"save the date" for events for children and adults, book picks and MORE!

We highlight just a few of our new-to-the-bookshop books in this newsletter and invite you to come in to see these and others. When you do visit, please tell us "I saw this in the newsletter!"

Our next event is on Sunday, October 30 with Bruce Irving - former producer of This Old House - and his New England Icons.

The following Sunday, November 6, painter and teacher Loring W. Coleman visits to discuss his a lifetime of painting, and his book, Living and Paiting in a Changing New England. Signed copies will be available.

Our complete events schedule is listed in the left sidebar of this weekly newsletter and on our Facebook page. Coming in the next month are school book fairs with children's book authors, Caroline Preston with her new "novel in pictures," and Gregory Maguire with the final book in his Oz series. 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 featured books this week include the highly anticipated dystopia from Haruki Murakami, a novel set in both Boston and Florence at the turn of the century, and new nonfiction that looks at what we eat, how we eat it, and - most telling - what goes on around our dinner tables.

If you're thinking "iWant a copy of the Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs biography," stop at our front desk; we have a nice stack of this, the only authorized and exclusive biography of the genius behind Apple.

Scroll down in this newsletter to peak at our window and the Concord Antiques Sale.

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

Our next 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.

In a collection of short essays, the author - former producer of the popular PBS show This Old House - taps into our collective consciousness by extolling the comforting sense of place we associate with such common and not-so-common New England sights as stone walls, village greens, lobster boats, classic ski runs, and garden cemeteries, to name but a few - symbols of enduring importance that are also still full of life and character.

The book includes 50 full-color photographs by Greg Premru and a Foreword by Norm Abram.

Bruce will discuss his book, present a slide show, and sign copies of New England Icons.

Upcoming event

The Lighthouse Santa written by Sara Hoagland Hunter

illustrated by Julia Miner

Many of us raised in New England remember Edward Rowe Snow, who - for nearly 50 years - flew up and down the coast, bringing gifts to the lighthouse keepers' families each holiday season.

The Lighthouse Santa tells the story of Edward Rowe Snow and one particularly stormy night when he wondered if he'd be able to make his annual deliveries.

A wonderful story that shares New England history, with striking illustrations by a local artist (Julia Miner keeps a studio at Emerson Umbrella), The Lighthouse Santa is sure to delight adults who remember Edward Rowe Snow, children who are just being introduced to his mission, and fans of lighthouses and the New England shores.

We're thrilled that both the author and illustrator of The Lighthouse Santa will be with us on Saturday, November 5 at 11am.

New fiction from an internationally best selling author

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

"Murakami is like a magician who explains what he's doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers . . . But while anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream, it's the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves."

-The New York Times Book Review

The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 -"Q is for 'question mark.' A world that bears a question."

Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.

As Aomame's and Tengo's narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer.

A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell's - 1Q84 is Haruki Murakami's most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.

New nonfiction - perfect for "foodies"

The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food

by Adam Gopnik

Never before have we cared so much about food. It preoccupies our popular culture, our fantasies, and even our moralizing. With our top chefs as deities and finest restaurants as places of pilgrimage, we have made food the stuff of secular seeking and transcendence, finding heaven in a mouthful. But have we come any closer to discovering the true meaning of food in our lives?

With inimitable charm and learning, Adam Gopnik takes us on a beguiling journey in search of that meaning as he charts America's recent and rapid evolution from commendably aware eaters to manic, compulsive gastronomes. It is a journey that begins in eighteenth-century France - the birthplace of our modern tastes (and, by no coincidence, of the restaurant) - and carries us to the kitchens of the White House, the molecular meccas of Barcelona, and beyond. To understand why so many of us apparently live to eat, Gopnik delves into the most burning questions of our time, including: Should a Manhattanite bother to find chicken killed in the Bronx? Is a great vintage really any better than a good bottle of wine? And: Why does dessert matter so much?

Throughout, he reminds us of a time-honored truth often lost amid our newfound gastronomic pieties and certitudes: What goes on the table has never mattered as much to our lives as what goes on around the table - the scene of families, friends, lovers coming together, or breaking apart; conversation across the simplest or grandest board. This, ultimately, is who we are.

Following in the footsteps of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, Adam Gopnik gently satirizes the entire human comedy of the comestible as he surveys the wide world of taste that we have lately made our home. The Table Comes First is the delightful beginning of a new conversation about the way we eat now.

"Brilliant" fiction - now in paperback

The Doctor and the Diva by Adrienne McDonnell

"Some novels just naturally enslave you, and this is one of them...Serious and gripping...brilliant..."

-The Washington Post

If you enjoy a historical novel set in Boston, The Doctor and the Diva is for you! McDonnell takes her readers from turn-of-the Boston to lovely Florence in a gripping tale based on her own family's lore.

It is 1903, and Erika von Kessler has struggled for years to become pregnant. Resigned to childlessness, Erika - a talented opera singer and the wife of a prominent Bostonian - secretly plans to move to Italy to pursue her musical career. When the charismatic Doctor Ravell takes Erika on as a patient, he is mesmerized by her. Impetuously, he takes a shocking risk that could ruin them both.

Inspired by the author's family history, the novel moves from snowy Boston to the gilded balconies of Florence in a stunning tale of opera, longing, and the indomitable power of romantic obsession.

In Our Window

Concord Antiques Sale

This week's window display was created by The Concord

Antiques Sale of the Trinitarian Congregational Church.

This annual sale, now in its 42nd year, showcases more than 40 exhibitors with country furniture & accessories, Victorian pattern furnishings & glass, jewelry, fine china, antique maps & prints, decorative accessories and much more.

In addition, there is a cafe serving fresh sandwiches, homemade soups & delicious baked goods. All proceeds support both local and international charities.

The Concord Antique Sale runs 10am to 5pm on Friday, November 4 and 10am to 4pm on Saturday, November 5, at the Trinitarian Congregational Church, 52 Walden Street.

For more information about The Concord Antique Sale, visit the TriCon Church website.