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Greetings!
Our next event is Sunday, July 8 at 3pm -- we'll be joined by Eric Kester, who was raised in Concord and graduated Fenn and Middlesex. His memoir, That Book about Harvard is a humorous account of his years in the Ivy League.
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. 
Are you familiar with the Staff Picks displays we have highlighted throughout the bookshop? These are discoveries of new-to-you paperbacks. As you browse and read our Staff Pick selections you may find that one of our staff has reading taste very similar to yours -- your very own personal shopper!
This issue highlights one Staff Pick from each of us.
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" and let us know what you're reading now!
Comments are always welcome via email to
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Our next event: Humorous memoir about his years in the Ivy League
That Book about Harvard by Eric Kester
Please join us on Sunday, July 8 at 3pm, when Eric Kester discusses and signs That Book about Harvard: Surviving the World's Most Famous University, One Embarrassment at a Time, a humorous memoir about his years in the Ivy League. Kester is a former Concord resident, and a graduate of Fenn and Middlesex.
One of the most thrilling and terrifying days of your life is the first day of college, when you step onto campus filled with the excitement of all the possibilities ahead -- and panic about if you'll make it and how you'll fit in.
Now imagine that same feeling, but you're in the middle of the lawn at the world's most prestigious university.
In your underwear.
Thus begins one of the craziest years ever at Harvard, in which Eric Kester finds himself in a cheating scheme, trying to join a prestigious Finals Club, and falling for a stunning type-A brunette...who happened to be standing there in shock that first day when he made his red-faced stroll across the Harvard Yard.
That Book about Harvard is the hilarious and heartwarming story of trying to find your place in a new world, the unending quest to fit in, and how the moments that change your life often happen in the most unexpected ways.
Eric Kester -- who was raised in Concord -- graduated from Harvard in 2008, where he wrote a popular column for the undergraduate newspaper, the Crimson. Eric is now a featured writer for CollegeHumor.com.
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Staff Picks
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Burt - "Changez, a Pakistani, walks up to a man in a café at dusk, introduces himself, and begins talking. A chance meeting, or a deliberate encounter? Thus begins Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
As Changez's story unfolds, we learn of the life he was building in America, and the way it changed in the wake of September 11th. We never hear from the stranger - the story is told only from Changez's side. As evening turns to night, we learn more and more about both men, but are left only to conjecture about their motivations and ultimate purposes.
This is a tense yet beautifully written book, and will keep you in suspense from beginning to end. It was far and away my favorite among the short-listed books for the 2007 Man Booker Prize."
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Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice
Cadance - "Ben Rice's slim novel is a beautiful rumination on the nature of family, and the necessity for imagination. Written with wit and an eye for piquant detail, Rice captures the often fractious nature of family relationships, as well as a deep sense of love. Full of idiosyncratic yet realistic personalities, this novel is imbued with a sense of wonder and appreciation, which resonates with the shimmer of the Australian outback."
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Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda
Carolyn - "I was first drawn to this book by the colorful cover, and once I began reading it I was entertained by its eccentric characters - Paulette an aging gardener; Franck, a womanizing chef; Camille, a cleaning woman and artist; and Philibert, an aristocratic postcard salesman. I enjoyed reading about life in France, and appreciated the author's sensibility in conveying details and touching descriptions or everyday experiences. Camille enjoys how artist Sempé shows the "infinit poetry of everyday situations," and that is a phrase that could aptly describe this book as well."
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Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving
Dana - "Different story -- same John Irving, a master storyteller with a quirky tale of lumbering in northern New Hampshire with characters so peculiar and alluring that I will remember them forever. There is an autobiographical element in this book and, yes, a bear. This is a return to the Irving of old -- I had all but given up on him, but this story takes you on such an incredible journey in time, place, and substance that you will shirk work and postpone play to keep reading. If Ketchum doesn't make your heart sing, you should see a cardiologist."
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Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away by Christie Watson
Dawn - "When the novel opens, Blessing - the 12-year-old narrator - lives with her parents and older brother, Ezikiel, in "executive apartments" in Lagos, aware of, yet not really interacting with the beggars and itinerant peddlers she sees on the streets. This relatively easy existence changes when Father moves out, taking his financial support with him; in a matter of weeks, Blessing and Ezikiel move with their mother to her family's compound near Warri in the Niger Delta, where they live in poverty, in unhygienic conditions, and with little to eat.
To these physical challenges and discomforts, we add political and religious confusion. Blessing struggles to understand her grandfather's fairly recent conversion to Islam. She witnesses mobile patrols who carry foreign oil company executives to and from their jobs, sirens blaring and lights flashing; these "white devils" profit from the "black gold" in the oil pipelines. So-called Freedom Fighters use violence to protect what they understand to be the property of the people of Nigeria.
