Best-selling memoirist/essayist and frequent This American Life contributor David Sedaris has a new book, When You Are Engulfed In Flames (out today), and is visiting Chicago next week for a pair of appearances. First is an appearance at Border's in Evanston on Wednesday, June 11 where he'll be reading from and signing the new book. The store will begin passing out free wristbands for the signing portion of the event at 2 p.m. the day......

Jack Davis, the guy who originally designed the Chief Illiniwek logo, wants to get ownership of the logo back. Tyndale House Publishers, an IL-based Christian publisher, will be publishing the memoirs of Indianapolis Colts Coach Tony Dungy, entitled Quiet Strength. As a reward for getting together the sale of the Trib to Sam Zell, a few dozen top execs will split a $6.5 million bonus. The Lincoln museum is offering free workshops for teachers......

Ask and ye shall receive, commenters; today is the day that you requested. Today we push aside big book fairs and corporations and their easy-to-buy books. Today we shun the traffickers of false memoirs and mammoth book advances. Today we say, WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ BORDERS! We'll begin with the Reader Book Swap. Tonight, at the Hideout, from 5:30PM-8:30PM, you can bring as many as 15 used books, and exchange them for 15 other......

Well, we were all ready to sit down and get started on our new book. We had our pens and paper, character studies, research all done, we even picked out special “book writing music”, and then we thought, eh … no, we might get sued. Seems like the publishing world has moved on from condemning people for writing false memoirs, to suing other people for what they wrote. Not only is Dan Brown being sued......

Biographies adapted for the stage are rarely subject to the same scrutiny as literary bios or memoirs. It’s hard to imagine any playwright getting the James Frey treatment, discredited on national television and the blogosphere for bending the truth. And why should they? We go to the theater to understand the world but also to enjoy ourselves and find some degree of escape. To visit (or revisit) a fascinating life set to song can be......

With all the hullaballoo over James Frey’s memoirs, Chicagoist senses a mighty duel brewing between fiction and non-fiction, and wants to get in on it. We’re choosing our allegiance by deciding between two literary events this week, one a fiction reading by Julian Barnes, the other a non-fiction reading and discussion by Christina Page that both take place at 6 pm this Monday. English writer Julian Barnes will read from his novel, Arthur and George,......

With the exception of The 40 Year Old Virgin getting shut out of all major categories,* there were few surprises when the Oscar nominations were announced this morning. The full list is up at Oscar.com. Brokeback Mountain picked up eight nominations; Crash and Good Night and Good Luck snagged six; Capote and Munich picked up five, while Syriana and History of Violence garnered two each. In technical categories, Memoirs of a Geisha scored six nominations,......