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The people of Bulgaria, descendants of a civilization that stretches back to the seventh century, spend their lives struggling with the same concerns as the people of Chicago: economic survival, loneliness, self-respect, sex and the need for warmth both emotional and physical.

In her debut collection, “Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories,” author Cynthia Morrison Phoel presents us with the residents of a broke-down housing block in the fictitious, post-communist town of Old Mountain. Mothers who are both careworn and caring, fathers defeated, drunken or loving, and sons and daughters torn between devotion and independence populate these six linked stories. The characters’ interior lives as well as the complex relationships and casual encounters that shape the endurance contest that is their daily fare are delicately drawn with humor, insight and empathy, in beautifully crafted prose. (Micki Leventhal)

Phoel reads from “Cold Snap” as part of Come Home Chicago, September 12 at The Underground Wonder Bar, 10 East Walton, (312)266-7761, at 6pm. Free. (21 & up) and September 13 at The Book Stall, 811 Elm, Winnetka (847)446-8880, at 7pm. Free.

Spellcheck can lead to some pretty embarrassing typos… You can still create a valid word, but it’s certainly not the one you were looking for,” says Jeff Deck. Try leaving the “i” out of “recital,” or the “l” out of “public,” he says. “We definitely need to then take a step back from our text and take the time to check over this the old-fashioned way.” Deck and his co-conspirator Benjamin Herson traveled the country correcting typos and blogging about their experiences, making both friends and enemies along the way. They’ve been called grammar vigilantes, but they say they’re not—they just want to live in a proofread world. They’ll be reading from their book documenting their journey, which, says Deck, does have one typo. He won’t say what it is, but gives a hint: it’s in a footnote. (Ella Christoph)

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson read from their book, “The Great Typo Hunt,” August 30 at 7pm at Borders, 2817 North Clark.

Though Daniel Clowes soared to indie-culture celebritydom when his stories “Ghost World” and “Art School Confidential” made the journey from regular installments in his ongoing comic book, “Eightball,” to the movie screen, he’s never actually crafted a fully realized graphic novel without serialization before his latest, “Wilson.” Perhaps it’s not surprising, given that, that this native Hyde Parker (now living in Oakland) structures the story of a lovable misanthrope, who suffers from a toxic mix of yearning to make connections in his lonely life with a tourettic tendency to blurt out uncomfortable truths, as an episodic narrative of one-page comics. It’s like they’re drawn for the Sunday funnies of a better world’s newspaper, one in which real people age and progess through a life never quite as good as it should be or as bad as it could be. Wilson’s a handsomely crafted book, in Clowes’ distinguished graphic signature, with interspersed stylistic interruptions that make for some interesting interpretation, both visually and narratively. Chicago makes a big cameo as well, when Wilson’s father takes ill, a parallel narrative to Clowes’ own journey home a couple years back, when he sat bedside as his father died of cancer. Given the accomplishment of “Wilson,” this weekend’s return should mark a significantly happier homecoming. (Brian Hieggelke)

Daniel Clowes appears at Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 West North, (773)342-0910, June 12 at 7pm, and again on June 13, in conversation with Newcity’s Ray Pride, at the Printers Row Lit Fest, Center Stage, at 11am.

Stop Smiling may have stopped publishing a magazine in favor of books but, if their plans for their debut release are any indication, they won’t let the rarefied airs of book publishing force them to dial down their promotional festivities. And an unusual debut it is, in which music scribe Dave Tompkins (The Wire, Vibe, Village Voice, The Believer) crafts “How to Wreck a Nice Beach—The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop: The Machine Speaks” which is exactly what its title promises, a loose history of a once-top-secret tool for wartime communication and later an over-the-top gadget for special music effects. How often do you get Adolf Hitler and Fab Five Freddy into the same conversation? Fortunately, Tompkins is a wordsmith with ample verve and rapier wit. He augments the potentially dry first half of the book, the science and war stuff, with a nice selection of old photographs of bulky machines and the serious-looking folks who manned them, the kind of pictures that get used in ironic advertising mashups nowadays, Read the rest of this entry »

Car-sharing companies, such as Chicago’s I-Go, by nature are fairly forward thinking. It makes sense, then, that Random House would ask I-GO to partner up for their new audiobook promotion. “What they wanted, initially, was if we could put something on our web site,” says I-GO representative Craig Keller. “I thought it could be a little more than that.” Now, I-GO is in the process of supplying all of their rental cars with sampler CDs filled with excerpts of Random House book releases. “The average trip is maybe a couple hours. Even within that short period of time they could be listening to an audiobook,” says Keller. Along with the sampler CDs, I-GO members will be able to download select Random House audiobooks for free and receive discounts on most other titles. To help jump-start the promotion, I-GO and local author Elizabeth Berg will be hosting an event at the Barnes & Noble at DePaul University on Wednesday, April 28 at 7:30pm. Berg will be reading from her newest release, “The Last Time I Saw You,” and members from I-GO will be on hand to talk about the promotion. “It’s going to be an ongoing thing, and I hope it develops,” says Keller. “It’s a different way to push reading.” (Peter Cavanaugh)

