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Greetings! It's time for our mid-week reminder: Mark your calendars for these upcoming author events: - Thursday, April 25 - Henriette Lazaridis Power presents The Clover House
- Sunday, April 28 - memoirists Katrina Kenison (Magical Journey) and Margaret Roach (The Backyard Parables)
- Thursday, May 2 - Julie Wu presents The Third Son
A full list of scheduled events is on the sidebar of this newsletter. Remember, if you're unable to attend an event, but would like a signed/inscribed copy of the featured book, just call us to make arrangements. This week's newsletter features Granta's 2013 list of best young British novelists. The list is compiled once every ten years - wow, are these authors young and talented! Book picks this week include a fascinating biography of the "rebellious" Rothschild daughter who became something a Muse to Thelonious Monk and other Jazz greats; two New York Review books - one for adults, one for middle grade readers - that are back in print; and a very funny picture book about a disappearing loaf of bread.
Take a peek in the community window to see what the Concord Players are up to this spring!
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, Thursday: novel spans contemporary Boston and wartime Greece
The Clover House by Henriette Lazaridis Power
Join us on Thursday, April 25 at 7pm, when Henriette Lazaridis Power reads from and signs The Clover House. This is a powerful debut novel about a woman shuttling between America and Greece to solve the mystery surrounding her family's past and claim an identity of her own.
This paperback original is sure to be a hit with book groups, perfect for fans of The Island and Sarah's Key.
Calliope Notaris Brown travels from Boston to the Greek city of Patras to sort through an inheritance from her uncle. She arrives during the wild abandon of Carnival, when the world is turned upside down and things are not as they seem. Digging through the keepsakes left to her, Callie stumbles upon clues to the wartime disappearance of the family's fortune and to the mystery of her estranged mother's chronic unhappiness.
Author Henriette Lazaridis is a Boston-area first generation Greek American; a Concord Academy graduate who has degrees in English literature from Middlebury College; Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar; and the University of Pennsylvania. She taught at Harvard for ten years, serving as an academic dean for four of those, and is the founding editor of The Drum, a literary magazine publishing exclusively in audio form. A competitive rower, Power trains regularly on the Charles River.
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Sunday's event: An afternoon with two inspirational memoirists
Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
by Katrina Kenison and
The Backyard Parables: Lessons on Gardening, and Life
by Margaret Roach
We are so fortunate to have - not one, but two - fantastic memoirists visiting with us on Sunday, April 28 at 3pm. Join us as Katrina Kenison discusses her most recent, Magical Journey, and Margaret Roach presents The Backyard Parables.
From the author of The Gift of an Ordinary Day, Katrina Kenison's intimate memoir of loss, self-discovery, and growth will resonate deeply with any woman who has ever mourned the passage of time, questioned her own purpose, or wondered, "Do I have what it takes to create something new in my life?"
With the candor and warmth that have endeared her to readers, Kenison reflects on the inevitable changes wrought by time. She finds solace in the notion that midlife is also a time of unprecedented opportunity for growth as old roles and responsibilities fall away, and unanticipated possibilities appear on the horizon. 
After ruminating on the bigger picture in her memoir And I Shall Have Some Peace There, Margaret Roach has returned to the garden, insisting as ever that we must garden with both our head and heart, or as she expresses it, with "horticultural how-to and woo-woo." In The Backyard Parables, Roach uses her fundamental understanding of the natural world, philosophy, and life to explore the ways that gardening saved and instructed her, and meditates on the science and spirituality of nature, reminding her readers and herself to keep on digging.
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Granta's list of Best Young British Novelists 2013
Once each decade, Granta compiles a list of the twenty *best* British novelists under the age of 40. These are writers who, according to John Freeman, the editor of Granta, are "fresh and bold - people with a sense of how to tell a story, a sense of the form and how to challenge it."
Some who've been listed previously include Martin Amis, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, Rose Tremain, Ian McEwan, and Salman Rushdie.
Look for our display of those on the 2013 Granta list (list and brief bios from The Guardian):
- Naomi Alderman (born 1974), author of books including The Liars' Gospel and designer of computer games.
- Tahmima Anam (1975), whose Bengal Trilogy charts Bangladeshi history from the war of independence onwards.
- Ned Beauman (1985), who was longlisted for the Man Booker prize for The Teleportation Accident.
- Jenni Fagan (1977), whose debut, The Panopticon, was published 2012. She is also a poet.
- Adam Foulds (1974) won the Costa poetry prize for his poem about the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. His novels include The Quickening Maze, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker.
- Xiaolu Guo (1973) was shortlisted for the Orange prize for A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers.
- Sarah Hall (1974) has won and been shortlisted for many awards for her novels, which include How To Paint a Dead Man.
- Steven Hall (1975) has published one novel, The Raw Shark Texts, which won the Somerset Maugham award.
- Joanna Kavenna (1973), whose books include Inglorious, won the Orange prize for new writing.
- Benjamin Markovits (1973) turned from professional basketball playing to writing, including a trilogy on the life of Lord Byron (Childish Loves).
- Nadifa Mohamed (1981) was born in Somalia and won the Betty Trask award for her debut, Black Mamba Boy.
- Helen Oyeyemi (1984) is the author of three novels including Mr. Fox.
- Ross Raisin (1979) is the author of God's Own Country, shortlisted for the Guardian first book award, and Waterline.
- Sunjeev Sahota (1981) is working on his second novel, following Ours Are the Streets.
- Taiye Selasi (1979) has just published her debut, Ghana Must Go.
- Kamila Shamsie (1973) has written five novels; the most recent, Burnt Shadows, was shortlisted for the Orange prize.
