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Held in mid-May. First organized in 2004 to promote reading, heighten awareness of literacy challenges, and showcase the rich culture of the written word in Michigan and beyond. The festival features a bookstore crawl, antiquarian book fair, author readings, symposiums and panels on literacy and writing, tours of the U-M library conservation and preservation lab, and a street festival.
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Painted in 1984, when the corner location was still occupied by David's Books, this mural depicts the five authorial visages of Woody Allen, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Hesse, Franz Kafka, and Anaïs Nin.
An art-deco cinema from 1942, the State Theater works in conjunction with the Michigan Theater, and often plays films that have stopped showing at the Michigan.
A restored 1928 cinema, complete with two organs, one of them a vintage 1927 pipe organ. The theater shows mainly independent and foreign films, with special classic-film showings throughout the year. The organ is often played before performances, and during the Michigan Theater's special silent-film showings. The main auditorium also hosts other events throughout the year, particular musical groups and comedy shows, many fairly well-known.
The alley mural began as a one-man project in the 1980s and became a popular spot for graffiti artists. The city took the spot over in 1999 by hiring artist Katherine Tombeau Cost to paint over the original mural and graffiti with a new 5,000-square-foot (460 m2) mural. The graffiti artists haven't entirely relinquished their claim to it, meaning that Cost's mural has been partially defaced with large bubble lettering, but it's still an interesting (and out-of-the-way) sight. Be sure to seek out the "trippers'" bubble gum wall toward the back. During warmer weather, you'll often find musicians or dancers putting on solo performances in the alley entrance, hoping to glean donations.
Galleries featuring nearly 100,000 artefacts from Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Near Eastern civilizations.
The heart of the University of Michigan's Central Campus, the Diag is the main quadrangle around which most of the key buildings on campus are arranged. Its name comes from the primary walkway that runs from the northwest to southeast corners of the Diag. In the middle of the Diag, just in front of the graduate library, is a brick courtyard with a brass M in the center; according to student legend, if you step on the M during your first semester at the university, you are doomed to fail your first exam. The Diag is often used for demonstrations, booths or student fairs, and is a popular hangout in warm weather.