Our next event

A Tea Reader by Katrina Ávila Munichiello

Please join us on Sunday, October 23 at 3pm for a tea party to celebrate the local launch of Katrina Ávila Munichiello's anthology, A Tea Reader: Living Life One Cup at a Time.

Edited by Munichiello, the anthology includes dozens of essays by historic and contemporary authors, such at Aaron Fisher, Louisa May Alcott, Rudyard Kipling, Jane Pettigrew, and Thomas J. Lipton. Each essay shares the way that tea has changed lives through personal, intimate stories.

Read of deep family moments, conquered heartbreak, and peace found in the face of loss. Find reflections of yourself and those that you know through an exploration of these candid stories on tea and how it plays a supporting role in the stories of our lives.

Publishers Weekly calls A Tea Reader "a charming anthology" and a "refreshing reminder of the days when tea parties evoked thoughts of friendship rather than political differences."

Refreshments for the book reading and signing will be provided by Concord Teacakes and Mark T. Wendell Tea Company.

Upcoming event

New England Icons by Bruce Irving

Please join us on Sunday, October 30 at 3pm as we welcome Bruce Irving with New England Icons: Shaker Villages, Saltboxes, Stone Walls, and Steeples.

New in our signed books gallery

Living and Painting in a Changing New England by Loring W. Coleman

Distinguished painter and teacher (notably at Middlesex School, where he taught for 27 years), Loring W. Coleman, shares his lifetime of art through a recounting of experiences as a student, teacher and as a plein air painter, especially of New England landscapes.

In anticipation of our author event with Loring W. Coleman on Sunday, November 6, we have a limited number of signed books available now.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

The author of The Inventions of Hugo Cabret returns with this unique and striking book.

Wonderstruck weaves two stories, set 50 years apart - one told in text, the other told via magnificent charcoal drawings.

Targeted to a middle grade reading level, the book has a much wider appeal, due to its unique format, detailed art, and sensitive exploration of deaf culture.

The Concord Bookshop has signed editions of Wonderstruck.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

What a delightful afternoon we had when Erin Morgenstern brought The Night Circus to the Concord Bookshop with a standing room only crowd.

The Boston Globe calls it, "A Romeo and Juliet tale drenched in magic realism, The Night Circus defies both genres and expectations. In short, it's a showstopper."

After her reading and book signing, Morgenstern graciously signed additional copies for our shelves.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Without Tess by Marcella Pixley

We were honored to host the launch of Marcella Pixley's Without Tess last week. This Young Adult novel is significant for its deft handling of family and sibling relationships, social issues, emotions and feelings. 

It was a joy to see so many people from the community supporting Pixley and her second novel; Freak was published in 2007. Pixley is an 8th grade Language Arts teacher in Carlisle, and had both former and current students in the audience. You can see a video excerpt (via Concord Patch) on our Facebook page.

We have signed editions of Without Tess at the bookshop!

New biography from a Pulitzer Prize winning pair

Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith 

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have written an exquisitely detailed, compellingly readable, and ultimately heartbreaking portrait of creative genius Vincent van Gogh.

Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Naifeh and Smith have accessed a wealth of materials, including the artist's letters and hundreds of unpublished family correspondences, illuminating with poignancy the wanderings of Van Gogh's troubled, restless soul. Naifeh and Smith bring a crucial understanding to the larger-than-life mythology of this great artist - his early struggles to find his place in the world; his intense relationship with his brother Theo; his impetus for turning to brush and canvas; and his move to Provence, where in a brief burst of incandescent productivity he painted some of the best-loved works in Western art.

The authors also shed new light on many unexplored aspects of Van Gogh's inner world: his deep immersion in literature and art; his erratic and tumultuous romantic life; and his bouts of depression and mental illness.

Among the revelations, Naifeh and Smith question the assumption that Van Gogh killed himself, and offer an alternative theory.

Van Gogh: The Life is a beautiful hardcover edition with a vellum overlay. It's a gorgeous package, and a fulfilling read for those interested in biography, art, and specifically, the work and life of Vincent Van Gogh.

Authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith won the Pulitzer Prize for their biography Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, which was also a finalist for the National Book Award. The biography inspired the Academy Award-winning 2000 film Pollock starring Ed Harris and Marcia Gay Harden as well as John Updike's novel, Seek My Face.

Fiction - 

Finalist for National Book Award

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka 

"A delicate, heartbreaking portrait . . . beautifully rendered . . . Otsuka's prose is precise and rich with imagery. Readers will be . . . hopelessly engaged and will finish this exceptional book profoundly moved." 

-Publishers Weekly (starred review)  

Julie Otsuka's long awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine is a tour de force of economy and precision, a novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought over from Japan to San Francisco as 'picture brides' nearly a century ago.

In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces their extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, raising children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history; to the upheaval of war.

In language that has the force and the fury of poetry, Julie Otsuka has written a singularly spellbinding novel about the American dream. 

National Book Award Finalists

The finalists for the National Book Awards 2011 were announced last week; winners will be announced on November 16.

Fiction:

In Our Window

Amnesty International 

This week's window display was created by Amnesty International Group 15, the local voice of Amnesty International USA, and part of a worldwide campaign movement working to promote the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international standards.

For more information about the local Amnesty International group, visit their website.