- Zadie Smith (1975) is the author of four novels. The latest is NW. She was on the Granta list in 2003.
- David Szalay (1974) is the author of three novels: London and the South-east, The Innocent and Spring.
- Adam Thirlwell (1974) has written two novels, including The Escape, and was on the Granta list in 2003.
- Evie Wyld (1980) who wrote After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, publishes her second novel, All the Birds, Singing, in June.
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Biography of Rothschild daughter - a muse of New York's jazz scene
The Baroness: The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild
by Hannah Rothschild
Beautiful, romantic and spirited, Pannonica, known as Nica, was born in 1913 to extraordinary, eccentric privilege and a storied history. The Rothschild family had, in only five generations, risen from the ghetto in Frankfurt to stately homes in England.
In the early 1950s Nica heard "'Round Midnight" by the jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and, as if under a powerful spell, abandoned her marriage and moved to New York to find him. She devoted herself to helping Monk and other musicians: she bailed them out of jail, paid their bills, took them to the hospital, even drove them to their gigs. But it was Monk who was the love of her life and whom she cared for until his death in 1982.
Hannah Rothschild has drawn on archival material and her own interviews in this quest to find out who her great-aunt really was and how she fit into a family that, although passionate about music and entomology, was reactionary in always favoring men over women. Part musical odyssey, part love story, The Baroness is a fascinating portrait of a modern figure ahead of her time who dared to live as she wanted, finally, at the very center of New York's jazz scene.
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Back in print, from NYR Books
The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715
written by Paul Hazard; translated by James Lewis May;
introduction by Anthony Grafton
After being out of print in the US for more than 40 years, we're thrilled that this work by Paul Hazard is back in a gorgeous NYRB paperback edition!
In this landmark of intellectual history, Paul Hazard looks at the period leading up the Enlightenment, years which saw the erosion of the classical values of respect for tradition, stability, and proportion, as well as a growing awareness of non-European cultures. Hazard captures the excitement of a revolution, the impact of which continues to be felt in our own time.
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Back in print, from the New York Review Children's Collection
The Abandoned by Paul Gallico
First published in 1950, and out of print for more than 20 years, The Abandoned is back - in a beautiful hardcover edition from the New York Review Children's Collection.
London hasn't been kind to Peter, a lonely boy whose parents are always out at parties; and though Peter would love to have a cat for company, his nanny won't hear of it. One day, as Peter is walking out the door, he sees a truck bearing down on a tabby. Dashing out to save the cat, he is struck by the oncoming truck himself.
Everything is different when Peter comes to: He has fur, whiskers, and claws; he has become a cat himself! But London isn't any kinder to cats than it is to children. Jennie, a savvy stray who takes charge of Peter, knows that all too well. Jennie schools young Peter in the ways of cats, including how to sniff out a nice napping spot, the proper way to dine on mouse, and the single most important tactic a cat can learn: "When in doubt, wash." Jennie and Peter will face many challenges - and not all of them are from the dangerous outside world - in their struggle to find a place that is truly home.
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Any way you slice it ... this book's
a read-aloud hit!
Hooray for Bread
written by Allan Ahlberg; illustrated by Bruce Ingman
From the comic duo behind The Runaway Dinner and The Pencil comes a day in the life of a loaf of bread, told slice by yummy slice.
Early in the morning the baker bakes a delicious loaf of bread. So delicious, in fact, that by the time the sun goes down it has been gobbled up!
Who eats it all? Well, the baker munches on its crunchy crust. The baker's wife eats some toast for breakfast, and the baker's son gets a cheese and ham sandwich for lunch. And let's not forget the dog! As the loaf gets smaller, slice by slice and crumb by crumb, everyone eats their fill: ducks, fishes, birds, and even a teeny tiny mouse who nibbles up the very last scrap.
With lively rhymes, fun illustrations, and an infectious refrain, Allan Ahlberg and Bruce Ingman cook up a tasty tale that is sure to become a read-aloud staple.
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In our signed books gallery ...
Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan
Fire, water, air, earth - our most trusted food expert recounts the story of his culinary education.
In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements - fire, water, air, and earth - to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink.
In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook.
The reader learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships: with plants and animals, the soil, farmers, our history and culture, and, of course, the people our cooking nourishes and delights. Cooking, above all, connects us.
Signed, First Editions of Cooked are on our shelves!
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Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende
The New York Times bestselling author returns with a starling and surprising new book - a novel of suspense and a contemporary coming-of-age story narrated by an American teenage girl who falls into a life of drugs and crime and must escape before it's too late.
Author Isabel Allende has published ten works of fiction, four memoirs, and three young adult novels, which have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages. Two of her novels were made into major motion pictures. In 2004 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Allende is the 2012 recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she lives in California.
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The Flower of Empire: An Amazonian Water Lily, the Quest to Make It Bloom, and the World It Created by Tatiana Holway
What do the Victorian-era passion for "flowery" names (Violet, Lily, Flora, etc.), the Crystal Palace at London's 1851 "Great Exhibition," and a race to propagate an Amazonian "vegetable wonder" have in common?
They were all influenced by the discovery of this water lily -- with leaves of 5-6 feet and petals of bright white -- in the South American colony of British Guiana (now Guyana).
Tatiana Holway presented a slide show and talk about The Flower of Empire, then took questions before signing books.
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In our window
The Concord Players presents "The Sound of Music"
The Concord Players presents "The Sound of Music," April 26 - May 11, 2013.
For more information and to obtain tickets, visit The Concord Players website, or phone 978-369-2990.
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