Author visit accompanied by Chicago Sinfonietta quartet

Anderson's Bookshop hosts a lot of authors, but it's not every event that has professional musical accompaniment. That's what makes special a program featuring author MT Anderson with his new book for young adults, "Landscape with Invisible Hand."

His presentation at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14, will include a performance by the Chicago Sinfonietta's quartet at the bookstore, 123 W. Jefferson Ave., Naperville.

Admission is free, but to join the book-signing line, purchase the book at Anderson's Bookshop. For information, contact Anderson's Bookshop at andersonsbookshop.com or (630) 355-2665.

Chicago Sinfonietta is a professional orchestra dedicated to modeling and promoting diversity, inclusion, and both racial and cultural equity in the arts through the universal language of symphonic music.

The group's core values are built around being bold and daring, providing a source of connectivity through music, and ensuring and inspiring a continued investment in diversity and inclusion in classical music.

On Tuesday, the group will demonstrate a partnership with the author, making this program a rare cultural event. The musicians will perform a work by Dmitri Shostakovich, who wrote his String Quartet No. 8 as a secret summation of his life, and also as a piece dedicated to the victims of fascism and oppression.

Members of the Chicago Sinfonietta will perform the work in its entirety, and National Book Award-winning author Anderson will discuss the stories told about the piece and the disputes about the codes that Shostakovich - unable to speak frankly in a regime of fear - hid in its pages.

Anderson's book, "Landscape with Invisible Hand," is set in a future Earth and is a sharply wrought satire of art and truth in the midst of colonization.

When the vuvv first landed, it came as a surprise to aspiring artist Adam and the rest of planet Earth, but not necessarily an unwelcome one. Can it really be called an invasion when the vuvv generously offered free advanced technology and cures for every illness imaginable? As it turns out, yes.

With his parents' jobs replaced by alien tech and no money for food, clean water or the vuvv's miraculous medicine, Adam and his girlfriend, Chloe, have to get creative to survive.

And since the vuvv crave anything they deem "classic" Earth culture (doo-wop music, still-life paintings of fruit, true love), recording 1950s-style dates for the vuvv to watch in a pay-per-minute format seems like a brilliant idea.

But it's hard for Adam and Chloe to sell true love when they hate each other more with every passing episode. Soon enough, Adam must decide how far he's willing to go - and what he's willing to sacrifice - to give the vuvv what they want.