Please join us as we welcome former Boston-area resident Jael McHenry reading from her novel, The Kitchen Daughter.

The novel is narrated by Ginny Selvaggio, a shy, sheltered young woman with Asperger's syndrome, left alone in her childhood home after the death of her parents and struggling to deal with her grief by cooking from family recipes. It is an an utterly original, page-turning debut about grief, self-discovery, and what it means to be normal.

O, the Oprah Magazine, said of the book, "While Ginny is wonderfully single-minded about cooking, her fresh, sharp story has as many layers as a good pâte á choux;" it was named a "Tantalizing Beach Read" at Oprah.com.

A Tufts University alumna and former Brighton resident who is now based in New York City, McHenry is a passionate home cook who blogs about food and cooking. Her work has appeared in publications such as the North American Review, Indiana Review, and the Graduate Review at American University, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing.

 In award-winning author Dawn Tripp's beautifully crafted third novel, a simple board game offers the link that can finally untangle two families' tragic past.

Praised by the Boston Phoenix as "A combination of thriller, mystery, and literary fiction; the secrets of a murder are revealed through an intense Scrabble game.....An intelligent beach-read."

Dawn Tripp graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in literature. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and sons. She is the author of the novels Moon Tide and The Season of Open Water, which won the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction.

Please join us as we welcome author Dawn Tripp, reading from and signing her latest novel, Game of Secrets. 

What a lovely afternoon with Jeffrey S. Cramer and a room full of people eager to learn more about Thoreau, and to hear some of his writing.

Mr. Cramer explained that Thoreau was a man of contradictions - a vegetarian who ate meat, a loner who loved to engage in conversation.

Jeffrey S. Cramer is curator of collections at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods.  

In addition to signing additional copies of The Quotable Thoreau for our shelves, he was kind to sign some of his other books, including Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition.

These books are available in our shop - as one audience member commented, The Quotable Thoreau is an excellent "hostess gift" for out-of-town friends; bring a little bit of Concord to them.

 Isn't there something refreshing about sending or receiving a hand-written card or note? In these days of e-mail, text messages, and online chats, it's a statement when we take the time to select a card fitting for the event and the recipient.

The Concord Bookshop has individual cards for all occasions - humorous to serious. Styles range from classic cartoons out of The New Yorker to animal-themed, juvenile, art masterpieces, and handmade photography cards from local artist Robin Litwin. 

Our boxed card sets are a treat for your own desk or for a gift. Come in and browse our wide selection.

Did you read this article in last week's Concord Journal, about mother-daughter book groups?

Not only are these groups a fantastic way to explore literature together, but also to see each other in context of other mothers and daughters.

Join Lori Day and her daughter Charlotte Kugler as they discuss how they formed a mother-daughter book group when Charlotte was in third grade, and how it was able to run successfully for six years. They formed lasting friendships, strengthened their own bonds, and discussed books that ranged from childhood classics to popular series.

Charlotte Kugler

Preregistration is required; call 978-369-2405 or stop at our front desk the next time you're in the bookshop. Reserve a seat (or a pair of seats!) for $10, returned to you on the day of the workshop in the form of a Concord Bookshop gift certificate.

Lori, formerly Director of Admissions at The Fenn School, is an educational consultant who focuses on admissions and special education. She writes the It's Your Day blog, and can be found on the Huffington Post and in the pages of the Concord Journal. Charlotte, who just finished her freshman year at Mount Holyoke College, wrote the "Notes from Charlotte's Web" column in the Concord Journal for five years and is spending her summer writing for the Concord Journal and several other local newspapers.

Author Don Gulbrandsen has compiled over 300 photographs by Edward Sheriff Curtis from his inspirational work on the North American Indian.

Curtis devoted over 30 years photographing and documenting over eighty,tribes west of the Mississippi, from the Mexican border to northern Alaska. His project won support from such prominent and powerful figures as President Theodore Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan.

Edward S. Curtis: Visions of the First Americans is an over-sized (approximately 16 x 12 inches) book, with beautiful glossy photos. It's a "coffee table" type book that your family and friends will pick up and read.