We're celebrating our birthday with a booked September events calendar!

September 2022 marks 35 years since the Raven first took flight as Lawrence’s corner bookshop specializing in mysteries. To make it all the more exciting, this August marks one year since we hauled all of our shelves over to our new Mass Street location, putting us in the heart of our beloved downtown. We want to commemorate these major milestones with the community we’ve been a part of for 35 years now. And since we believe in celebrating birth months rather than just birthdays, we’ve planned a whole month packed to the gills with fantastic and free literary events, like this one!

So be sure you swing by the store to join the party and treat your shelves to some bookish goodness. You can head over to our events calendar to check out the full docket of our birthday bash events. Please note that masks and proof of vaccination are required to attend events at the Raven.

We’re excited to celebrate with you!

About the Event

Here's what you need to know: being nice is no laughing matter. For those who are craving their next hit of Samantha Irby or Jia Tolentino-style comedic cultural comedy, Kansas City author Mia Mercado’s book will hit the spot. Mercado is bringing She’s Nice Though: Essays on Being Bad at Being Good to the Raven on September 1 at 7 p.m. for a reading and book signing that will have you in stitches.

Masks and proof of vaccination are required to attend events at the Raven.

About the Author

Mia Mercado is the author of Weird But Normal and currently the morning blogger for The Cut. Her work has also been featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post’s The Lily, Bustle, McSweeney’s, Reductress, Bust, the American Bystander, Gizmodo, and The Hairpin, and other media outlets. She lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

Find her at miamercado.com

About the Book

“And, at the center of it all, am I actually nice or am I just performing a role I think I’m expected to play?”

Mia Mercado is a razor-sharp cultural critic and essayist known for her witty and hilarious dissections of the uncomfortable truths that rule our lives. In this thought-provoking collection of new essays, Mercado examines what it means to be “polite,” “agreeable,” and “nice.” She covers topics from the subtleties of the “Bad Bitch” and why women dominate the ASMR market, to what makes her dog an adorable little freak and how you know if you’re shy. This is a book about the unspoken trick mirror of our “good” intentions: the inherent performance of the social media apology, celebrating men when they do the bare minimum, and why we trust a Midwesterner to watch our stuff when we go pee.

Throughout, she ponders her identity as an Asian woman and asks what “nice” even means—and why anyone would want to be it. With writing that is as precise as it is profound, and cultural references that range from trash reality television to the New York Times Sunday-morning crossword puzzle, Mercado uncovers weird, long-overdue truths about our frailties and failings. In the end, she sees them not as a source of shame but as a cause for celebration. Filled with revelations that range from the silly to the serious,

She’s Nice Though offers a mind-bending glimpse into the illusions and delusions of contemporary life—and reveals who we *really* are when no one is watching.