There’s something within all of us, something that has the power to make us irresistible—our stories. In today's noisy and competitive world, storytelling is the best way to engage with others in a memorable and compelling way and to inspire people to act. It’s your secret advantage, the thing that will make you and your organization irresistible.

Join Jenny Riddle to find out why stories are so effective, what’s holding your stories back,
and how to find and tell your stories. 

Learning Objectives:

• Learn the science behind why people are attracted to and respond to stories

• Understand how stories speak to us in ways that numbers, data, and powerpoint presentations cannot

• Capitalize on the fact that stories are remembered far longer than facts

• Leverage stories to provide context–a more relatable and life-like framework

• Learn to pivot traditional marketing strategies with stories

• Discover the 3-part formula for effective storytelling

• Avoid these common storytelling mistakes

• Recognize that everyone has stories to tell and how to mine your life for yours

  $10/person  Call the store to say you can come, (630) 765-7455!

  
  

Free! Milk & Cookies store time. Bring a friend!

Mondays, 6:30–8:00 p.m., September 23, October 28 and November 25
September 23: The America We Want to Be
October 28: Relationships and Talking about Politics
November 25: To Vote or Not to Vote
Please note there will be no meeting in December.

Prairie Path Books is proud to welcome as hosts for this series, the Wheaton League of Women's Voters, who are committed to  civic engagement and education (all genders welcome!).  For more information, contact Barbara Laimans, (630) 231-0833.

Founded in 2010, the non-profit organization “Living Room Conversations” with one goal: bringing back civil discourse on current topics so as to increase understanding, reveal common ground and allow for discussion for possible solutions. LRC provides training for facilitators, topics and talking points, and maybe most important a structure, or “conversation agreement” all participants need to follow. One participant described her LRC experience this way: “For once I wasn't standing on my soapbox trying to win someone to my side or defend my stance with strong words.  The ground rules threw that all out the window and put in its place a curious mind and an attitude of respect for my neighbors.”

The first conversation topic will be The America We Want to Be.  This topic is warm, welcoming and a perfect format for hearing different perspectives on America, our fears about it, and our hopes and dreams for it.  All community members are invited to participate.

For more information about this program, including a copy of the LRC Conversation Agreement and a summary of the first topic, visit:  www.livingroomconversations.org and www.livingroomconversations.org/topics/america_we_want_to_be_founding_aspirations/

To register, visit: www.eventbrite.com/e/living-room-conversation-tickets-65269897019

Join Sandy and Jenny and our PPB readers to learn about the best new books to fall into with this Autumn!  

$5/person

Call the store and let us know you can come, (630) 765-7455.

Talking About Their Generation: Elder Wisdom, Inspiration and Humor

For the second event in the Elder Wisdom series, I can’t wait for you to meet Robert Weisz. So here’s how these events come about – Robert and wife Bonnie came into the store and we began talking about citizens choosing to help–or not–when they witness a skirmish of some sort. Here is where my husband would query “how on earth were you selling a book one moment and then talking about anonymous, random involvement the next?” The answer is I have NO idea why, I’ve been trying to re-wind my mind to what on EARTH got us going but the important thing is: 

Isn’t that a conversation you’d want to be a part of? I KNOW. I love my job.   

Anyway – so anonymous involvement, or citizen willingness to step in. Bonnie offered that Bob was reluctant to engage because he was raised in a communist country and taught to keep his eyes down and thoughts to himself.  OOH so interesting! You know the rest, I could never let that tidbit/trove go unmined, and so I curioused my way into his story and a while later invited him to take part in our Elder Wisdom series. And now I’m inviting you to hear it. Gosh, don’t miss it.   

Bob was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1947 to Jewish parents. His mother survived the Holocaust in many ways, but first - by spotting a filthy ditch to throw herself into rather than continue on with the Nazi’s forced march of her Jewish neighbors. This was Fall, 1944 and by this time it was common knowledge where they were being taken and why. His father was forced to labor for the German-Hungarian army for three years, from 1942 until he finally escaped his last camp, on the Russian front - in 1945. 

After the war the Weisz family remained in Hungary and Bob’s early years were spent under Russian and communist domination. He remembers Budapest as a beautiful capital city but one “gray in look and feel.” Bob really remembers his mother telling him when he came home from the regime’s elementary school, “forget everything they taught you today, except the math.” A Hungarian revolt in 1956 failed to oust the Russians but the Weisz family escaped to the United States. 

