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Store Hours
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Mon - Fri 9:30 - 6:00
Sat 9:30 - 5:00
Sun Noon - 5:00
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Upcoming Events
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Award-winning therapist and author Peter Fraenkel with Sync Your Relationship, Save Your Marriage
3/27 (Sunday) 3pm -
Launch into April's
with an afternoon of "open mic" poetry led by Jim Leahy, host of CCTV's "Poetry Moment"
The Concord Bookshop Book Club (CBBC) meets to discuss Masha Hamilton's 31 Hours. All are welcome!
4/3 (Sunday) 3pm -
Daphne Kalotay, reads from Russian Winter, now available in paperback
4/10 (Sunday) 3pm -
Author Clare Walker Leslie, a local naturalist and artist discusses The Nature Connection: An Outdoor Workbook for Kids, Families, and Classrooms
4/12 (Tuesday) 2:30pm - John Bemelmans Marciano carries on the legacy of his grandfather, Ludwig Bemelmans, with Madeline at the White House 4/13 (Wednesday) 7pm -
New York Times columnist Dan Barry discusses his latest book, Bottom of the 33rd: Hope and Redemption in Baseball's Longest Game
4/17 (Sunday) 3pm -
Lexington author Meg Muckenhoupt helps us welcome Spring with Boston Gardens and Green Spaces
4/21 (Thursday) 7pm -
Creative expert Kate Payne joins us with The Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking
The Concord Bookshop Book Club (CBBC) meets to discuss Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. All are welcome!
5/1 (Sunday) 3pm -
We welcome local author Elisabeth Townsend with Lobster: A Global History
5/8 (Sunday) 3pm -
Novelist and reviewer Richard Horan visits with Seeds: One Man's Serendipitous Journey to Find the Trees That Inspired Famous American Writers from Faulkner to Kerouac, Welty to Wharton
5/12 (Thursday) 7pm -
Edith Pearlman offers 34 works of short fiction in Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories
5/15 (Sunday) 3pm -
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood with The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States
5/19 (Thursday) 7pm -
The Concord Bookshop Book Club (CBBC) meets
5/22 (Sunday) 3pm -
We welcome author Andrew Krivak with The Sojourn
6/5 (Sunday) 3pm -
We welcome author Rebecca Rasmussen with The Bird Sisters
6/12 (Sunday) 3pm -
We welcome author Laura Harrington with Alice Bliss
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Greetings!
New green shoots pushing through the earth, new books coming into the bookshop daily - two very exciting signs of spring!
We're starting our celebration of National Poetry Month a bit early by highlighting a new collection of poetry today. We also have a new event on the calendar - a poetry circle hosted by Jim Leahy on March 27; see details below.
Other books in the spotlight this week are nonfiction books about memory and about our fragile planet. Our fiction spotlight might be of special interest to fans of Edgar Allan Poe.
Thanks to two authors who visited last week, we have additions to our Signed Books Gallery ... more titles are being added each week.
Our next event is Sunday, March 20, with Dr. Peter Fraenkel, discussing the paradox of how an individual's relationship with time can (and does) impact his relationship with others. Dr. Fraenkel will share tips to "Sync Your Relationship." More events are listed in the left sidebar of this weekly newsletter and on our Facebook page. If you're unable to attend an event, but would like a personalized or signed copy of the book, just call us to pre-order to your specifications. We'll hold the signed book for you at the bookshop, or arrange to have it shipped, if you live outside the area.
On March 31 we will discuss Masha Hamilton's 31 Hours, focusing on the 31-hour countdown to a planned act of terrorism. See below for some high praise for this edge-of-your-seat novel written by a former journalist.
Our spring-like front window display is by The Nature Connection, a local organization with global reach, formerly known as Animals as Intermediaries. As always, we look forward to chatting with you in the Bookshop; let us help you select the perfect book for yourself or a gift. Comments are also welcome via email to info.concordBookshop@gmail.com.
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Our Next Event: Sunday, March 20 at 3pm
Sync Your Relationship, Save Your Marriage by Peter Fraenkel
Award-winning couple therapist and author Peter Fraenkel will visit the Concord Bookshop on Sunday, March 20, at 3:00pm, reading from, taking Q&A, and signing copies of Sync Your Relationship, Save Your Marriage: Four Steps to Getting Back on Track.
