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Store Hours
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Mon - Wed 9:30 - 6:00
Thursday 9:30 - 9:00
Friday 9:30 - 6:00
Sat 9:30 - 5:00
Sun Noon - 5:00
Closed July 4 for Independence Day!
Open 24/7 online at:
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Upcoming Events
7/18 (Thurs) 6-7:30pm
Drop-in customer-led group discusses articles and essays in The Sun Magazine
Stay tuned for a list of our Fall events, which will resume after Labor Day!
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Greetings! Are you vacationing this week, or headed for a day of rest and relaxation while you celebrate America's birthday? We're open until 6pm on Wednesday, July 3, and will be closed for the Independence Day holiday - reopening on Friday, July 5 at 9:30am. Come on in and stock up on summer reading for yourself, or materials for camp care packages; a few suggestions in this week's newsletter: Tim Parks's new book about Italian life; Oliver Sacks's look at hallucinations (paperback); world noir set in Catalonia (paperback); Joan Wickersham's recent collection of short fiction (paperback). We have signed books from Richard Peck - the new middle grade novel whose hero is a mouse living in Buckingham Palace!
Looking for a fun beach read? Or, have a hankering for historical fiction? Check out the two new table displays in the front of the store. Or, get to know the work of Ian McEwan, our Author of the Month for July.
A reminder that our community window features the annual Picnic in the Park, which takes place on Thursday, July 4, at Emerson Field -- fun for the entire family!
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
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Dr. Oliver Sacks investigates
"elusive sensory tricksters" -
now in paperback
Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks
From the bestselling author of Musicophilia and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, a provocative investigation into hallucinations: their many guises, their physiological sources, and their personal and cultural impact.
For most people, hallucinations imply madness. But non-psychotic hallucinations are common: from the simple geometric shapes that we see when we rub our eyes to the intricate zigzags of a visual migraine, hallucinations take many forms. Throughout history, hallucinations have been linked to mythological tradition, literary inspiration, and even religious epiphany.
Oliver Sacks investigates the mystery of these elusive sensory tricksters: what they say about the working of our brains, how they have influenced our folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.
Oliver Sacks is a practicing physician and the author of twelve books, including The Mind's Eye, Musicophilia, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and Awakenings (which inspired the Oscar-nominated film). He lives in New York City, where he is a professor of neurology at the NYU School of Medicine.
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New paperback crime fiction from EuropaEditions "World Noir"
Summertime All the Cats Are Bored by Philippe Georget
"The principal character of Georget's novel is Catalonia, a region seldom used in noir fiction. Far from hyper-urban cities ... the countryside, brutalized by heat, the scents of the Mediterranean and of Spain, and the cosmopolitanism of Perpignan are the massive figures who are imbued little by little, through Georget's narrative, with a new mythology."
-Obiwi Magazine
New from the "Noir" line of Europa - quality paperbacks with French flaps and a dark mysterious side:
It's the middle of a long hot summer on the French Mediterranean shore. The town is full of tourists and the at the Perpignan police headquarters, Sebag and Molino, two tired cops who are being slowly devoured by dull routine and family worries, deal with the day's misdemeanors and petty complaints without a trace of enthusiasm.
But then a young Dutch woman is brutally murdered on a beach at Argelès, and another disappears without a trace in the alleys of the city. A serial killer obsessed with Dutch women? Maybe. The media goes wild.
Gilles Sebag finds himself thrust into the middle of a diabolical game. If he intends to salvage anything, he will have to put aside his domestic cares, forget his suspicions about his wife's faithfulness, ignore his heart murmur, and get over his existential angst.
Author Philippe Georget has worked for Radio France and The Rough Guide before embarking on regional television side of Orleans. He has worked as a journalist editor, cameraman and presenter. Summertime All The Cats Are Bored won the First Novel Award 2011 and The Mystery of the Polar Price SNCF 2011
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Short fiction collection packs "an emotional cannonball" -
now in paperback
The News from Spain by Joan Wickersham
The author of the acclaimed memoir The Suicide Index returns with a virtuosic collection of stories, each a stirring parable of the power of love and the impossibility of understanding it.
