Location: 01824

“Miracles and monsters abound in Anthony Martignetti’s memoir Lunatic Heroes...Beautifully, honestly, sometimes fiercely told, these memoirs are, like Martignetti himself, unique.” Neil Gaiman “Thoughtfully described, heartbreakingly honest...a powerful piece of writing and of inner observation and, of course, redemption.” Jack Kornfield, PhD Dark, comic, raw, disturbing, and often redemptive, these tales take us from the 1950s to the present, along with a repeating cast of heroes and lunatics. These characters span the breadth and depths of human qualities and capacities. The same person, in one story, may materialize as a hero and a god, and in another, as a lunatic and a demon. While the author roughs up the people in his stories with the hand of terror, he simultaneously views them with the eyes of love. Martignetti spares no on, and to his credit, particularly not himself. For one who confesses so much fear, he is fearlessly self-revealing. After reading this collection of memoirs, you will come to know these characters and the author intimately. Not that you’d want to, it’s just the way things will turn out. C. Anthony will be in conversation with Amanda Palmer. Yep, that Amanda Palmer.

Location: Street: Porter Square Shopping Center Additional: 25 White Street City: Cambridge, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 02140 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

DANIEL PALMER explores the timely subject of identity theft in this brilliantly plotted new novel, Stolen.

The future has never looked brighter for Boston couple John and Ruby. But Ruby receives a life-changing diagnosis, and their cut-rate insurance won't cover her treatment. Faced with a ticking clock, John makes a risky move.

DANIEL spent a decade as an e-commerce pioneer, helping to build websites for popular brands. An experienced musician and songwriter, he has recorded two cds. A graduate of Boston University, Daniel lives in New Hampshire with his wife and children.

Location: Street: 614 Nashua Street, Lorden Plaza Additional: 603-673-1734 City: Milford, Province: New Hampshire Postal Code: 03055 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

“There is love in this book--erotic love, mother love, love animals and nature--but it’s not an easy love. One has to work hard to hold together. And Triedman does, relying on unflinching observation and far-reaching imagination to provide a plumb line to anchor an unknown future.” Wendy Mnookin “Every poem in Selvage digs up treasures of insight, words pungent as the air outside the tannery, ineradicable artifacts like the bullet in a slave woman’s unearthed spine--not always comfortable to contemplate, but satisfying as only the truth can be.” Jendi Reiter Kim Triedman has published widely in such literary journals as Prairie Schooner, Salamander, Women Arts Quarterly, and Poetry International. She won the 2008 Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest for her first collection bathe in it or sleep, and has won and placed in numerous other poetry and fiction competitions. After the 2010 earthquake, she developed and edited Poets for Haiti: An Anthology of Poetry and Art which benefited Partners in Health. Her first novel, The Other Room is due out in October. Donna Johnson grew up in Tennessee, but now lives with her family outside of Boston. Her poems and reviews have been published in Birmingham Poetry Review, Blue Unicorn, Cafe Review and others. In 2010 she won Cutbank magazine’s annual poetry contest and was a finalists for the Patricia Dobler Award. She currently works in the educational software publishing field.

Location: Street: Porter Square Shopping Center Additional: 25 White Street City: Cambridge, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 02140 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Americanah, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Thing Around Your Neck, The African Trilogy)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie grew up in Nigeria, where she attended medical school for two years at the University of Nigeria before coming to the United States. A 2003 O. Henry Prize winner, Adichie was shortlisted for the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing. Her work has been selected by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and the BBC Short Story Awards, and has appeared in various literary publications, including Zoetrope and the Iowa Review. Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and longlisted for the Booker. She now divides her time between the U.S. and Nigeria. (added from Random House)… (more)

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED TO SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26TH AT 1:00 PM, DUE TO THE CONFLICTS IN THE AUTHORS' SCHEDULES. ALL PATRONS WHO WERE REGSITERED BY 5/1/13 AT 12:00 PM HAVE BEEN REGISTERED FOR THE 10/26 EVENT. WE ARE SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
Raised in a South Boston housing project, James "Whitey" Bulger became the most wanted fugitive of his generation. In their riveting book, award-winning Boston Globe reporters Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy follow Whitey's extraordinary criminal career—from teenage thievery to bank robberies to the building of his underworld empire and a string of brutal murders. Join them for an evening of intrigue.
Kevin Cullen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has written for the Boston Globe since 1985, was the first to raise questions about Whitey Bulger's relationship with the FBI. A frequent commentator on NPR and the BBC, Cullen has won major journalism prizes including the Goldsmith Prize, the George Polk Award, and the Selden Ring Award.
Shelley Murphy has covered Whitey Bulger and organized crime in Boston since 1985, beginning at the Boston Herald and moving to the Globe in 1993. She has won a George Polk Award for National Reporting. (added from Eventkeeper)… (more)

