The 60th annual Books and Coffee, which is free and open to the public, will take place on the West Lafayette campus in Stewart Center, Rooms 302/306. The event begins at 4 p.m. when tea, coffee and hot cocoa are available. The talks by faculty members begin at 4:30 p.m., and the event concludes at 5 p.m. with a free drawing for prizes, including books and sweatshirts donated by local merchants.

The 2010 discussions will include:

• Feb. 4. Barbara Dixon, associate dean for the College of Liberal Arts, will talk about Bich Minh Nguyen’s “Stealing Buddha’s Dinner.” The book was selected for Purdue’s first Common Reading program, and a copy of the book was given to each incoming freshman. After the talk, author Bich Nguyen, also a Purdue faculty member, will be available to sign her recently released “Short Girls.” Copies will be available to purchase through Von’s Bookstore.
• Feb. 11. Donald Platt, poet and professor of English, will talk about Annie Proulx’s most recent book “Fine Just the Way It Is, Wyoming Stories 3.” Proulx, also author of the short story that inspired the film “Brokeback Mountain,” will speak at the Purdue’s Literary Awards event on April 22. An additional prize to this week’s raffle will be a copy of the book signed by author Annie Proulx.
• Feb. 18. George Bodner, A. Kelly Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, will talk about Daniel Wallace’s “Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician.”
• Feb. 25. Rick Johnson-Sheehan, professor of English, will talk about Barack Obama’s “Dreams from My Father,” selected by popular e-vote by the Student English Association and Purdue students.

Books and Coffee is sponsored by the Purdue Student Union Board and the Department of English. More information is available on the Book and Coffee series at http://www.cla.purdue.edu/English/bookscoffee/

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News via Lafayette Indiana Online

60th annual Books and Coffee focuses on coming of age in America

Now the novel is soaring to even greater heights, and its trade paperback edition is currently in first place in the Classics category on Amazon.com’s best-seller list for sales in the United States. The 50th anniversary mass-market paperback edition of Atlas Shrugged ranks as #2 and the trade paperback Centennial edition ranks as #3. For several weeks Atlas Shrugged has been holding steady in the top 10 best-sellers in the broader United States Literature and Fiction category, and as of the writing of this release, different editions of the novel stand at #3, #5 and #6 in Amazon’s ranking.

In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, explained the parallels between Atlas Shrugged and today’s events.

Atlas Shrugged tells the story of the US economy crumbling under the weight of government interventions and regulations.

“In Atlas Shrugged, Rand tells the story of the U.S. economy crumbling under the weight of crushing government interventions and regulations. Meanwhile, blaming greed and the free market, Washington responds with more controls that only deepen the crisis. Sound familiar?”

Brook also stressed the importance today of the book’s often overlooked message that capitalism cannot be properly defended without morally defending profit and self-interest: “…only an ethic of rational selfishness can justify the pursuit of profit that is the basis of capitalism — and that as long as self-interest is tainted by moral suspicion, the profit motive will continue to take the rap for every imaginable (or imagined) social ill and economic disaster. Just look how our present crisis has been attributed to the free market instead of government intervention — and how proposed solutions inevitably involve yet more government intervention to rein in the pursuit of self-interest.”

Those interested in understanding the morality of capitalism can learn more in Ayn Rand’s
The Virtue of Selfishness — which, at #12 in the Classics category, is setting records of its own.

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• 60th annual Books and Coffee focuses on coming of age in America
• Exhibit opening and author visit at Frankfort Public Library, Dec 6
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News via Lafayette Indiana Online

‘Atlas Shrugged’ Tops Amazon Bestseller List