The stories range from eighteenth-century Vienna, where Mozart and his librettist Da Ponte are collaborating on their operas, to America in the 1940s, where a love triangle unfolds among a doctor, a journalist, and the president's wife. A race-car driver's widow, a nursing-home resident and her daughter, a paralyzed dancer married to a famous choreographer - all feel the overwhelming force of passion and renunciation.
With uncanny emotional exactitude, Wickersham shows how we never really know what's in someone else's heart, or in our own; how we continually try to explain others and to console ourselves; and how love, like storytelling, is ultimately a work of the imagination.
Author Joan Wickersham's fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her op-ed column appears regularly in The Boston Globe and other periodicals and journals.
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A new adventure with Pete the Cat!
Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo
by Tim Parks
The best-selling author of Italian Neighbors returns with a wry and revealing portrait of Italian life - by riding its trains.
Tim Parks's books on Italy have been hailed as "so vivid, so packed with delectable details, [they] serve as a more than decent substitute for the real thing" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, in his first Italian travelogue in a decade, he delivers a charming and funny portrait of Italian ways by riding its trains from Verona to Milan, Rome to Palermo, and right down to the heel of Italy.
Parks begins as any traveler might: "A train is a train is a train, isn't it?" But soon he turns his novelist's eye to the details, and as he journeys through majestic Milano Centrale station or on the newest high-speed rail line, he delivers a uniquely insightful portrait of Italy. Through memorable encounters with ordinary Italians - conductors and ticket collectors, priests and prostitutes, scholars and lovers, gypsies and immigrants - Parks captures what makes Italian life distinctive: an obsession with speed but an acceptance of slower, older ways; a blind eye toward brutal architecture amid grand monuments; and an undying love of a good argument and the perfect cappuccino.
Tim Parks has lived in Italy since 1980. His novels include Europa, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and he is the author of several nonfiction accounts of life in Italy, including Italian Neighbors and An Italian Education. During his years in Italy, Parks has translated works by Italo Calvino, Roberto Calasso, Alberto Moravia, and Machiavelli. He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.
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New in our Signed Books Gallery
The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail by Richard Peck
Newbery Medal winner Richard Peck brings us the follow-up to his acclaimed Secrets at Sea - an irresistibly captivating, clever yarn. The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail is an exhilarating adventure, perfect for fans of The Tale of Despereaux and The Borrowers.
The smallest mouse in the Royal Mews is such a mystery that he hasn't even got a name. And who were his parents? His Aunt Marigold sews him a uniform and sends him off to be educated at the Mouse Academy, but he doesn't make a success of school. Soon he is running for his life, looking high and low throughout the grand precincts of Buckingham Palace to find out who he is and who he might become.
Queen Victoria ought to be able to help him. She is all-seeing and her powers are unexplainable. But from her he learns only that you do not get all of your answers from the first asking. And so his voyage of self-discovery takes him onward to strange and wonderful places.
Richard Peck, author of more than thirty novels, is one of the most celebrated children's book writers in the country. He has won the Newbery Medal, the Edgar Award, the Margaret A. Edwards Award, a National Humanities Medal, and twice been a National Book Award finalist, among many other honors. He lives in New York City (when not visiting London his favorite home away from home).
Signed editions are in the Bookshop!
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In our window
Picnic in the Park! July 4 at Emerson Field
All are invited for the festivities that include all day music, food tables, and activities for all ages.
- 10:00am - Tethered balloon rides begin
- 11:15am - Children gather for decorated bicycle parade, which takes place at 11:30am
- 11:45am - 1:00pm - Celtic and Cape Breton Music by Annalivi
- 1:30pm - 3:00pm - bluegrass music by Southern Rail
- 3:15pm - 4:30pm - concert music by the Concord Band
Activities for families will include:
- field games (12:30 - 1:30)
- balloon twisting (1:00 - 3:00)
- the popular Fire Department 911 House,
- the Police Department radar toss
- a demonstration by Concord's K-9 police officer, Officer Sylvia Toumayan and her dog Charik (1:00 -1:30)
- juggling by Peter Panic Juggler (2:00 - 3:00)
- for teens, a henna artist will make temporary tattoos
In the case of rain, the music will be moved indoors.
Come one, come all to this fun annual tradition - Concord's Picnic in the Park!
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