Blog

  • Matthew Vollmer, Kevin Moffett and Peter Orner read

    Join us for an evening of readings featuring Matthew Vollmer, Kevin Moffett and Peter Orner, This will be a release event for Vollmer’s new collection, Future Missionaries of America (MacadamCage), and McSweeney’s Issue 30.

    About the performers:

    Kevin Moffett was born and raised in Daytona Beach, Florida. His collection of stories, Permanent Visitors, won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award and was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. His stories and essays have appeared in McSweeney’s, Tin House, A Public Space, Harvard Review, The Believer, The Chicago Tribune, and Best American Short Stories 2006. He has received the Nelson Algren Award in Short Fiction, the Pushcart Prize, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction Writing.

    Matthew Vollmer’s work has appeared in Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Epoch, Tin House, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, and New Letters. His first collection of stories, Future Missionaries of America, will be published in January by MacadamCage.

    Peter Orner is the author of the novel, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, and the story collection, Esther Stories, Finalist for the Pen Hemingway Award. He recently edited a collection of non-fiction, Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives, published in 2008 by Voice of Witness/ McSweeney’s. Orner’s short fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares and twice been a recipient of the Pushcart Prize. In 2006, Orner was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship. Born in Chicago, he currently lives in San Francisco.

  • New Stuff Jan 10th 2009

    Well we are well into 2009 and here is your first big new stuff update of the new year. I let a few weeks pile up since with the holidays not much was coming in (more stuff was going out!). Also don’t forget we have local comic artist Lilli Carré signing her new book The Lagoon here on Thursday Jan 15th! So stop in.

    (more…)

  • The Unlympic Spelling Bee at Quimby’s!

    Join us for an evening of vocabulary gymnastics! The Spelling Bee, the ultimate grade-school competition of intellectual prowess and rote memorization, comes to Quimby’s Bookstore for one night only.

    The Official Unlympics Spelling Competition will be held February 7 at 7 p.m. Attendance is free and open to the public, but potential competitors wanting to relive childhood glory days in front of an adoring, live bookstore audience must sign up in advance by replying to the blog entry at: http://tinyurl.com/unlympic-spelling-bee with a full name and email address. The spelling competition will be limited to 50 individuals and competitors will be charged a $5.00 entrance fee.

    About The Unlympics:

    The Unlympics is a month-long sporting event series intended to encourage active dialogue—extremely active dialogue—around the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid. The Unlympics looks at highly organized, internationally recognized, massively marketed, thoroughly branded, and extremely expensive sporting events not from a pro or con standpoint, but from a questioning standpoint.

    Quimby’s Bookstore is proud to be the official bookstore and intellectual sponsor of the 2009 Winter Unlympic Games.

    http://tinyurl.com/unlympics-chicago
    http://tinyurl.com/unlympic-events-schedule
    http://tinyurl.com/unlympic-spelling-bee

  • Are you into this?

    A few of our customers have asked us if there’s any chance we might start a book club. So this is an inquiry to see if that’s something that you’d be interested in, Dear Readers. So! If you are interested, please answer the following questions in an e-mail (cut’n’paste it, yo!) to us at info at quimbys dot com :

    Is this a good idea? Lame idea? Only do it if it’s not so feel-good-cheesy-support-groupish or classroomy?

    What types of books would you want to read? Fiction? Zine-related books, zines themselves, essays, political, graphic novels? Etc.?

    How often would you want to meet? Here? Or somewhere else? What day or night of the week would you want it on? And for how long should it meet? How many people do you feel like should there be as a minimum for it to be fun, effective, etc. so that you don’t feel like you’re the only person at the party?

    How do you want it structured? Free form? Someone mediating it? Or like, no format, just see how it plays out?

    What things would be necessary for it to be worth doing or for you to participate?

    What else do you want to tell us about this? Comments? Anyone? Anyone? Is anybody out there? Hello? Is this thing on? (tap tap) Testing testing, can I get some more vocals on the monitor?

  • Props to the Chicago Decider for featuring us!

    It’s true! Steve Heisler conducted a silly interview with a Quimby’s staff member written up on the Onion-related website, chicago.decider.com, in their Defend Your Taste section here. And we talked about one of our favorite best-sellers: Roy Orbison in Clingfilm, which you can purchase here!

  • Animation, Art and More with Jo Dery

    Saturday January 3rd 7PM

    Join us for an evening of storytelling! Come see short animations, hear live radio plays, check out zines and books from the Ocean State, lil’ Rhody! Jo Dery will show several short animated films and Walker Mettling will read and perform stories and radio plays from the new audio issue of his zine “The Sparkle.” Get your hands on the recently published book by Jo Dery, titled Quietly Sure – Like the Keeper of a Great Secret (Little Otsu, publisher).

    Click the Link for a sneak “Peek” of Jo’s Animation

    peekstrailer.mov

    I am so glad Jo could stop by the store and help us kick off 2009 with this great event. Don’t miss out!

  • Trubble Club Puts 'em on the Glass

    Its been so holidaze! around here we forgot to tell everyone how awesome our new window display is! Done by the collective of Chicago comic artists Trubble Club, it has a little bit of something for every one: food as people, gore, animals with fire arms.

    Trubble Club Vol 1 & Vol 2 available now

    And be sure to check the Trubble Club Blog for more collaborative comic madness

  • Ice Box Press at Quimby’s!

    Ice Box Press will hold a reading and book signing to celebrate the release of their inaugural chapbook, These Bones, Live! by Ryan Pendell. Joining Ryan Pendall for the reading will be Tara Walker and Erin Messer with a special sneak preview from their up coming chapbooks. Ice Box Press is housed at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

    About the Performers:

    Ryan Pendell’s poetry employs lyrical and melodic abandon, combining elements of childhood daydreams and philosophical discourse. Pendell is the founder and co-editor of Lark(!) Magazine (www.larkmag.com).

    Tara G. Walker is a poet fascinated by word games and the visual possibilities of language, currently finishing her MFA in writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She works as a teaching artist with Urban Gateways and is the creator of the luckywhale jewelry line, available online at etsy.com.

    E.C. Messer is a California native, like manzanita trees and purple sage.  She was born on a very rainy Sunday.  UCLA made her a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre…and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is almost done making her a Master of Fine Arts in Writing.  She’s pretty sure both schools will either be very pleased or very sorry they did so.  Her parents’ bizarre sense of humor is probably the great gift of her life.  She suspects that you are delicious and would be glad to know you.