JOHN COY: Award-winning Minnesota writer hosts an interactive story time reading from his new children’s picture book, “The Secret of Fall,” which invites young readers to explore how and why leaves change color as well as learning something about themselves and their own beauty. Coy is the author of young adult novels, a middle-grade series and fiction and nonfiction picture books. 10:30 a.
m. Thursday, Aug. 1, Red Balloon Bookshop, 891 Grand Ave.
, St. Paul. Free, registration requested at: redballoonbookshop.
com/Storytimes . CARL ELLIOTT: Professor in the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics discusses his new book, “The Occasional Human Sacrifice.” Subtitled “Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No,” this is an examination of six cases of medical malpractice beginning with the infamous Tuskegee experiment on untreated syphilis that lasted for 30 years, through the lethal synthetic trachea transplants in Sweden, and an experiment involving withholding treatment from women with cancer.
His central questions are whether patients gave full consent. Woven into the narrative are Elliott’s personal experiences, including his uneasy feelings in medical school about being ordered to do procedures for which he was not fully prepared, such as a painful bone marrow biopsy and other invasive procedures. He thought it wrong that medical students were allowed to do pelvic exams on a sedated woman, and that a patient was told to sign a permission form while still groggy from surgery.
“Medical training was turning me into a terrible human being,” he writes. Going beyond writing about unethical procedures, the author interviewed whistleblowers who tried to bring administrations’ attention to alarming practices. He fought for an investigation into the suicide of a man in a drug study at the University of Minnesota, a years-long story that made headlines in this state and beyond.
But wherever the experiments occurred, whistleblowers were met with resistance from entrenched older doctors, administrators and most peers. Elliott examines the bureaucratic structures of hospitals that will go to any lengths to protect their researchers and their reputations, the egos of doctors who think they are never wrong, and the reasons for the whistleblowers’ continuation of their fights for justice and what it did to their lives. Elliott is the author of “White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine” and “Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream.
” His work has appeared in national publications, including Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker and Mother Jones. In conversation with award-winning Minnesota author Julie Schumacher. 7 pm.
Tuesday, July 30, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls.
Free, registration required: magersandquinn.com . CHRISTOPHER LINCOLN: Acclaimed author of the Billy Bones series introduces his debut graphic novel, “The Night Librarian,” in which two siblings, a mysterious Night Librarian and a cast of book characters try to save the New York Public Library.
Page and Turner bring their dad’s rare and valuable edition of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” to the museum to have it appraised and it disappears. Trying to find the book, they uncover a world they’ve never known. “The Night Librarian” earned starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus.
Lincoln’s dream for years was to write a graphic novel full of magic and intrigue and now, at 71 years old, he has done it. 6 p.m.
Tuesday, July 30, Red Balloon Bookshop, 891 Grand Ave., St. Paul.
Free, but seating is limited and reservations required at: Go to redballoonbookshop/event . SARAH NELSON: Minnesotan signs copies of her new children’s books “Firefly Galaxy” and “A Bumpy History of the Bicycle in America.” 10:30 a.
m. Friday, Aug. 2, Lake Country Booksellers, 4766 Washington Square, White Bear Lake.
With our renewed interest in travel by train, Minnesota historian Tony Dierckins and Illinois-based Duluth-Superior railroad expert Jeff Lemke explore Twin Ports rail history in “Twin Ports Trains: The Historic Railroads of Duluth & Superior 1870-1970.” Their book examines the history of 20 railroads and focuses on their operations at the Head of the Lakes, telling the story of railroading within Duluth, Minn., and Superior, Wis.
, and how railroads helped develop both cities. With more than 275 historic photos, illustrations, and maps. Everyone, including vacationers “up north,” can attend the launch party at 7 p.
m. Thursday, Aug. 1, at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in the Duluth Depot.
There will be brief author remarks and a book signing. Related Articles Books | Melania Trump to release ‘intimate’ memoir with never-before-told stories Books | ‘The Ministry of Time’ author talks Graham Greene, James Bond and kissing Barbies Books | Readers and writers: Time for some murder mysteries — set in Minnesota Books | Literary calendar for week of July 21 Books | 5 must-read crime novels offer thrills, chills and armchair globe-trotting Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to print (Opens in new window) Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) More Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Submit to Stumbleupon (Opens in new window).