Bob’s story of his life and immigrant experience will fascinate you – for one thing – he DID remember the math: he is now retired after a 31-year career as a computer programmer and executive in telecommunications.  

SOLD OUT

If you happen to know a fascinating elder that might want to talk to me in front of a small audience, please contact me. Series will resume in the Fall, read@prairiepathbooks.com.

Free! Milk & Cookies store time. Bring a friend!

Prison Saved My Life: I Recommend It For Everyone

Have you ever been at the end of your rope? 

Have you ever felt the bottom fall out of your life?

Have you ever felt completely and utterly hopeless?

Have you ever felt rejected by this world–sometimes even by the very people who are supposed to love you?

Have you ever done something so horrible that the biggest punishment there seems to be is simply having to live with the knowledge that
you did it?

Have you ever wondered what’s the point of this confusing and often painful life?

If you answered yes to any of these, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. So did Louis Dooley. This is his story. It will resonate with you, make you uncomfortable, shock you, make you laugh and cry, but in the end it will give you hope.

Free!
Call the store to say you can come, (630) 765-7455!

Thinking in Pictures and Other Reports From My Life With Autism
by Temple Grandin
Whenever Jenny and I hear folks saying "I cannot even imagine that ..." we as readers know that actually you can begin to understand almost anything, especially if an amazing storyteller takes you by the hand along her way. Last winter I began to sort of understand cannabalism after reading Nathanial Philbrick's "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex."  You guys, I'm not kidding—Philbrick is so good he took me there. So, the New York Times published their 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years,* and that got me and Jen noodling:  Should we do a Morning Memoir book club, but only with Manageable-in-Length Memoirs (meaning with one exception only 200-ish pages), all by women from diverse backgrounds written over the last five decades?  

We said "OK!" to each other and now we can't wait to imagine lives different from our own in some ways, but looking for connection and common ground at every turn.  Come on along and imagine with us.

Our first selection is by Temple Grandin, Ph.D., a gifted animal scientist who has designed one third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. She also lectures widely on autism because she is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us. In this unprecedented book, Grandin writes from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person. She tells us how she managed to breach the boundaries of autism to function in the outside world. What emerges is the document of an extraordinary human being, one who gracefully bridges the gulf between her condition and our own while shedding light on our common identity.

*The New York Times’s book critics select the most outstanding memoirs published since 1969.

Please RSVP as we will make treats, and please call to order these paperbook books from your old buddy, Prairie Path Books!

Free!
Call the store to say you can come, (630) 765-7455!

Free! Milk & Cookies store time. Bring a friend!

All are invited to join this book club. We meet from 1:30-3:00 the first Sunday of every month!

September 8
The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone
255 Town Square Mall, Wheaton, IL 60189

Free!

Non Fiction Fans!! 
A new monthly non fiction book club will meet at PPB 261 on the first Thursdays of the month.  

Ann and Steph will lead discussions on a variety of reads within the genre, including history, biography, current events, memoirs and science and nature. We are excited to offer this new series.

Free! Call the store to say you can come, (630) 765-7455.

From Alexander von Humboldt to Charles and Anne Lindbergh, these are stories of people of great vision and daring whose achievements continue to inspire us today, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough.

The bestselling author of Truman and John Adams, David McCullough has written profiles of exceptional men and women past and present who have not only shaped the course of history or changed how we see the world but whose stories express much that is timeless about the human condition.

Here are Alexander von Humboldt, whose epic explorations of South America surpassed the Lewis and Clark expedition; Harriet Beecher Stowe, “the little woman who made the big war”; Frederic Remington; the extraordinary Louis Agassiz of Harvard; Charles and Anne Lindbergh, and their fellow long-distance pilots Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Beryl Markham; Harry Caudill, the Kentucky lawyer who awakened the nation to the tragedy of Appalachia; and David Plowden, a present-day photographer of vanishing America.

Different as they are from each other, McCullough’s subjects have in common a rare vitality and sense of purpose. These are brave companions: to each other, to David McCullough, and to the reader, for with rare storytelling ability McCullough brings us into the times they knew and their very uncommon lives.

This book club will reads and discusses fiction books under 200 pages that present some great moral dilemmas, plot twists, memorable characters and ideas that just beg for discussion.  Though they look deceptively short and simple, they will WOW you with the depth of their meaning and the precision of their language.  Even if you are already in a book club, you could squeeze this one in.  Meetings will last just one hour, so discussion will be as intense as the reading.