Shelf Life

Barack Obama and family when he was sworn in as a US senator. (Joe Lee/"Barack Obama for Beginners")

Stage craft
The Federal Theatre Project was among the most innovative and controversial initiatives of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. For four years, the project provided jobs for actors, writers, and directors and produced cutting-edge theater; it also helped to launch the careers of Orson Welles, John Houseman, Arthur Miller, and Elia Kazan.

Susan Quinn of Brookline revisits the fiery politics and creative fervor of the 1930s in her new book, "Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times" (Walker).

During her research, she discovered a series of films that document the FTP. Tomorrow night at 7, Quinn will narrate clips from those films at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, in Brookline. Highlights include rare footage of the indomitable Hallie Flanagan, director of the FTP, and an all-black production of "Macbeth" directed by Welles.

Quinn will be introduced by historian Howard Zinn, who will set the scene with remarks about the federal government's support of the arts during the Depression. Tickets are $5.

Making tracks
Down East is celebrating the publication of its new children's book "The Train to Maine" with train rides - including a trip between Boston and Old Orchard Beach, Maine - on Aug. 2. The book's illustrator, Rebecca Reed, and author, Jamie Spencer, will entertain children along for the ride on Amtrak's Downeaster, which heads north from Boston, as Spencer writes, "with a whir and a whoosh and a clickety-clack." Details in the events section at downeast.com.

Barack barrage
Will any book about Barack Obama outsell the presidential candidate's "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope"? Publishers hoping to capitalize on the interest in Obama are rushing into print a number of children's books, political analyses, parodies, and other offerings.

Set to hit bookstores on Tuesday is "Barack Obama for Beginners: An Essential Guide" (Steerforth). The illustrated primer is written by Bob Neer, a principal in the Boston-based political blog BlueMassGroup.com and a doctoral candidate in US history at Columbia University. Neer leavens his chronicle of Obama's rise in politics with a few personal details, such as the fact that the movie that Obama and his wife, Michelle, watched on their first date was Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing."

Young voices
Boston's English High School, the oldest public high school in America, has been struggling to regain its standing as a beacon of excellence. Now students have entered the debate over the school's future with a new anthology, "I Wish They Would Have Asked Me," published in collaboration with 826 Boston, a nonprofit writing center.

Passions run high in the essays, poems, letters, and short stories by 11th- and 12th-graders. The anthology crackles with pride, frustration, and a yearning to be heard.

Coming out