9/12/06

Cheers,

Aside from a Pushcart Prize, what do you get when you mix a salmon breeder with a classroom just south of the Korean DMZ? Find out on Thursday, September 14th, when poet Matt Yurdana will be reading from his collection "Public Gestures." Please join us at 7:30 PM in the Teaching Learning Center, room 40, on the University of Idaho campus.

"Public Gestures" reflects Yurdana's myriad experiences; his poems are strikingly intellectual with piercing reflection and pervasive optimism, if not outright humor, throughout.

Come see Alison Meyer's new Palouse Calendar for 2007! They are in the store, gorgeous, and sell for last year's price, $12.95.

Joe McGeshick, author of the "Indian in the Liquor Cabinet", is a quiet and studious guy with a great sense of humor who writes poems of vivid imagery set in the Northern Plains of indian country. Here's a sample,

"Toward Montana evening clouds hide a waxing moon
Orange and red flash above the Bitterroots
Idaho air keeps its nightly vigil over September wheat stubble
DeSmet holds secrets silent to the black pavement
Driving north to Coeur d'Alene Spokane's glow
Seems small under the dark" (McGeshick, "Indian in the Liquor Cabinet" 63).

Please come to Joe's reading September 16, 7:00pm at BookPeople. We need your company.

Next Monday, September 18th, Iain Campbell Smith will give a presentation at the Kenworthy Auditorium. Smith is an Australian diplomat and musician who made a documentary film, "Bougainville Sky: Portrait of a Peacekeeping Operation," about the evolution and execution of a peacekeeping mission to Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea. The free screening is at 7:00 PM and will be followed by a short talk, Q&A, and performance.

Poet Paula Coomer will join us at noon on September 23rd to present selected stories and poems. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, and she has recently published Devil at the Crossroads, a collection of poetry.

Closing this month's appearances, Terry Abraham will be here on September 30th to talk about Mountains so Sublime, his history of British travels and exploration in the American West. He will be in our store at 10:00 AM.

BookPeople still has passes for Sirius Idaho Theatre's 2006-2007 season.

Adult price is $15/show or $40/season pass
Senior price is $10/show or $25/season pass
Student price is $6/show or $15/season pass

The World Premiere of Cow-Tipping is September 21 at 7:30 PM. The show will run through the 23rd, then again the 28-30 at 7:30pmTouch will begin January 25-27, playing again February 1-3, at 7:30pm.

The Season closer will be Breaking the Code, which premieres April 12, runs through the 14th, and plays again the 19-21, once again beginning at 7:30pm.

New and Notable:

For all the Scots and dog lovers, we are carrying "The Highlander," a magazine of Scottish heritage. The current feature article is on Greyfriar's Bobby, a Skye terrier whose devotion to his master has been inspiring hearts and minds since 1858.

Keep an eye out for "Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination," an essay collection by Lee Siegel. Siegel is a critic and essayist published, in part, by Harper's, Time, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. In "Falling Upwards," he turns his critical eye to modern art culture and its relation to society at large. He sees a "businessification of the arts" and an "entrepreneurizing of the artist. Trough Harry Potter, Dante, Saul Bellow, Stalin and others, Siegel explores the state of America's imaginative movements, how they came to be, and where they might end up.

When Amanda joined Bookpeople her first exerxise was to study travel books. On fine Bestseller Lists she found "Oracle Bones", Peter Hessler's report on China today.

Hesler, a New Yorker correspondent in China, tours China and comes to the conclusion that "the cultural revolutions of Mao" was the culmination of a long century of attacks on Chinese tradition. The oracles bones in the title refers to ancient Chinese divination practice no one can read today.

Student Loans--

43% of College grads use credit cards to pay tuition

"I recently read two articles on student loans. The first article in Business Week 6/5/06, basically bemoans the heavy debt today and tells today's student to tighten his or her belt and get lower interest credit cards.

The second article in Dissent Magazines Summer Issue called "Debt Education" by Jeffrey J. Williams lists causes for the increase of student debt, the difficulty of working your way through college withouth loans. 37% of polled college students say debt contributed to depression. One of the impacts of student loan debt has been the shift in majors. Loans impact post college job choices. Business majors as an undergraduate choice has increased from 7% in the 1960's to 22% today. But has that made for a better economy?

42% of students with loans say working effected their grades.

The original promise of student loans was for low cost loans and a lot of grants. Williams, in his article, shows the impact of student loans on students, colleges and society. He presents several changes to the college loan system.

I guess that's the difference between liberal and conservative. Conservatives think you should suck it up and accept the way things are while liberals think systems are tools and people should control how their tools are used.

If you know or if you are a student in search of a cause maybe loan reform is the problem for you."-- Bob

On that note, we bid you adieu

-Book People of Moscow

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