effort to design the first substantially green building on a U.S. college campus. The Adam Joseph Lewis Center was later named by the U.S. Department of Energy as “One of Thirty Milestone Buildings in the 20th Century,” and by The New York Times as the most interesting of a new generation of college and university buildings. The Lewis Center purifies all of its wastewater and is the first college building in the U.S. powered entirely by sunlight. But most important it became a laboratory in sustainability that is training some of the nation’s brightest and most dedicated students for careers in solving environmental problems. The story of that building is told in two books, The Nature of Design (Oxford, 2002) that Fritjof Capra called “brilliant,” and a second, Design on the Edge (MIT, 2006), that architect Sim van der Ryn describes as “powerful and inspiring.”
Professor Orr taught at Agnes Scott College in the 1970s and we are honored to have him return at this important time for the college, for his work and for the global environment.

Michael Shelden: MARK TWAIN: MAN IN WHITE: THE GRAND ADVENTURE OF HIS FINAL YEARS
Wednesday, January 27, 7:15pm
Decatur Library
Michael Shelden, author of acclaimed biographies of Graham Greene and George Orwell, turns his attention to Mark Twain with an eagerly anticipated new book, Mark Twain: Man in White: The Grand Adventure of His Final Years. It's a deeply researched book utilizing some unpublished sources that brings to vivid life Twain's last years, a period that found the humorist full of charm, vigor and charisma. Critics call it "a breakthrough in Twain biography" and praise the scholarship and writing ("eloquent and moving").

Robert Pinsky :GULF MUSIC: POEMS
Sunday, January 31, 4pm
Glenn Memorial Chapel
Emory University
Served as US Poet Laureate from 1997-2000. He received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1974, and in 1997 he was named the United States Poet Laureate and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. He now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and teaches in the graduate writing program at Boston University.
As Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky founded the Favorite Poem Project, in which thousands of Americans of varying backgrounds, all ages, and from every state share their favorite poems. Pinsky believed that, contrary to stereotype, poetry has a strong presence in the American culture. The project sought to document that presence, giving voice to the American audience for poetry.[citation needed]
Pinsky is also the author of the interactive fiction game Mindwheel (1984) developed by Synapse Software and released by Broderbund. [3]
Pinsky guest-starred in a 2002 episode of the animated sitcom The Simpsons, "Little Girl in the Big Ten", and appeared on The Colbert Report in April, 2007, as the judge of a "Meta-Free-Phor-All" between Stephen Colbert and Sean Penn.

David W. Orr Agnes Scott College,Presser Hall Tuesday, January 26th, 7pm

David W. Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Special Assistant to the President of Oberlin College and a James Marsh Professor at the University of Vermont.

His career as a scholar, teacher, writer, speaker, and entrepreneur spans fields as diverse as environment and politics, environmental education, campus greening, green building, ecological design, and climate change. He is the author of six books and co-editor of three others.

In 1987 he organized studies of energy, water, and materials use on several college campuses that helped to launch the green campus movement. In 1989 Orr organized the first ever conference on the effects of impending climate change on the banking industry. Co-sponsored by then Governor Bill Clinton, the conference featured prominent bankers throughout the mid-South and leading climate scientists including Stephen Schneider and George Woodwell.

In 1996 he organized the effort to design the first substantially green building on a U.S. college campus. The Adam Joseph Lewis Center was later named by the U.S. Department of Energy as “One of Thirty Milestone Buildings in the 20th Century,” and by The New York Times as the most interesting of a new generation of college and university buildings. The Lewis Center purifies all of its wastewater and is the first college building in the U.S. powered entirely by sunlight. But most important it became a laboratory in sustainability that is training some of the nation’s brightest and most dedicated students for careers in solving environmental problems.

Orr’s political writings appear in, The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror (Island Press, 2004), andarticles such as “The Imminent Demise of the Republican Party” (www.commondreams.org ) written in January of 2005.

In an influential article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Orr proposed the goal of carbon neutrality for colleges and universities and subsequently organized and funded an effort to define a carbon neutral plan for his own campus at Oberlin. Seven years later hundreds of colleges and universities, including Oberlin, have made that pledge.

Down to the Wire

Down to the Wire is a sober and eloquent assessment of climate destabilization and an urgent call to action. Orr describes how political negligence, an economy based on the insatiable consumption of trivial goods, and a disdain for the well-being of future generations have brought us to the tipping point that biologist Edward O. Wilson calls "the bottleneck."

Due to our refusal to live within natural limits, we now face a long emergency of rising temperatures, rising sea-levels, and a host of other related problems that will increasingly undermine human civilization. Climate destabilization to which we are already committed will change everything, and to those betting on quick technological fixes or minor adjustments to the way we live now, Down to the Wire is a major wake-up call. But this is not a doomsday book.

Orr offers a wide range of pragmatic, far-reaching proposals--some of which have already been adopted by the Obama administration--for how we might reconnect public policy with rigorous science, bring our economy into alignment with ecological realities, and begin to regard ourselves as planetary trustees for future generations. He offers inspiring real-life examples of people already responding to the major threat to our future.

Down to the Wire is essential reading for those wanting to join in the Great Workof our generation.

The New Yorker has a great profile on Neil Gaiman, and they talk at length about his great signing at Agnes Scott with Little Shop of Stories. Included is this little passage:

It was a foggy day, with intermittent rain, and people started lining up before noon outside Agnes Scott College, which was hosting the event. The reading started at six. On the way there, the head of the Decatur book festival, who was to introduce Gaiman, got him to sign his dashboard.

If they'd run my name, I could have checked getting into the New Yorker of my life list. Now, I'm not so sure.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/25/100125fa_fact_goodyear?currentPage=6#ixzz0dAhbIK8Y