If Chicago’s Featherproof Books is like that pirate radio station you don’t want your parents to hear you listening to, their latest book—Christian TeBordo’s “The Awful Possibilities”—is that song you heard last night that is at once exciting and provocative yet dark and uncomfortable enough that you have to curb your immediate desire to tell the first person you see. “I never really set out to write a collection,” says TeBordo. “So there’s about ten years of stories in there.” The book, which was officially released earlier this month, is another physical benchmark from the young guys at Featherproof. “There’s nothing that I hate more than when you read a book and you close it and the cover is not the book you just read,” says Zach Dodson, who is responsible for the designs and illustrations at Featherproof. “The Awful Possibilities” is a dark book, and throughout you see these black goo-monsters taking over the pages. “I was worried about it when I started working with them,” says TeBordo about the design of the book. “I didn’t know how to communicate what I wanted.” Dodson, however, brings a solid resume to the table and assuages concerns pretty easily. “I ask them what the book looks like in their brain,” says Dodson about his process. Hence the goo-monsters taking over, “the same way darkness in his [TeBordo’s] stories just takes control, takes over.” (Peter Cavanaugh)

Christian TeBordo reads at the Whistler, 2421 N. Milwaukee, (773)227-3530, April 26, 8pm. The night’s lineup includes Chicago’s own Lindsay Hunter, Tim Kinsella, and Adam Levin along with Jeff Parker and DJs Eric Marsh and Baby Sloth.

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Opium Magazine presents its fifth Chicago Literary Death Match at Hideout on this April Fools Day, featuring a panel of three judges presiding over four readers who read their work to the death, so to speak. Featherproof Books’ Zach Dodson, stand-up comic Cameron Esposito and Trap Door Theatre’s Tiffany Joy Ross are our judges for the evening, while the readers are The Encyclopedia Show’s Robbie Q. Telfer, Uncalled-for Readings’ Tim Jones-Yelvington, Green Lantern’s Caroline Picard and Kevin Leahy. Opium’s Todd Zuniga and Comedy Central blogger Dennis DiClaudio host the activities. A night of literary debauchery, Literary Death Match leaves some blood on the floor. It being April Fools and all, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few tricks were in store. (Tom Lynch)

April 1 at Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, (773)227-4433, at 8:30pm. $5-$8.

“Through the whole process, I was getting rejected by agents and publishers,” says Stephen Markley, describing his attempts at getting his first novel published. “It was a lot of ‘We don’t think this can work’.” Then, Markley went “meta-fiction” and wrote “Publish This Book,” a detailing of the trials of trying to get a novel published. “It’s about finding an agent, writing a book,” says Markley. “It’s also a memoir about being out of college and finding out what the next step is.” This Friday, Markley will read from “Publish This Book” at the Book Cellar. While the idea of the actual text is often times boggling—“That kind of fight to shape it [the story], ended up being a big part of the book,” says Markley—there are larger themes at work that he assures will make this a book for readers and writers alike. “It’s definitely something that speaks to people in their twenties,” says Markley. “For people just getting out into the world.” (Peter Cavanaugh)

Stephen Markley reads from “Publish This Book” March 26 at Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln, (773)293-2665, at 7pm. Free.

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You can always count on Columbia College’s Story Week to provide some against-the-grain programming—its annual “Literary Rock ‘n’ Roll” evening, traditionally held at Metro, is usually the highlight of the festival. (Though one could imagine Joyce Carol Oates, this year, would be tough to beat.) Tonight features three authors—”Love & Obstacles” and “The Lazarus Project” scribe Aleksandar Hemon, pretty much the face of Chicago lit these days; Bonnie Jo Campbell, who penned the excellent 2009 short story collection “American Salvage”; and local crime author Marcus Sakey, whose most recent novel, “The Amateurs,” is a sharp, gritty read that you could take down in one sitting. On top of the live words, The Bread and Puppet Theater perform, and Joe Shanahan and Don De Grazia spin. Did I mention it’s free? Yeah, it’s free. (Tom Lynch)

March 18 at Metro, 3730 N. Clark, (773)549-0203, 6pm. Free.

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The 2010 edition of Columbia College’s week-long festival kicks off Sunday and through the next seven days offers an array of readings and discussions with highly acclaimed authors, local and beyond.  At Martyrs’ on Sunday night, Randy Albers, Kim Morris, Sam Weller and more read as part of “2nd Story.” On Monday, literary legend Joyce Carol Oates examines her work as part of two separate discussions at the Harold Washington Library. Later that night, Sheffield’s Beer Garden hosts the “Down and Dirty Grad Reading,” with Jeff Jacobsen, J. Adams Oaks and Alexis Pride. On Tuesday evening at the Harold Washington Library, authors Achy Obejas and Alexandar Hemon discuss “Genres from Afar,” with John Dale and host Patricia Ann McNair. Wednesday afternoon at Harold Washington Library, Joe Meno hosts “Genre Bending—The Faces of Fiction” with Mort Castle, Maggie Estep, David Morrell and Kevin Nance; later that evening at 6pm Sam Weller hosts a similar discussion at the same location. Events continue through Friday, with appearances by Marcus Sakey, Rick Kogan, Sean Chercover, Stephanie Kuehnert and more. More details can be found on Newcity’s lit events page. (Tom Lynch)

Columbia College’s Story Week runs March 14-19 at various venues. The festival’s official website can be found at colum.edu/storyweek.