Book picks, upcoming event w/Dawn Tripp, 'open mic' Poetry Circle w/raffle ...

Our next event is Sunday, April 15 at 3pm when Dawn Tripp joins us to read from The Season of Open Water; scroll down to learn more about this novel, which won the Massachusetts Book Award.

The next week, Sunday, April 22, all are invited to our 'open mic' Poetry Circle as we celebrate National Poetry Month.

The left sidebar of this note contains our complete events calendar; you can also check details on our website and/or rsvp on our Facebook page.

If you're unable to attend an event, but would like a signed copy of the book, simply call us to pre-order. We'll ask the author to inscribe it to your specifications, then hold it for pick up or arrange to have it shipped.

This week's book picks include hot new poetry collections, a gorgeous travel memoir of France, a well-regarded essay collection, and a mystery series.

Are you (channeling your inner Johnny Lee) "looking for love in all the wrong places"? Look no further than our "Romance" column display. We've got the works of Georgette Heyer, Eloisa James, Sarah MacLean, Caroline Linden, and others. If you have a favorite, please let us know, and we'll add it to the display.

We look forward to chatting with you in the Bookshop! When you come in to take a closer look at an item mentioned here, please tell us "I saw it in the newsletter!"

Comments are always welcome via email to

info.concordBookshop@gmail.com.

Our next event - Massachusetts Book Award winner

Sunday, April 15 at 3pm

Dawn Tripp presents The Season of Open Water

Please join us at the Bookshop on Sunday, April 15 at 3pm when Dawn Tripp joins us to read from, take questions, and sign The Season of Open Water.

Ms. Tripp visited us with Game of Secrets last summer; when we learned that The Season of Open Water had been selected as the town-wide "community read" for Dedham, we invited her to share it here.

The Season of Open Water is the passionate, searing story of a young woman coming of age in a New England seacoast town that is swept up in the dangerous trade of rum-running.

It is October 1927. Bridge Weld is nineteen, headstrong and beautiful, working in her grandfather Noel's boatbuilding shop. When Noel is approached by a local bootlegger to refit a boat for smuggling, he feels in his gut that he should not accept the work, yet he takes the job for the money it offers and for the chance it gives him to build a future for his beloved granddaughter, Bridge, and her brother, Luce. What Noel doesn't count on is that Luce will be lured into the rum work himself and will try to pull Bridge into it with him.

But Bridge has embarked on a different course. Caught up in a passion for Henry, a veteran of World War I, Bridge is propelled beyond the confines of her known world, and ultimately she must choose between the man who loves her and the brother to whom she has been loyal all her life. As Bridge strikes out on her own, Luce's fierce attachment spirals out of control.

Exquisitely written, haunting in its rendering of place, The Season of Open Water is a superb novel about a family and the lawlessness of the heart, a love story that explores the often inescapable connections between violence and desire.

Upcoming event - 'open mic' Poetry Circle

Sunday, April 22 at 3pm

To celebrate National Poetry Month, join us for a poetry circle led by Jim Leahy. Jim is the host of CCTV's 'Poetry Moment' and author of Living in Concord.

All attendees are invited to read a poem from a favorite poet, read one of your own creation, or simply sit and take in the afternoon as part of the audience.

Thanks to the generosity of the publisher, Penguin, all attendees will be entered in a raffle to win a copy of the new paperback edition of Good Poems, American Places, edited by Garrison Keillor. The volume includes work from Billy Collins, Nikki Giovanni, William Carlos Williams, Naomi Shihab Nye, Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver and others.

New poetry collection from Pulitzer Prize winner

Almost Invisible: Poems by Mark Strand

From Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Strand comes an exquisitely witty and poignant series of prose poems. Sometimes appearing as pure prose, sometimes as impure poetry, but always with Strand's clarity and simplicity of style, they are like riddles, their answers vanishing just as they appear within reach. Fable, domestic satire, meditation, joke, and fantasy all come together in what is arguably the liveliest, most entertaining book that Strand has yet written.

Mark Strand is the author of twelve earlier books of poems. He is also the author of a book of stories, three volumes of translations, a number of anthologies (most recently 100 Great Poems of the Twentieth Century), and monographs on the artists William Bailey and Edward Hopper. He has received many honors and awards for his poems, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize (for Blizzard of One), the Bollingen Prize, and the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990 he was chosen Poet Laureate of the United States. He teaches at Columbia University.

Close to 800 pages of Larkin!

The Complete Poems: Philip Larkin edited by Archie Burnett

"The musicality of his verse, his ability to address the most metaphysical of subjects in the most vernacular of tones, his acerbic sense of the absurd - all serve to make him one of the most bracing and unforgettable voices in postwar poetry."

-- The New York Times
(reviewed April 9, 2012)

This entirely new edition brings together all of Philip Larkin's poems. In addition to those that appear in Collected Poems (1988) and Early Poems and Juvenilia (2005), some unpublished pieces from Larkin's typescripts and workbooks are included, as well as verse - by turns scurrilous, satirical, affectionate, and sentimental - that had been tucked away in his letters.