About Twentieth Century Limited:
A COURAGEOUS NEWSMAN DARES TO SPEAK OUT ABOUT THE PARTISAN DIVISION PLAGUING AMERICA. Overcoming disabling injuries, Vietnam vet Paul Bernard becomes an award-winning journalist and television newsman known for holding a mirror to American society. Long critical of the radical right, after 9/11 Bernard attacks the Bush administration for Osama bin Laden's escape and leading the nation into a disastrous war. On assignment in Iraq, he is killed under suspicious circumstances. Interwoven with the account of Bernard's life is an interview of his mentor, Professor Augustus F.X. Flynn, by a magazine writer profiling him. Frustrated by Washington's inaction, the two set out to discover who is behind the killing.
Meet the author, Jan David Blais, and enjoy refreshments as well. (added from Eventkeeper)… (more)

All Standing: The Remarkable Story of the Jeanie Johnston, The Legendary Irish Famine Ship recounts the journeys of this famous ship, her heroic crew, and the immigrants who were ferried between Ireland and North America. Spurred by a complex web of motivations—shame, familial obligation, and sometimes even greed—more than a million people attempted to flee the Irish famine. More than one hundred thousand of them would die aboard one of the five thousand aptly named “coffin ships.” But in the face of horrific losses, a small ship named the Jeanie Johnston never lost a passenger. Shipwright John Munn, community leader Nicholas Donovan, Captain James Attridge, Dr. Richard Blennerhassett, and the efforts of a remarkable crew allowed thousands of people to find safety and fortune throughout the United States and Canada.

Why did these individuals succeed when so many others failed? What prompted them to act, when so many people preferred to do nothing—or worse? Using newspaper accounts, rare archival documents, and her own experience sailing as an apprentice aboard the recently re-created Jeanie Johnston, Kathryn Miles tells the story of these extraordinary people and the revolutionary milieu in which they set sail. The tale of each individual is remarkable in and of itself; read collectively, their stories paint a unique portrait of bravery in the face of a new world order. Theirs is a story of ingenuity and even defiance, one that recounts a struggle to succeed, to shake the mantle of oppression and guilt, to endure in the face of unimaginable hardship. On more than one occasion, stewards of the ship would be accused of acting out of self-interest or greed. Nevertheless, what these men—and their ship—accomplished over the course of eleven voyages to North America was the stuff of legend.

Interwoven in their tale is the story of Nicholas Reilly, a baby boy born on the ship’s maiden voyage. The Reilly family climbed aboard the Jeanie Johnston in search of the American Dream. While they would find some version of that dream, it would not be without a struggle—one that would deposit Nicholas into a deeply controversial moment in American history. Against this backdrop, Miles weaves a thrilling, intimate narrative, chronicling the birth of a remarkable Irish-American family in the face of one of the planet’s greatest human rights atrocities.

Kathryn Miles is the author of All Standing, which details the miraculous journeys of the famine ship Jeanie Johnston, and Out With Ari, a memoir recounting her year as a canine naturalist. An excerpt of the book was named a Best American Essay by Houghton Mifflin in 2009; two years later, her essay "Killing Laughter" was named a notable essay by the same publication. Since that time, Miles has written about subjects that include Puerto Rican street food, eel poachers, homing pigeons, and lifesavers. Her writing has appeared in publications like Ecotone, Flyway, History Magazine, Outside, and Terrain, where she is also an editorial board members and regular columnist.

Kathryn serves as professor of Environmental Writing at Unity College and as part of the faculty for the Chatham University MFA low-residency program. She is editor-in-chief of Hawk & Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability and a scholar-in-residence for the Maine Humanities Council. She is also an exceptionally messy chef, a reprehensibly lazy gardener, a mediocre sailboat racer, and a clumsy but passionate surfer.

Location: Andover Bookstore Street: 89 R Main Street City: Andover, Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Please join us at the Bookshop on Thursday, May 23rd at 7 pm as we welcome back John Hanson Mitchell, reading from his latest book, An Eden of Sorts.

Along with his nonfiction work, John Hanson Mitchell is editor of the award winning magazine, Sanctuary, published by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. He was editor of The Curious Naturalist, and a co-author, with Chris Leahy and Tom Conuel, of the coffee table edition of The Nature of Massachusetts (l998), illustrated by the internationally-recognized Swedish painter Lars Jonsson. In 2001 he won a Vogelstein grant for Following the Sun. He was awarded an honorary PhD from Fitchburg State University for his work on the book Ceremonial Time and was given three different grants for his work on Looking for Mr Gilbert. He is also winner of the John Burroughs Essay Award for his Sanctuary piece, “Of Time and the River”. In 2000, he was given the New England Booksellers’ Award for the body of his work. Mitchell attended the Sorbonne and is a graduate of Columbia University. A former journalist, he has had assignments in Kerala in southern India and also the South China Sea and has written extensively about Western Europe.

Location: Street: 65 Main Street City: Concord, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 01742-2503 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Welcome to our monthly meeting for teens, where YOU become the star!

