News from The Concord Bookshop

We should be used this in New England, turn the page of the calendar, and fall hits us full on! School buses are on the roads, a chill is in the air, and evening comes just a little bit earlier each night. Come on in and let us help you find the perfect book or jigsaw puzzle to settle in with on these drizzly days.

September also brings the start of our fall author series! Our next event is with John Smolens on Sunday, September 11 at 3pm. John's most recent novel, The Schoolmaster's Daughter, is set during the American Revolution, in Boston, Lexington and Concord.

Other upcoming 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 signed copy of the book, please call us to pre-order. We'll have the book personally inscribed to your specifications, hold it for pick-up, or arrange to ship it.

Our three book picks this week include three distinct genres - a collection of prose poems, a poignant novel about memories of marriage, and an anthology of bullying - especially significant as our children head back to school. When you come in to look at these titles, please tell us "I saw this in the newsletter!"

Scroll down in this newsletter to see what the Concord-Carlisle Girl Scouts have in our window this week!

As always, we look forward to chatting with you in the Bookshop; tell us what you're packing in your back-to-school bag. Comments are also welcome via email to info.concordBookshop@gmail.com.

Our Next Event - John Smolens and The Schoolmaster's Daughter

Sunday, September 11 at 3pm

Please join us on Sunday, September 11 at 3pm, as we welcome John Smolens with his most recent novel, The Schoolmaster's Daughter.

This novel, set during the American Revolution, explores a family torn apart - Abigail Lovell's schoolmaster father is an outspoken loyalist and prominent figurehead in the community, she and her two brothers engage in acts of espionage to undermine the British forces in Boston. Much of the story takes place in Lexington and Concord.

John Smolens is author of Cold; The invisible World; Fire point; and The Anarchist, an "editor's Choice" pick by The Denver Post. John received his MFA from the University of Iowa and is currently head of the MFA program at Northern Michigan University.

New in our signed books gallery - poetry from a Pulitzer Prize winner

Kindertotenwald: Prose Poems by Franz Wright

We were delighted that Franz Wright stopped in the bookshop the same day that his new collection of poetry arrived. He generously signed first edition copies for our customers; they're on our bookshelves now.

Kindertotenwold is a genre-bending collection of prose poems which brings us surreal tales of childhood, adolescence, and adult awareness, moving from the gorgeous to the shocking to a sense of peace. Wright's most intimate thoughts and images appear before us in dramatic and spectral short narratives: mesmerizing poems whose colloquial sound and rhythms announce a new path for this luminous and masterful poet.

Wright seeks to narrate his way through the dark wood of his title, following the crumbs of language. "Take everything," he suggests, "you can have it all back, but leave for a little the words, of all you gave the most mysteriously lasting." With a strong presence of the dramatic in every line, Kindertotenwald pulls us deep into this journey, where we too are lost and then found again with him.

Franz Wright's most recent works include Wheeling Motel and Earlier Poems. Walking to Martha's Vineyard was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2004, and he has also been the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Fellowship, and the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, among other honors.

New fiction

I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck

"A breathlessly mannered, affecting new work . . . Small, vital snapshots make up two lives closely shared, and beautifully portrayed in this triumph of a novel."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"His hand is growing cold, still she holds it" is how this novel that tells the story of a marriage begins. The tale unfolds over a single night as Nina sits at the bedside of her husband, Philip, whose sudden and unexpected death is the reason for her lonely vigil. Still too shocked to grieve, she lets herself remember the defining moments of their long union, beginning with their meeting in Paris. She is an artist, he a highly accomplished mathematician - a collision of two different worlds that merged to form an intricate and passionate love. As we move through select memories- real and imagined - Tuck reveals the most private intimacies, dark secrets, and overwhelming joys that defined Nina and Philip's life together.

Slender, potent, and utterly engaging, I Married You For Happiness combines marriage, mathematics, and the probability of an afterlife to create Tuck's most affecting and riveting book yet.

New anthology for tweens, teens, and adults

Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories, edited by Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones

From some of the biggest names in teen fiction comes a timely and moving collection of personal stories about bullying.

Discover how Lauren Kate transformed the feeling of that one mean girl getting under her skin into her first novel, how Lauren Oliver learned to celebrate ambiguity in her classmates and in herself, and how R.L. Stine turned being the "funny guy" into the best defense against the bullies in his class.

Today's top authors for teens come together to share their stories about bullying-as silent observers on the sidelines of high school, as victims, and as perpetrators-in a collection at turns moving and self-effacing, but always deeply personal.

Contributors include Heather Brewer, Nancy Garden, Ellen Hopkins, Carolyn Mackler, Lisa McMann, Alyson Noel, Aprilynne Pike, Carrie Ryan, Jon Scieszka, Rachel Vail, Nancy Werlin, Mo Willems, Kiersten White, and many more.

A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Stomp Out Bullying.

In Our Window

Concord-Carlisle Girl Scouts

Girl Scouting builds girls of Courage, Confidence, and Character who make the world a better place! Become a Girl Scout today and you can: make new friends, get involved, camp, sing, play, have fun, try new things, create, and explore new places and ideas!

Girls in grades K-12 are invited to come to one of our Fall Registration Events:

September 15th, 6-8pm, Concord Scout House (downstairs), 74 Walden Street, Concord
September 17th, 10am-2pm, Concord Scout House, 74 Walden Street, Concord
September 22th, 6pm-7pm at the CSA Fair, Carlisle School, 83 School Street, Carlisle

For more information on Concord-Carlisle Girl Scouts, check us out on You Tube.

Click on this link to see our registration flyer.

Questions? E-mail ccgirlscouts@gmail.com