For the first time, Larkin's poems are given a comprehensive commentary. This draws critically upon, and substantially extends, the accumulated scholarship on Larkin, and covers closely relevant historical contexts, persons and places, allusions and echoes, and linguistic usage. Prominence is given to the poet's comments on his own poems, which often outline the circumstances that gave rise to a poem or state what he was trying to achieve. Larkin often played down his literariness, but his poetry enrichingly alludes to and echoes the writings of many others; Archie Burnett's commentary establishes him as a more complex and more literary poet than many readers have suspected.

Philip Larkin (1922-1985) grew up in Coventry, England. He was the best-loved poet of his generation and the recipient of innumerable honors, including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

Archie Burnett is co-director of the Editorial Institute and professor of English at Boston University. He has edited the Oxford editions of The Poems of A. E. Housman and The Letters of A. E. Housman

Watercolor drawings and hand-lettering complement this ode to France

Le Road Trip by Vivian Swift

Road trip: those are still the two most inspiring words to vagabonds and couch potatoes alike; after all, the great American spirit was forged by road trippers from the Pilgrims to Lewis and Clark to the Dharma Bums. Le Road Trip combines the appeal of the iconic American quest with France's irresistible allure, offering readers a totally new perspective of life on the road.

Le Road Trip tells the story of one idyllic French honeymoon trip, but it is also a witty handbook of tips and advice on how to thrive as a traveler, a captivating visual record with hundreds of watercolor illustrations, and a chronicle depicting the incomparable charms of being footloose in France. Armchair travelers, die-hard vagabonds, art journalists, and red wine drinkers will all find something to savor in this story.

Vivian Swift, author of When Wanderers Cease to Roam: A Traveler's Journal of Staying Put, is a freelance writer and former assistant vice president of Christie's Inc. When not traveling, she lives on the Long Island Sound with her husband.

Essay collection, now in paperback

Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Writings on Politics, Ice Cream, Churchill, and My Mother by Simon Schama

"In these lively essays and reportage... Schama... turns his omnivorous erudition and warm prose to a vast array of topics. ... He approaches every subject with gusto and amusement and ... always has smart things to say."

-- Publishers Weekly

In this passionate and provocative collection, the brilliant Simon Schama reveals his lighter, more playful side as he brings his keen critical sensibility to a wide range of topics. Captivating and informative, Scribble, Scribble, Scribble captures Schama's wit and acute observations as he holds forth on everything from food and family to Winston Churchill, Martin Scorsese, and Richard Avedon, from Rubens to Rembrandt, from his travels in Brazil and Amsterdam to sailing on the Queen Mary 2.

Never predictable, always stimulating, Scribble, Scribble, Scribble is a treasure trove of surprises that highlight Schama's sense of humor, curiosity, and idiosyncrasies, allowing us to view the world, in all its diversity, through the eyes of one of its most intelligent, witty, and original inhabitants.

Newest Aimée Leduc mystery, now in paperback

Murder in Passy: An Aimée Leduc Investigation by Cara Black

"Addictive ... Leduc is always a reliable and charming guide to the city's lesser-known corners."

--Seattle Times

The village-like neighborhood of Passy, home to many of Paris's wealthiest residents, is the last place one would expect a murder. But when Aimée Leduc's godfather, Morbier, a police commissaire, asks her to check on his girlfriend at her home there, that's exactly what Aimée finds. Xavierre, a haut bourgeois matron of Basque origin, is strangled in her garden while Aimée waits inside.

Circumstantial evidence makes Morbier the prime suspect, and to vindicate him, Aimée must identify the real killer. Her investigation leads her to police corruption; the radical Basque terrorist group, ETA; and a kidnapped Spanish princess.

Cara Black is the author of ten previous books in the bestselling Aimée Leduc series. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son and visits Paris frequently.

In our window

The Concord Players present Little Women

Why see Little Women at the Concord Players?

Here, as listed in their recent newsletter, are six reasons why you will want to attend the eighth decennial production of a dramatization of Little Women by The Concord Players, opening April 27 at 51 Walden Street:

** The Concord Players have a well-earned reputation for spectacular productions. Little Women is presented in full period regalia, as displayed during the recent Costume Parade.

** The production is historic, depicting the town in which it is presented, and Louisa May Alcott, author of the novel, helped found the drama group that became The Concord Players. Also, this year's production coincides with the centennial of her home, Orchard House, as a Museum.

** The story is a classic. Girls and their families from around the world have been reading Little Women since it was first published in 1868. In 1929, 60 years after its initial publication, more than 3 million copies had been sold. The book has spawned two sequels, three movie adaptations, one opera, and one musical.

** Though it was written 150 years ago, the story involves a family struggling with tough times ... a divisive war ... a parent who can't find work. Sound familiar?

** The story is about a special family, living in Concord during an especially significant time in our nation's history. Each time The Concord Players present this show, we place a new stamp on this classic and on our history.

** Come see for yourself and share in our excitement!

For ticket information, visit their website, or call 978-369-2990.