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

"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 

We are thrilled to host Daphne Kalotay with Russian Winter.  You may recall that we offered signed editions of the hardcover last year.

We understand that many book groups have a "wait for the paperback" guideline.  If that's the case with your group - wait no longer! Meet the author here and pick up a paperback edition; if you're unable to attend the event, you're welcome to pre-order a personally-inscribed copy.

Set in both modern-day Boston and post-WWII Moscow, Russian Winter tells the story of Bolshoi ballerina Nina Revskaya as she becomes a member of Stalin's cultural elite before escaping to the West following a terrible betrayal. Decades later, she has decided to auction off her famed jewelry collection-including the rare set of amber that a Boston professor, Grigori Solodin, translator of the works of Revskaya's late poet-husband, believes may hold the key to a long-kept secret. The literary mystery Grigori sets out to solve-with the help of Drew Brooks, a young associate at the Boston auction house-reaches much deeper: to the cost of making art and trying to live and love under circumstances of enormous repression.

Declared "a magnificent tale of love, loss, betrayal and redemption" (Washington Post), "briskly paced, fresh, and engaging" (Booklist) and "suspenseful, thoughtful, and engrossing" (New York Journal of Books), Russian Winter was a finalist for the James Jones First Novel competition and received a starred review from Kirkus.

Author Daphne Kalotay is also the author of Calamity and Other Stories, which was short-listed for the 2005 Story Prize. A former fellow of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony, she lives in the Boston area.

Clare Walker Leslie shares her most recent book, The Nature Connection: An Outdoor Workbook for Kids, Families, and Classrooms.

Ever since Richard Louv diagnosed nature-deficit disorder in his classic book Last Child in the Woods, parents and teachers have been looking for more ways to connect children with the outdoors. Nationally recognized naturalist and artist Clare Walker Leslie has been igniting kids curiosity about nature for more than 30 years. Her unique approach combines directed observational activities with journaling and field-note prompts that are designed to nurture the next generation of nature lovers and environmentalists.

"The Nature Connection" is an interactive workbook chockfull of creative exercises for kids ages 8 to 13. Leslie begins simply by encouraging children to look out the window and record what they observe: What color is the sky? What shapes are the clouds? Are there any birds? What kind? Are there signs of what season it is?

Once outdoors, kids are prompted to record the sounds they hear, the ground plants they see, the direction of the wind, the shape and direction of their own shadows, and how each of these change from day to day, season to season.

"The Nature Connection" offers dozens of fun things to do during every season: write a poem; make a sketch; tell a story; record the daily sunrise and sunset times for the next month; draw a local map and mark the spots where trees, rocks, animals, and other nature sights reside (and identify each one); keep a moon journal; learn the constellations; or collect leaves and bring them home to sketch and identify.

Sure to engage the whole family in outdoor fun and year-round nature activities, "The Nature Connection" will also stand as a permanent record of a child's unique sightings and experience with nature. 

More than 12,000 people come to Emerson Umbrella each year to enjoy theater, music, and dance performances, as well as a wide variety of events ranging from poetry readings, lectures, and films to open mic nights, teen coffee houses, and birthday parties. Conveniently located in the heart of historic Concord, the Emerson Umbrella, with a 400-seat theater, dance studio, and smaller performance area, is one of the most popular performing arts venues in the area. 

The musical Ragtime, based on E. L. Doctorow's novel of the same name, is a story about life in America at the beginning of the 20th century. The show illustrates poignant issues of the day - from immigration, racism and politics to industrialization and social upheaval. Historical figures intermingle with fictional characters. The show focuses on three families - one upper-middle class, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant; one socialist immigrant Jewish; and one Harlem Black - whose intersecting lives are influenced by the Ragtime era's social challenges.

Ragtime will be presented April 1-16, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8pm, matinee performances at 2pm on Saturday April 9 and 16. For more information, visit the Emerson Umbrella website, or phone 978-371-0820.