Author Holly Thompson will visit the Concord Bookshop on Friday, March 11 at 4:00pm, reading from, taking Q&A, and signing copies of her new Young Adult novel, Orchards. 

She appeared previously at the Bookshop with her novel Ash, and is also the author of the children's picture book The Wakame Gatherers.

This unique Young Adult novel is written in verse, and accompanied by beautiful woodcut illustrations.

In a starred review, The School Library Journal (March 2011) says of Orchards "The narrative is rich in authentic cultural detail and is complemented by attractive woodcut illustrations of Japanese imagery to evoke the story's setting. Thompson has crafted an exquisite, thought-provoking story of grief and healing that will resonate with teen readers and give them much to discuss."

"Kana is a Japanese and Jewish/American girl sent from her home in New York to spend the summer with relatives in Japan after the suicide of a classmate.  Kana becomes immersed in the tiny village of Kohama, working in the mikan orchards and trying to make sense of what happened."

Ms. Thompson was raised in Wareham, and now lives in Japan, where she teaches creative writing, academic writing, short stories and American culture at Yokohama City University.

"Dizzyingly nuanced yet crisp, [and] muscularly written...This complex, humbling, and beautifully crafted debut from one of The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 is highly recommended for anyone seriously interested in contemporary fiction."
 - Library Journal, starred review 

In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself.

But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather's recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel.

Author Téa Obreht was born in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia in 1985 and has lived in the United States since the age of twelve. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, and The Guardian, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. She has been named by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best American fiction writers under forty and included in the National Book Foundation's list of 5 Under 35; she lives in New York.

The Concord Bookshop is pleased to offer signed first editions of The Tiger's Wife.

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells-taken without her knowledge-became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons-as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Author Rebecca Skloot is a science writer whose articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover; Prevention; Glamour; and others. She has worked as a correspondent for NPR's Radio Lab and PBS's NOVA scienceNow, and is a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine. 

The Concord Bookshop Book Club will discuss The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on Thursday, April 28, at 7pm.  All are welcome.

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TThe year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the Japanese Empire's single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, and costly courtesans comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland. 

But Jacob's original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured midwife to the city's powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken-the consequences of which will extend beyond Jacob's worst imaginings.

David Mitchell is the author of Black Swan Green, which was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by Time; Cloud Atlas, which was a Man Booker Prize finalist; Number9Dream, which was short-listed for the Man Booker as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; and Ghostwritten, awarded the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for best book by a writer under thirty-five and short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. He lives in Ireland.

First published in 1885, poet and storyteller Robert Louis Steven son's classic tribute to the lives of children has delighted readers for more than a century. From flying through the air on a swing to building an imaginary world out of blocks to being tucked into bed for a night of sweet dreams, A Child's Garden of Verses is a joyful celebration of imagination, wonder, and what it means to be a child.

Lavishly illustrated by beloved artist Barbara McClintock, this new unabridged edition of these classic verses is sure to capture the hearts and imaginations of both young and old for years to come.

Poet and novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was the author of a number of classic books for young readers, including Treasure Island , Kidnapped, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Mr. Stevenson was often ill as a child and spent much of his youth confined to his nursery, where he first began to compose stories even before he could read, and where he was cared for by his nanny, Alison Cunningham, to whom A Child's Garden of Verses is dedicated. 

Award-winning children's book author and illustrator Barbara McClintock's "beautifully restrained use of color may evoke a long-ago time, but her compositions are so dynamic that there's always something for contemporary children to discover."[Michael Cart, Booklist] Full of humor and wit and strong characterizations, her books are timeless charmers and have won 4 New York Times Best Books awards, a New York Times Notable Book citation, a Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor award, and numerous other awards, recommended/best book lists, and starred reviews.

Join us Thursday, March 31 at 7pm to discuss this edge-of-your seat novel by Masha Hamilton, a journalist and novelist.

Jonas is isolated in a safe-house apartment in New York City, pondering his recent religious conversion and his experiences training in Pakistan, preparing for the violent action he has been instructed to take in 31 hours. Jonas's absence from the lives of those who love him causes a cascade of events, and as the novel moves through the streets and subways of New York we come to know intimately the lives of its characters. We also learn to feel deeply the connections and disconnections that occur between young people and their parents not only in this country but in the Middle East as well.

Carried by Hamilton's highly-lauded prose, this story about the helplessness of those who cannot contact a beloved young man who is on a devastatingly confused path is compelling on the most human level. In our world, when a family loses track of an idealistic son an entire city could be in danger. From the author of The Distance Between Us.

The Guild of Volunteers for the Concord Museum invite you to the Cannon Ball in celebration of the special exhibition on view from April 15 through September 18, 2011.

When Duty Whispers: Concord and the Civil War features objects from the Concord Museum collection-some never before exhibited-including portraits, uniforms, firearms, swords, flags, broadsides, engravings, correspondence, and newspapers.  

The Cannon Ball will be held Friday, April 29 at Nashawtuc Country Club and offers and evening of cocktails, dinner, dancing, and a live auction to benefit the Concord Museum education initiatives.

For tickets visit www.concordMuseum.org, or call 978-369-9763.