Remember when you and your partner first met? Chances are, the very things that excited you at the beginning - different pace from yours, unpredictability - are the very things that can erode a relationship over time.
People might fight over money, sex, housework, and kids, but the underlying problem is a rift in rhythm. These differing attitudes eventually clash, and couples fall out of sync and out of love. Yet the fascinating fact is that these polarizing time differences play a potent role in attracting lovers in the first place.
Drawing from clinical research and 20 years of experience in private practice, Dr. Fraenkel offers concrete, real-world advice on how to get back in sync and back on track in your relationship.
Dr. Fraenkel was raised in Lexington, earned his undergraduate degree from Boston University, and a doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Duke University. He is Director of the Center for Work and Family at the Ackerman Institute for the Family, and teaches in the Clinical Psychology program at the City College of New York.
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Save the Date: "Open Mike" poetry circle
Sunday, March 27 at 3pm
April is National Poetry Month, and we're ushering in a month of celebration with an "open mike" poetry circle led by Concord's own Jim Leahy.
On Sunday, March 27 at 3pm, Jim will lead us in an "open mike" poetry circle. Come read aloud a poem by a favorite poet, or share a composition of your own. All are welcome!
Jim has lived in Concord since 1975, and is a familiar face as the manager of Debra's Natural Gourmet since 2000.
He has written for the Concord Journal for 15 years, and, in 2007 published Living in Concord: essays, memoirs, reflections, a poem and a recipe.
Jim has led a monthly poetry reading group at Debra's for two and a half years, and hosts the weekly Poetry Moment, on Concord Cable Television. He is a lover of all kinds of poetry and has written an (as yet) unpublished book of children's verse, and many humorous presentation poems.
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Additions to our Signed Books Gallery Orchards by Holly Thompson
 Holly Thompson visited the Bookshop last Friday, to read from and take Q&A about her Young Adult novel-in-verse, Orchards. We were struck by the strong voice of the protagonist, who is sent to live with relatives in Japan for the summer after a classmate commits suicide. There, Kana contemplates what it is to be an outsider, experiences pain and guilt, and tries to make sense of what happened. 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." We are pleased to offer signed editions of Orchards. Your Baby is Speaking to You by Dr. Kevin Nugent
 Dr. Kevin Nugent appeared at the Bookshop on Sunday, presenting a slideshow based on his work in Your Baby Is Speaking to You. He discussed some to of the behavioral signals babies use to communicate, and answered questions from the audience. Through intimate access to babies and their families, Dr. Kevin Nugent, director of the Brazelton Institute at Children's Hospital, Boston, and acclaimed photographer Abelardo Morell capture the amazingly precocious communication strategies babies demonstrate from the moment they are born. Dr. Nugent kindly signed additional copies of Your Baby Is Speaking to You for our Signed Books Gallery.
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New Non-fiction
Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
 Foer's unlikely journey from chronically forgetful science journalist to U.S. Memory Champion frames a revelatory exploration of the vast, hidden impact of memory on every aspect of our lives.
Whether you're a fan of "pop psychology" books (Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Outliers, for example), are looking to improve your own memory, or interested in a lay person's explanation of how memory works (and why it sometimes doesn't!), Moonwalking with Einstein will capture your interest.
On average, people squander forty days annually compensating for things they've forgotten. Joshua Foer used to be one of those people. But after a year of memory training, he found himself in the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship. Even more important, Foer found a vital truth we too often forget: In every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of memory, and venerable tricks of the mentalist's trade to transform our understanding of human remembering. Using methods that have been largely forgotten, Foer discovers that we can all dramatically improve our memories.
At a time when electronic devices have all but rendered our individual memories obsolete, Foer's bid to resurrect the forgotten art of remembering becomes an urgent quest. Moonwalking with Einstein brings Joshua Foer to the apex of the U.S. Memory Championship and readers to a profound appreciation of a gift we all possess but that too often slips our minds.
Author Joshua Foer has written for National Geographic, Esquire, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Slate. |
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Non-fiction: Now in Paperback
Eaarth by Bill McKibben
"Change - fundamental change - is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance."
Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way.
Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.
A changing world costs large sums to defend, but the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer.
Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back - on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale.
