Presentation & Signing: Michael Liska and Valerie Stivers

Presentation and Signing with authors Michael Robert Liska and Valerie Sivers!

The $29.95 event ticket reserves your seat and includes a copy of Alice, or The Wild Girl by Michael Robert Liska

The $26 event ticket reserves your seat and includes a copy of The Writer's Table by Valerie Stivers

The $5 ticket reserves your seat; you will receive a $5 coupon upon arrival at the store for a purchase that night!

Walk-ins to this event are welcome but space is limited.

Hope to see you in the shop!

ABOUT THE BOOKS:

Alice, or The Wild Girl by Michael Robert Liska

In 1856, Lieutenant Henry Aaron Bird makes a startling discovery: a speechless, shipwrecked young girl, living a feral existence on a remote Pacific island. When he exhibits her as a “wild girl” in the chaotic sprawl of early San Francisco, this golden-haired child without a past will be seen by the populace as a scientific curiosity, a titillating image of female savagery, or, for many, a symbol of the unspoiled body of that young country. For Bird, she is a fragile ward in need of protection, whom he keeps drugged and confined when not using her to further his reputation. But Alice will rebel against Bird’s control, and set herself adrift once more in the surreal landscape of 19th century America—a place no less foreign to her than her own troubled past—where she’ll discover that the freedom she desires may have always been an illusion.Alice, or The Wild Girl takes the reader on a voyage from French Polynesia to the terminus of the American frontier, as it charts the unlikely bond that develops between an aging US naval commander and the lost, damaged girl he attempts to “civilize” as a way of alleviating his own loneliness and ennui. Steeped in period detail and layered with fascinating thematic threads, Michael Robert Liska’s bold tale examines existential questions about the nature of history, time, and identity, in a vanished America that is at once alien and strikingly like our own.

The Writer's Table by Valerie Stivers

A celebration of food and creativity, The Writer’s Table invites you to feast upon the dishes that fuelled great writing.Did you know that Laurie Colwin washed dishes in the bath, Honoré de Balzac was the founder of food in fiction, and Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton once enjoyed a three-martini lunch? The Writer’s Table brings together 50 favourite recipes from the world’s most beloved authors, offering a delicious glimpse into their kitchen rituals.Each recipe is paired with an introduction to the author and dish, alongside clear instructions and modern ingredients. Some draw from the historical record, others from cookbooks written by the writer, as well as some contemporary recreations of dishes from their work. With beautiful illustrations and gems of knowledge throughout, the book is a treat for the eyes as well as the table.Featured writers and recipes include: Jane Austen’s White Soup, Ernest Hemingway’s Fried Trout, Joan Didion’s Parsley Salad, Franz Kafka’s Hard Pretzels with Caraway Seeds and Emily Dickinson’s Coconut Cake.Irresistibly browsable and full of charm, The Writer’s Table will bring you closer to the writers you love.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Michael Robert Liska is a fiction writer and co-host of the lowbrow Shakespeare podcast What Ho…A Rat!! His work has appeared on Hobart and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, as well as in Epoch, The End, and Forever Magazine. His story “The Child Star” appeared in Heresy Press’ inaugural anthology Nothing Sacred: Outspoken Voices in Contemporary Fiction.

Valerie Stivers is the literary columnist for UnHerd, and hostess of a popular cooking-from-literature dinner salon series in New York City. She is the co-host of The Fretful Porpentine: Music & Books podcast, and previously wrote the “Eat Your Words” column for The Paris Review, in which she developed recipes and cooked from classic novels. She now cooks from Catholic literature for Our Sunday Visitor Magazine, and writes frequently about books for publications such as Compact and First Things. She can be found on Substack as The Writer’s Table, on Instagram @ivalleria and on X @valerie_reads.

Host or Publisher Asbury Book Cooperative