Atlanta Intown. (Sandy Springs, GA) 1998-current, July 01, 2019, Image 44
The Studio
Arts & Culture
Summer Reading
New books by Atlanta authors perfect for poolside reading
By Collin Kelley & Joe Earle
Smile AWhile
Kyle Brooks
Better known by his nom de plume,
BlackCatTips, the painter and muralist has
created his first book, which includes many
of his familiar smiling faces alongside poems
about things you can do to smile and be
happy. While it looks like a children’s book,
Brooks said “Smile A While” is for all ages.
The artist was reluctant to release a book,
but after friend and marketing whiz Laura
Thompson gave him a small Andy Warhol
art book along with a business plan to get
the book into the world, Brooks spent a year
working on the paintings and verses. The
book will debut at a reading and signing on
Aug. 8 from 10 a.m. to noon at The Grove
at Colony Square in Midtown. To order the
book and find out about more events, visit
blackcattips. com.
We Are
All Good
People
Here
Susan Rebecca White
Two life-long friends
reconnect when
their daughters are
endangered by secrets
from their mothers’
radical college days.
Ummarriageable
Soniah Kamal
A thought-provoking
retelling of Jane
Austen’s “Pride and
Prejudice” in class-
obsessed, modern-day
Pakistan.
The
Favorite
The Magnetic Girl
Jessica Handler
Memoirist Jessica Handler and her mother shared an interest in stories of remarkable women, so years ago, when
Handler’s mother came across an article about Lulu Hurst, she emailed a copy to her daughter. The article was
titled “The Feats of the Magnetic Girl Explained.” That article would inspire Handler’s debut novel, a fictionalized
account of Hurst’s days as vaudeville act and how she supposedly used magnetism in her body to lift people seated in
parlor chairs or to knock grown men across the stage. Hurst later admitted in her own autobiography that she was a
charlatan and her powers were actually tricks and stagecraft. For her version of Lulu’s story, Handler invented a sick
younger brother, who hopes Hurst’s magnetic powers might heal him, and explores her relationship with her
who enjoy the benefits of their daughter’s growing celebrity. Handler says she spent about a decade working on the
novel and even tried to perform some of Hurst’s “magnetic tests” herself, but never fully mastered them. “The chair
thing, I can’t figure,” she said.
44 July 2019 | HD
A woman returns
to her small South
Carolina hometown
to care for her father
diagnosed with
Alzheimer’s and
discovers his secret past.
ntalNtownPaper.com
None of
the Above
Shani Robinson
and Anna Simonton
Robinson, one of the teachers
caught up in the Atlanta
Public Schools
cheating
scandal, and
journalist
Simonton
explore the
racial and
economic
disparities
that brought
about the
The Care and
Feeding of
Ravenously Hungry
Girls
Anissa Gray
The lives of
three sisters
are upended
when one of
them is sent
to prison for
defrauding
the town
they live in.
Deaf Republic
Ilya Kaminsky
The new director of Poetry at Tech,
Kaminsky’s
tour-
de-force
collection
of poems
weaves a
narrative of
a town in
a war-torn
country
whose
populace
goes deaf in
protest and
resistance
againt the
occupiers.