On Thursday, Oct. 24^th at 6:30 PM, The Book Stall (811 Elm Street in Winnetka) is proud to present Rachel Robbins, as we celebrate her novel, The Sound of A Thousand Stars. In this sweeping historical debut, two Jewish physicists form an inseverable bond amidst fear and uncertainty while working on the mysterious Manhattan Project. The Sound of a Thousand Stars is loosely based on the author’s grandparents, who worked at Los Alamos but never spoke of their time there. Rachel will be in conversation with Kathleen Rooney! This program is free, but registration is required. Please click here to reserve your space.
 
Can't make it to the event? Call us at 847-446-8880 to reserve a signed copy.
 
More About the Book: Alice Katz is a young Jewish physicist, one of the only female doctoral students at her university, studying with the famed Dr. Oppenheimer. Her well-to-do family wants her to marry a man of her class and settle down, but Alice answers her country's call and comes the desert to work on a government project shrouded in secrecy. At Los Alamos, Alice meets Caleb Blum, a poor Orthodox Jew who has been assigned to the explosives division. In this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and despite their many differences, Alice and Caleb find themselves drawn to one another. The Sound of A Thousand Stars is a propulsive novel about love in desperate times, the consequences of our decisions, and the roles we play in history.
 
Fellow novelist Julia Fine, author of The Upstairs House and Maddalena and the Dark says, “The Sound of A Thousand Stars declassifies the human emotions at the core of one of the 20th century's most fraught scientific projects. Asking questions of complicity and sacrifice that reverberate today, this beautifully written novel considers the costs of scientific advancement, the value of an individual life, and the thrilling knife's edge of being in love.”
 
About the Author: Rachel Robbins received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a tenured assistant professor at Malcolm X College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago. A visual artist and two-time Pushcart Prize nominated writer, her paintings have materialized on public transit, children's daycare centers, and on Chicago's Magnificent Mile. She lives in Chicago with her husband, daughter, and Portuguese Water Dog, Buddha.
 
Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a nonprofit publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, and a founding member of Poems While You Wait, a collective of poets and their typewriters who compose commissioned poetry on demand. She is the author of the novels Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, and From Dust to Stardust. Her latest poetry collection Where Are the Snows, was released in Fall of 2022, and her picture book Leaf Town Forever, co-written with her sister Beth Rooney, is forthcoming. She lives in Chicago and teaches at DePaul.