The group will select FREE books (many in advance of publication) and review them for the following month. It's a great way to meet fellow readers, try something new, and polish your editorial skills. Perhaps one day soon we'll be reading YOUR book!

Our host is Sarah Brodin, give her a call and sign up to reserve your place at the table. Meetings are usually held on the fourth Thursday each month.

Next meeting: MAY 23, JUNE 27

Location: Street: The Toadstool Bookshop Additional: 614 Nashua St, Lorden Plaza 603-673-1734 City: Milford, Province: New Hampshire Postal Code: 03055 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

“From squatting inside a cave in the head of a Bamyan Buddha to escaping torture at the teeth of a dog and his master, Qais Akbar Omar’s tale of one family’s journey during the Afghan civil war is inscriptional: its images carve themselves into the reader’s mind. Unlike most accounts of life in exile, A Fort of Nine Towers never leaves Afghanistan, as a boy and his family remain trapped within the nation’s borders by familial ties and by war. This book is essential reading for anyone eager to learn what more than three decades of war have cost the Afghan people.” Eliza Griswold, author of The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam “I know of no other book in which the complex realities of life—and death—in contemporary Afghanistan are so starkly and intimately portrayed. This brave memoir, rich in tough humor and insight, recounts an insider’s view into both the suffering and the integrity of an uncompromisingly proud and courageous people. Above all, it is a powerful reminder of the extraordinary tenacity of a culture that foreigners have repeatedly and fatally misjudged.” Jason Elliot, author of An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan Qais Akbar Omar (whose first name is pronounced “Kice”) manages his family’s carpet business in Kabul and writes books. In 2007, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Colorado. He has studied business at Brandeis University and is currently pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Boston University. Omar has lectured on Afghan carpets in Afghanistan, Europe, and the United States. He is the coauthor, with Stephen Landrigan, of Shakespeare in Kabul.

Location: Street: Porter Square Shopping Center Additional: 25 White Street City: Cambridge, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 02140 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

DAVID LAWTON, a Woburn native and published poet will appear at our Library on Thursday, May 23 at 7:00 p.m.
In celebration of the ultra-hip Three Rooms Press of New York City publishing David's poetry book, he will read some of his poems, talk about the process that brought them about, and answer questions.
FREE ADMISSION - light refreshments will be served.
Sponsored by the Friends of the Woburn Public Library
The library is handicapped accessible; please call for assistance 781-933-0148 (added from Eventkeeper)… (more)

Join Porter Square Books at the first Parish Church in Harvard Square, for an evening with Khaled Hosseini in conversation with WBUR’s Robin Young. Hosseini will discuss his new book And the Mountains Echoed. Hosseini will sign books after the event. This is a ticketed event. Tickets can be acquired by purchasing a copy of And the Mountains Echoed. You will receive two tickets with each purchase. If you are ordering online, please write “tickets” in the comments field. Books can be picked up in the store on or after the official release date of May 21 or at the event that night. Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and history at a high school in Kabul. In 1976, the Foreign Ministry relocated the Hosseini family to Paris. They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then their homeland had witnessed a bloody communist coup and the invasion of the Soviet Army. The Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States, and in September 1980 moved to San Jose, California. Hosseini graduated from high school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in biology in 1988. The following year he entered the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, where he earned a medical degree in 1993. He completed his residency at Cedars-Sinai medical center in Los Angeles and was a practicing internist between 1996 and 2004. In March 2001, while practicing medicine, Hosseini began writing his first novel, The Kite Runner. Published by Riverhead Books in 2003, that debut went on to become an international bestseller and beloved classic, sold in at least seventy countries and spending more than a hundred weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. In May 2007, his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, remaining in that spot for fifteen weeks and nearly an entire year on the bestseller list. Together, the two books have sold more than 10 million copies in the United States and more than 38 million copies worldwide. Hosseini's much-awaited third novel, And the Mountains Echoed, will be published on May 21, 2013. In 2006, Hosseini was named a Goodwill Envoy to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency. Inspired by a trip he made to Afghanistan with the UNHCR, he later established The Khaled Hosseini Foundation , a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. He lives in Northern California. Robin Young is the host of Here & Now on WBUR. She is a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker who has also reported for NBC, CBS and ABC television, and for several years was substitute host and correspondent for The Today Show. Robin has received several Emmy Awards for her television work, as well as cable’s Ace Award, the Religious Public Relations Council’s Wilbur Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Gold Award. She has also received radio’s regional Edward R. Murrow Award.

Location: Street: First Parish Church, Harvard Square Additional: 1446 Massachusetts Ave City: Cambridge, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 02138 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Family Movie Night!  Movie is Rated PG – All Ages:  Friday, May 24 at 6:30 PM
We can’t tell you the title of the movie here, but here are some clues: this recently released animated Dreamworks movie is based on the Guardians of Childhood book series by William Joyce.  Popcorn and water will be served.  Please pre-register, so we know how much popcorn to buy!  (added from Eventkeeper)… (more)