Small Business Saturday
Celebrate local business in our cozy, holiday-bedecked space. Enjoy homemade treats and the most carefully selected merchandise you’ll find.
Living Room Conversations
Monday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.
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.”
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.livingroomcomversation.eventbrite.com
Santa is coming!
With just the same old smiling face
And for the same old reason
St. Nick will be in our new place
This Merry Christmas Season
When Prairie Path Books opened five years ago, we were lucky to connect with Santa, who understood immediately that private time with children and families was a win/win. Can you imagine? You and your wee ones get a 10 minute private visit with Santa–you can count on it.* So dress up or down, bring your camera and grandma/pa if you wish. The PPB elves will have twinkle-trees and merry wreaths for your photo opportunities. And of course we will host all families with a Christmas party with jolly snacks and beverages.
Call the store to say you can come, (630) 765-7455!
$50/family (including jolly snacks and bevs)
*Gosh in the past five years we’ve learned that:
• we will do all we can to accommodate sick children, but Santa RSVPs are non-refundable
• no reservation is accepted over digital media or phone message, and payment is required upon reservation
• often, if your children are having a “moment” your understanding families before and after your reservation will make a shift. Everyone wants for you your best Santa experience
• a portion of every paid reservation will go to funding Santa visits for local children that need assistance
Katie McElligott author visit and book signing!
The snuggle is real…
Nothing Is Scary With Harry tells the story about a little girl, her blanket, and the value of comfort to provide strength in childhood and beyond.
Katie McElligott is a first-time author and a full-time Creative Director at a Chicago advertising agency. She lives in Oak Park, Illinois with her husband, two small children and a cat named Ramona Quimby.
Jennifer Bell is an illustrator whose work can be found on greeting cards, in magazines and more than a dozen children’s books. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and cranky cat.
Join us for this author event/book signing plus snacks and bevs. Call today to say you can come, (630) 765-7455!
Jenny & Sandy's Holiday Book Review: Champagne & Sleigh Bells
Join Sandy and Jenny and our PPB readers to learn about the best new books to curl up with on snowy evenings!
$5/person
Call the store and let us know you can come, (630) 765-7455.
Manageable Memoirs Bookclub: Conundrum: From James to Jan—An Extraordinary Personal Narrative of Transsexualism
Conundrum: From James to Jan—An Extraordinary Personal Narrative of Transsexualism
by Jan Morris
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.
*The New York Times’s book critics select the most outstanding memoirs published since 1969.
The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man’s man.
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!
Nonfiction Bookclub: Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams
A monthly nonfiction bookclub meets 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.
This is the life of Abigail Adams, wife of patriot John Adams, who became the most influential woman in Revolutionary America. Rich with excerpts from her personal letters, Dearest Friend captures the public and private sides of this fascinating woman, who was both an advocate of slave emancipation and a burgeoning feminist, urging her husband to “Remember the Ladies” as he framed the laws of their new country.
John and Abigail Adams married for love. While John traveled in America and abroad to help forge a new nation, Abigail remained at home, raising four children, managing their estate, and writing letters to her beloved husband. Chronicling their remarkable fifty-four-year marriage, her blossoming feminism, her battles with loneliness, and her friendships with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Dearest Friend paints a portrait of Abigail Adams as an intelligent, resourceful, and outspoken woman.
Skinny Books, Fat Content Club: White Houses
The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
Wednesday, October 2, 6:30–7:30 p.m.
For readers of The Paris Wife and The Swans of Fifth Avenue comes a “sensuous, captivating account of a forbidden affair between two women” (People)—Eleanor Roosevelt and “first friend” Lorena Hickok.
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.
Free!
Call the store to say you can come, (630) 765-7455!
The GardenWorks Project Food Readers Club: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
The mission of The GardenWorks Project is to promote organic suburban agriculture to improve the well-being of our community, the environment, and those facing food insecurity. They empower, educate, and support all food growers in their efforts to nourish their families and neighbors in need.
All are invited to our GardenWorks Project Book Club. In November, they will consider “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” by Barbara Kingsolver.
To learn more about GardenWorks Project, visit www.gardenworksproject.org.
A Good Yarn Bookclub: The Story of Arthur Truluv
All are invited to join this book club. We meet from 1:30-3:00 the first Sunday of every month!
Free!
Sunday, November 3
“I dare you to read this novel and not fall in love with Arthur Truluv. His story will make you laugh and cry, and will show you a love that never ends, and what it means to be truly human.”—Fannie Flagg
For the past six months, Arthur Moses’s days have looked the same: He tends to his rose garden and to Gordon, his cat, then rides the bus to the cemetery to visit his beloved late wife for lunch. The last thing Arthur would imagine is for one unlikely encounter to utterly transform his life.
Eighteen-year-old Maddy Harris is an introspective girl who visits the cemetery to escape the other kids at school. One afternoon she joins Arthur—a gesture that begins a surprising friendship between two lonely souls. Moved by Arthur’s kindness and devotion, Maddy gives him the nickname “Truluv.” As Arthur’s neighbor Lucille moves into their orbit, the unlikely trio band together and, through heartache and hardships, help one another rediscover their own potential to start anew.
Wonderfully written and full of profound observations about life, The Story of Arthur Truluv is a beautiful and moving novel of compassion in the face of loss, of the small acts that turn friends into family, and of the possibilities to achieve happiness at any age.