Author Bill McKibben has written Eaarth, The End of Nature, Deep Economy, Enough, Fight Global Warming Now, The Bill McKibben Reader, and numerous other books. He is the founder of the environmental organizations Step It Up and 350.org, and was among the first to warn of the dangers of global warming. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and their daughter.
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New Fiction
Pym by Mat Johnson
"A comic journey into the ultimate land of whiteness by an unlikely band of African American adventurers"
Recently canned professor of American literature Chris Jaynes is obsessed with
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Edgar Allan Poe's strange and only novel.
When he discovers the manuscript of a crude slave narrative that seems to confirm the reality of Poe's fiction, he resolves to seek out Tsalal, the remote island of pure and utter blackness that Poe describes with horror. Jaynes imagines it to be the last untouched bastion of the African Diaspora and the key to his personal salvation.
He convenes an all-black crew of six to follow Pym's trail to the South Pole in search of adventure, natural resources to exploit, and, for Jaynes at least, the mythical world of the novel. With little but the firsthand account from which Poe derived his seafaring tale, a bag of bones, and a stash of Little Debbie snack cakes, Jaynes embarks on an epic journey under the permafrost of Antarctica, beneath the surface of American history, and behind one of literature's great mysteries. He finds that here, there be monsters.
Author Mat Johnson was born and raised in Philadelphia, and has lived most of his life elsewhere. He is the author of several novels and graphic novels including Drop, Hunting in Harlem, and Incognegro. Johnson is a member at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program and lives in Texas with his wife and children.
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New Poetry Collection
Taller When Prone by Les Murray
With National Poetry Month right around the corner, we'll be drawing your attention to new and classic poetry collections and anthologies. This week we're featuring Taller When Prone, Les Murray's first volume of new poems since The Biplane Houses, published five years ago. These poems combine a mastery of form with a matchless ear for the Australian vernacular. Many evoke rural life here and abroad-its rhythms and rituals, the natural world, the landscape and the people who have shaped it. There are traveler's tales, elegies, meditative fragments, and satirical sketches. Above all, there is Murray's astonishing versatility, on display here at its exhilarating best.
Author Les Murray is the author of twelve books of poetry. His collection Subhuman Redneck Poems received the T. S. Eliot Prize, and in 1998 he was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, presented by Queen Elizabeth II. He lives in New South Wales, Australia.
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Our March Book Club selection:
31 Hours by Masha Hamilton
Join us Thursday, March 31 at 7pm to discuss this edge-of-your seat novel by Masha Hamilton, a journalist and novelist.
"Hamilton has used both her considerable empathy as a writer and her experience in the Middle East to create an intimate portrait of 21-year-old Jonas Meitzner. It's not easy to like him for what he intends to do, much less admire him, but Hamilton makes us aware of his humanity...Sensitive, lonely and full of the anger and doubt many young people feel, Jonas seems in Hamilton's hands not a stranger, not an impenetrable figure of dread whose behavior is beyond our understanding, but the ordinary, fragile child of ordinary, fragile people. You don't exactly want to look at the story of what happens to Jonas, but Hamilton has made it very hard to tear your gaze away." -- The Washington Post
"Gorgeous and complex....a very tense narrative, vividly imagined and eerily plausible." -- Publishers Weekly
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In Our Window
The Nature Connection: Bringing Nature, Animals, & the Arts to People
The mission of The Nature Connection is "To support the human spirit by building connections between people and the natural world."
Formerly known as Animals as Intermediaries (AAI), The Nature Connection brings animal and nature programs to people with limited access to the natural world. Founded over 25 years ago, we connect individuals with nature's capacity to heal and to teach.
The Nature Connection serves at-risk youth, people with disabilities and elders. We use a unique methodology that brings together seasonal natural materials, live animals, storytelling, music and other expressive arts.
Visiting each site once a month, or more, The Nature Connection brings educational and therapeutic nature programs to hospitals, residential programs, special needs schools, and nursing homes. We have served some of our clients for over 15 years.
Since our founding in 1983, The Nature Connection has provided over 15,000 contacts with at-risk youth, elders and people with disabilities in the Greater Boston area.
This week's beautiful front window promises that spring is coming! Featured books include Bill McKibben's Eaarth, David Allen Sibley's The Sibley Guide to Trees, Carl Safina's The View From Lazy Point, and Clare Walker Leslie's The Nature Connection.
For more information about The Nature Connection, visit their website, or call 978 369-2585.
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