Watson's characters are fully realized, from the boys in gun boats whom we meet only in passing, to Blessing, who narrates the novel with a voice that matures as she does - observing, learning, suffering, and persevering.
Author Christie Watson does not lecture about politics, poverty, or the practice of female circumcision. She does, however, offer resources for additional information at the back of the book, where she pays homage to the real people of the Niger Delta, the "Big Heart."
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away is beautifully told. It is impossible to read it and not be moved."
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On Gold Mountain by Lisa See
Fay - "This is the story of Lisa See's family: of her great-grandfather's immigration in the 1870s from a Chinese village to California and his improbable rise as a successful businessman; of his forbidden interracial marriage to See's Caucasian grandmother; of the family's journey throughout the 20th century in Los Angeles' Chinatown. As a skilled storyteller, Ms. See offers drama, tension, and compelling characterization to her memoir, incorporating family stories with historical detail drawn from contemporaneous journalism. Best known for her successful historical novels (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, among others), this earlier volume, first published in 1995, is a fast-paced and compelling novel. We in the East often forget the parallel history that occurred "out West." Become more enlightened with On Gold Mountain."
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The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher
John - "Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, this engrossing novel concerns two working-class families, the Sellers and the Glovers, neighbors in Sheffield, England in the 1970s. The author follows both families and their interaction over three decades, focusing in particular on Tim Glover and how two seemingly inconsequential acts of cruelty impact each family.
Expansive and deeply moving, The Northern Clemency is storytelling at its best, filled with Dickensian minor characters and subplots, the action moving seamlessly back and forth between Sheffield and London and eventually Sydney, Australia."
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Just Kids by Patti Smith
Leah - "You need not be familiar with the artistic work of Patti Smith or Robert Mapplethorpe to appreciate Just Kids, Patti's loving tribute to their friendship. Written twenty years after Robert's death, the account is full of poetic and tender memories of their young, bohemian lives together in New York City during the 70s. She vividly captures the atmosphere of the city and the times, recalling the details of how she and Robert outfitted themselves and their various apartments. Patti and Robert's ever-growing collection of sentimental trinkets, books and music becomes an essential element of the memoir, as the pair moves these evocative objects form one gritty dwelling to the next. They eventually settle in a room at the famed Chelsea Hotel, amongst a colorful and talented cast of residents. While they navigate the social web of New York's artists, writers and musicians, their faithful and zealous support of one another secures a constant bond between the two. Smith's record of their fierce devotion and companionship is fond and sensitive, melancholy and celebratory. It is a deeply satisfying coming of age story about honoring a spirited friendship."
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A City So Grand by Stephen Puleo
Matt - "This is an enormously engaging account full of interesting facts told with a clarity and intelligence that makes the book accessible to both casual historians and history buffs. Boston grew into much of what it is today with such amazing feats as the building of America's first subway at Tremont Street and the filling in of the highly polluted salt-water mudflats that became the Back Bay. We also learn about such interesting topics as the role Boston had in the abolitionist movement and the important contributions of Irish immigrants.
This is a wonderful read and is highly recommended to everyone."
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The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer
Sandra - "J. R. Moehringer's memoir of his life in Manhattan, New York is Long Island's answer to New Jersey's Sopranos ... without the violence and with a mixed ethnicity of Irish, Italian, WASP, rich, poor, conservative, and liberal. Abandoned by his father in the early 1970s at the age of nine months and raised by women, JR clung to his Uncle Charlie, a bartender at Publicans, 142 steps from his home. There he found a cast of characters who would score 0 on a scale of 1-10 as fathers, but who gave him more love, warmth and praise than Ward Cleaver gave Beaver.
Told with great wit and humor, themes of love, abandonment and the lies we tell ourselves and others to hide our shame and painful truths weave throughout the narrative. Those of us from the New York City area will feel at home with the accents and intense emotional energy. Publicans is at the center of JR's tale, his place to hide and to be found, sometimes crazy, often loving ... a tender bar."
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In our window
Annie Leibovitz's Pilgrimage exhibit at the Concord Museum
The only drawback to this beautiful sunny week is that it's been hard to get a photo of our community window without reflection and glare -- do stop in to see the window from the Concord Museum, cleverly filled with rolls of film and vintage cameras among the photography and art books on display.
Annie Leibovitz's Pilgrimage exhibit is on display at the Concord Museum now through September 23.
This exhibit is in collaboration with Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House and organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
It brings together approximately 70 photographs that chart a new direction for one of America's best-known living photographers. Concord is the first stop on a national tour of this exhibition, and its only New England venue.
For more information, visit the Concord Museum website, or phone 978-369-9763.
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