I’m very excited about this.   Many of my favorite ATL writers.  A band called Book Club.  I’ve said for years that the Wren’s Nest would be a fantastic venue for this sort of thing. Ask anybody.  Brought to you by PurgeATL.

We’re painting up an old bus, and this October five brilliant mad Moth raconteurs—along with fiddlers and a circus act—will be riding to fourteen Georgia towns to tell stories and play music and perform. We’ll visit locales where there are still independent booksellers. We’ll ask our audiences to join the pledge that henceforth, whenever possible, they’ll buy their books only from independent bookstores.  We’re inviting folks to come celebrate the purest arts: handmade music and the voice of the raconteur and the incandescence of great literature. To come celebrate in the company of their neighbors. On lovely autumn nights in Georgia.

Thursday and Friday nights are the final nights of this very cool project.  Don’t miss it!

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Specifically, steampunk involves an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century and often Victorian era Britain—that incorporates prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy. Works of steampunk often feature anachronistic technology or futuristic innovations as Victorians may have envisioned them; in other words, based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, art, etc. This technology may include such fictional machines as those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne or real technologies like the computer but developed earlier in an alternate history.

For this steampunk occasion, Scott Westerfeld will be reading from and discussing his new book Behemoth, the second in the Leviathan trilogy that re-writes World War 1 as (among other things) a battle between the DNA inspired “Darwinist” creatures of Great Britain and the technological “clanker” powers of Austro-Hungary.  Check out what Cory Doctorow on boingboing has to say.

I read and loved Leviathan when it came out, until I figured out it was part of a trilogy and wasn’t going to end for awhile.  Having gobbled up lots of Scott Westerfeld’s series, I should have known.  I should have also realized that some tales need lots of space to be told properly, and this is one of them.  Luckily, Westerfeld is one of those masterful story tellers that I can’t get enough of.  In fact, if steampunk doesn’t sound like your thing, other Westerfeld favorites include the Uglies series as well as the stand-alone So Yesterday.

I’m just beginning Behemoth and will not be finished in time for the reading, but that’s ok.  I just can’t wait so see what this guy looks like and what he has to say.

Want more steampunk?  Check out this cake.  While there, search for the beautiful photographs of an entire steampunk themed wedding (thanks, Kathleen!).

At the Decatur Book Festival: Tell the Bookie Monster what you’re reading kids.

Aaron Munoz is Ignatius

Her children’s picture book Inside the Slidy Diner is a favorite with the young reader in my home and introduced the family to our adopted catch phrase “Clatter and din! Hullabaloo!”  We’re actually able to work that into conversation more often than you would think.

Her novel for middle readers Any Which Wall was just named one of the 25 Books that all young Georgians should read.

On the occasion of the release of another novel for middle readers, Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains, Laurel Snyder took the time to submit herself to a BGB interview, which you can check out here.

Her most recent picture book (just out last week), Baxter, The Pig Who Wanted to be Kosher, is awesome and was instant classic over at my house.  While waiting for the bus, Baxter meets a man who is headed home for Shabbat. Baxter is so enamored by the man’s descriptions of the upcoming celebration that he wants to join in, too.  Hilarity ensues as Baxter sets out to become kosher.  He doesn’t know what “kosher” means exactly, but he’s a determined pig.  He eventually learns from a young rabbi (a female rabbi, no less) what Shabbat is all about and finally gets an invitation to join in.  The illustrations are wonderfully comic and offer knowing chuckles for adult readers.  Snyder dedicates the book to “anyone who has ever felt excluded, which is to say…everyone.” It’s a wonderful story of inclusiveness and a great introduction into Jewish religious ideas for young readers.  Buy it for the glossary alone.

And if that weren’t enough, Snyder has another novel for middle readers coming out later this month, Penny Dreadful.

One of the events that I am truly looking forward to takes place on Saturday at 1:45PM.  Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will be in conversation “Tavis Smiley-style” about storytelling with Lain Shakespeare of the Wren’s Nest. Adichie is the author of the brilliant Half of a Yellow Sun (read our reviews here and here) as well as the novel Purple Hibiscus and the short story collection That Thing Around Your Neck.

The best part of this event is that BGB is totally responsible.  You can read all about how awesome we are at the Wren’s Nest Blog.