Location: South Hamilton, MA 01982, United States

The Great Books Discussion Group meets at the library twice a month, on the second and fourth Wednesdays, in the Fearing Room, from 10:15 to about noon. We welcome newcomers--all ages, stages and persuasions. Ours is a leaderless group that follows somewhat loosely the principles of the Great Books Society. A few guidelines:


Please feel free to attend any time (do come a couple of times to check us out!), but we ask that you enter the discussion only if you have done the reading for that session.

We want to have a balanced discussion and hear from everyone who wants to participate, so it's important that no one dominate the discussion.

We prefer to have only one person speaking at a time so we encourage attentive listening and and discourage side conversations.

Great Books suggests that we focus on the reading itself, limiting our discussion to our interpretations of and questions about that particular piece rather than other writings by the author, the author's background, similar writings by other authors, or our own personal experiences. We are pretty good about this. We have also been known to deviate...

Typically we read essays, short stories, occasional poetry, and excerpts from larger tomes, generally not more than about 40 pages at a time. Everyone from Plato to present day authors. The first meeting of the month we have been reading from publications by the Great Books Society. On the second meeting of the month we have chosen other selections. For information about current readings, please contact Martha Cochrane at 617-838-7441. (added from Eventkeeper)… (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)

PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW DAY AND TIME: fourth Wednesday of the month at 7:00 pm The Poetry Readings Series - now in its fifteenth year - is free and open to the public, and includes an Open Mic. Poetry enthusiasts are urged to attend. The readings are scheduled for the fourth Wednesday of January, March, May, July, September and November at 7:00 p.m., at Jabberwocky Bookshop, 50 Water Street, in Newburyport. Jabberwocky is a comfortable, independently owned bookstore with a large, separate reading room. Typically a guest reader and a Powow member will read, followed by the Open Mic. Past readers have featured such eminent poets as former NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, X.J. Kennedy, Alicia Stallings, David Ferry, Robert Shaw, and talented newcomers like recent Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize recipient Rose Kelleher. During the past year readings included New Criterion Award winner Dan Brown, poet and translator Rachel Hadas, and magazine editors and award-winning poets David Yezzi and Joseph Bottum. May 22: Peter Filkins and Powow River Poet Midge Goldberg

Location: Street: 50 Water Street Additional: Tannery Mill Bldg 1 City: Newburyport, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 01950 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)

“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)

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)

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)

Friday May 24th at 7pm author Bill Sargent will speak about his new book Beach Wars, 10,000 years of Conflict and Change on a Barrier Beach, at Jabberwocky Bookshop, at the Tannery, 50 Water St, Newburyport. Naturalist William Sargent outlines the history of New England's barrier beaches, chronicling the pirates, Indians, rumrunners and farmers who have used beaches like Plum Island to hunt, fish, mooncuss and cut salt marsh hay. Their stories reflect the history of the United States, and how we have come to redefine how we want to protect and live with our land and oceans Considering all the current problems on Plum Island, William Sargent's book is book is timely and important and sure to be controversial.

This event is free and open to all. For more information please visit www.jabberwockybookshop.com or call 978.465.9359.

Location: Street: 50 Water Street Additional: Tannery Mill Bldg 1 City: Newburyport, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 01950 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)

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)

Not since Pearl Harbor has an American president gone to Congress to request a declaration of war. Yet since then, one president after another, from Truman to Obama, has ordered American troops into wars all over the world. From Korea to Vietnam, Panama to Grenada, Lebanon to Bosnia, Afghanistan to Iraq—why have presidents sidestepped declarations of war? Marvin Kalb, former chief diplomatic correspondent for CBS and NBC News, explores this key question in The Road to War—his thirteenth book about the presidency and U.S. foreign policy. Instead of a declaration of war, presidents have justified their war-making powers by citing “commitments,” private and public, made by former presidents. Many of these commitments have been honored, but some betrayed. Surprisingly, given the tight U.S.-Israeli relationship, Israeli leaders feel that at times they have been betrayed by American presidents. In The Road to War, Kalb asks: Is it time for a negotiated defense treaty between the United States and Israel as a way of substituting for a string of secret presidential commitments? As Kalb explains in The Road to War, the word of a president can morph into a national commitment. It can become the functional equivalent of a declaration of war. Therefore, whenever a president “commits”the United States to a policy or course of action with, or increasingly without, congressional approval, watch out—the White House may be setting the nation on a road toward war. Marvin Kalb focuses on the impact of media on public policy and politics. He is also an expert in national security, with a focus on U.S. relations with Russia, Europe and the Middle East. His most recent previous book is Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama.

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

Alaska looms as a mythical, savage place, part nature preserve, part theme park, too vast to understand fully. Which is why C.B. Bernard lashed his canoe to his truck and traded the comforts of the Lower 48 for a remote island and a career as a reporter. It turned out that a distant relation had made the same trek northwest a century earlier. Captain Joe Bernard spent decades in Alaska, amassing the largest single collection of Native artifacts ever gathered, giving his name to landmarks and even a now-extinct species of wolf. C.B. chased the legacy of this explorer and hunter up the family tree, tracking his correspondence, locating artifacts donated to museums, and finding his journals at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Using these journals as guides, C.B. threw himself into the state once known as Seward’s Folly, boating to remote islands, hiking distant forests, hunting and fishing the pristine landscape. He began to form a landscape view of the place that had lured him and "Uncle Joe," both men anchored beneath the Northern Lights in freezing, far-flung waters, separated only by time. Here, in crisp, crystalline prose, is his moving portrait of the Last Frontier, then and now.

C. B. Bernard has worked as a newspaper editor, magazine journalist, and advertising copywriter. Winner of several Alaska Press Club awards, he has written extensively for Alaskan Southeaster, Pacific Fishing, Professional Mariner, and Gray's Sporting Journal magazines. Newsweek columnist Eleanor Clift judged his column about life in Alaska as best in the state. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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

Alaska looms as a mythical, savage place, part nature preserve, part theme park. Which is why C. B. Bernard lashed his canoe to the roof of his truck and headed northwest. When a distant cousin revealed that a common relation had made the same trek a century earlier, Bernard began chasing the legacy of this legendary hunter and explorer up the family tree, discovering hundreds of pages of journals that wound up in a closet at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Using these journals, Bernard threw himself at Alaska, boating to remote islands, hiking distant forests, hunting and fishing the landscape, and forming a moving portrait, then and now, of the last frontier.

C. B. Bernard has worked as a newspaper editor, magazine journalist, and advertising copywriter. Winner of several Alaska Press Club awards, he has written extensively for Alaskan Southeaster, Pacific Fishing, Professional Mariner, and Gray's Sporting Journal magazines. Newsweek columnist Eleanor Clift judged his column about life in Alaska as best in the state. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Location: Street: 50 Water Street Additional: Tannery Mill Bldg 1 City: Newburyport, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 01950 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)