Please join us on Sunday, April 29 at 3pm, as April Bernard reads from, takes questions, and signs Miss Fuller: A Novel.

She was the most famous woman in America.  And nobody knew who she was.

It is 1850.  Margaret Fuller - feminist, journalist, orator - is returning from Europe where she covered the Italian revolution for The New York Tribune.  She is bringing home with her an Italian husband, the Count Ossoli, and their two-year-old son. 

But this is not the gala return of a beloved American heroine.  This is a furtive, impoverished return under a cloud of suspicion and controversy.  When the ship founders in a hurricane and her small family drown, friends back home, Ralph Waldo Emerson and others of the Transcendentalist Concord circle, send Henry David Thoreau to the wreck in hopes of recovering her last manuscript.  

He comes back declaring himself empty-handed - but actually he has found a private and revealing document, a confession in letters, of a strong and beloved woman's life like no other in the 19th century. 

Miss Fuller, a richly imagined historical novel inspired by the passion and drama of a singular life, shows the price that any one person might pay, who strives to change the world for the better.

April Bernard is a novelist, poet, and essayist.  Her books include the novel Pirate Jenny and the poetry collections Romanticism, Blackbird Bye Bye, Psalms, and Swan Electric. She is Director of Creative Writing at Skidmore College and is on the faculty of the Bennington MFA Writing Seminars.

Please join us on Sunday, May 6 at 3pm, as Jay Atkinson reads from, takes questions, and signs Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man: Guts, Glory, and Blood in the World's Greatest Game.

"... the author's passion translates easily to the page, providing a reflective look at his entrance into what he dubs the 'blood fraternity'  ... A testosterone-laden tale deserving of an audience well beyond the locker room."

--Kirkus 

If all sports are really about war, then rugby is a heart thumping epic of bayonet charges and hand-to-hand fighting. In Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man, Jay Atkinson describes his thirty year odyssey in the sport: from his hell raising days at the University of Florida, through the intrigue of various foreign tours, club championships, and all star selections, up to his current stint with the freewheeling Vandals Rugby Club out of Los Angeles. This book also heralds the arrival of rugby as a mainstream sport, as it will be added to the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016.

A Boston-area native, Atkinson has played in more than 500 rugby matches, for which he's suffered through broken ribs, a detached retina, and other injuries. 

He's also taken his share of hard knocks as a writer - for his opinions, his style, and his subject matter. Over the years, Atkinson has also carved out a reputation as a prolific and talented writer, author of seven narrative books (including Legends of Winter Hill, Ice Time, and Caveman Politics), and a tough-minded literary critic and journalist. He teaches journalism at Boston University.

Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man explains why it was all worth it - the sum total of his violent adventures, and the valuable insight he has gained from them. 

The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King - The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea is brand-new nonfiction from an award-winning historian.

Only four men in American history have been promoted to the five-star rank of Admiral of the Fleet: William Leahy, Ernest King, Chester Nimitz, and William Halsey. These four men were the best and the brightest the navy produced, and together they led the U.S. navy to victory in World War II, establishing the United States as the world's greatest fleet. 

In The Admirals, award-winning historian Walter R. Borneman tells their story in full detail for the first time. Drawing upon journals, ship logs, and other primary sources, he brings an incredible historical moment to life, showing us how the four admirals revolutionized naval warfare forever with submarines and aircraft carriers, and how these men - who were both friends and rivals - worked together to ensure that the Axis fleets lay destroyed on the ocean floor at the end of World War II.

We have signed copies of The Admirals on our shelves.

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What a nice surprise when Peter Golden stopped in to sign copies of Comeback Love, his novel about a man's romantic quest to find the woman he loved and lost years before. This is a universal story about lost love; it begins in the tumultuous 1960s and ends in the feverish thrill of present-day New York City.

Over thirty-five years ago, Gordon Meyers, an aspiring writer with a low number in the draft lottery, packed his belongings and reluctantly drove away, leaving Glenna Rising, the sexy, sharp-witted med student he couldn't imagine living without. Now, decades later, Gordon is a former globetrotting consultant with a grown son, an ex-wife, and an overwhelming desire to see Glenna again. 

Plumbing the depths of youth, regret, and desire, Peter Golden deftly illuminates the bonds that mysteriously endure in the face of momentous change.

"Showing us villainy, heroism, and agonizing moral dilemmas, Albright's vivid storytelling and measured analysis brings this tragic era to life."

-- Publishers Weekly, starred review