Location: Holliston, MA 01746, United States

“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)

“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)

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)

“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)

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)

Registration: Noon Start Time: 1PM

Entry Fee: $5

Format: Standard The following sets will be Standard legal: Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Avacyn Restored, Magic 2013, Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, and Dragon's Maze.

Prize: All participants receive an exclusive Trostani's Summoner full-art promo card (while supplies last). The Top 8 players each receive an exclusive Melek, Izzet Paragon full-art foil promo card. The cards are awarded to the Top 8 players even if the tournament cuts only to the Top 4. In addition, the first-place winner of Dragon's Maze Game Day will receive an exclusive Playmat.

Location: Street: 4 Pleasant St Additional: Downstairs Arena City: Cambridge, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 02139 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Unsanctioned Vintage NYSE Qualifier limit 10 Proxy with entry with option to buy up to 5 more.

Registration begins: 11 am

Time: noon - 6 pm

Entry Fee: $30

Prize: Prize support will scale with attendance, so bring your friends.

Additional Information: TBD

Location: Street: 4 Pleasant St Additional: City: Cambridge, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 02139 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Summer by Alice Low, Roy McKie (Illustrator)
The Night Before Summer Vacation by Natasha Wing, Julie Durrell (Illustrator)

Storytime Summer is coming! Hear all about the fun of Summer vacation at today's Storytime. What will you be doing on your Summer vacation? (added from Barnes & Noble)… (more)

Linda Chorney performed her original music for 30 years, waiting for her big break. At the tender age of 51, Chorney recorded the album of her dreams, Emotional Jukebox, earning her a Grammy nomination. She made history as the first completely independent singer-songwriter without a manager, publicist or record label to achieve recognition in this category. The industry, however, was not pleased that an outsider had slipped past the gatekeepers. They tried to undermine her nomination and destroy her career, from accusations of cheating to actual death threats. They were the Bill Buckners and Chorney was the ball that got through their legs. And, in the end, the industry figured out a way to get a bigger glove. From the elation to the agony of her hilarious, unbridled, unbelievable underdog journey, this is your backstage pass to the inside story of the Grammy’s. Fasten your seatbelts for a wild right with Linda, as she sings, drops f-bombs, her drawers, the occasional mother’s little helpers, and eventually lands on the Red Carpet. And get a taste of what the indie artist’s life is like--the kind of artist who does it all for the love of making music. Linda Chorney’s latest album Emotional Jukebox was nominated for a Best Americana Album Grammy Award. Highlights in her career thus far have been breaking the Top 40 Adult Contemporary Charts, and singing for Nelson Mandela, in front of a crowd of 250,000 humans. And of course playing in Sports bars where no one is listening. Who the F&*% is Linda Chorney is her first book.

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