After Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin wields her magic on another larger-than-life president, and another momentous and raucous American time period as she brings Theodore Roosevelt, the muckraking journalists, and the Progressive Era to life.

Goodwin describes the broken friendship between Teddy Roosevelt and his chosen successor, William Howard Taft. With the help of the "muckraking" press, Roosevelt had wielded the Bully Pulpit to challenge and triumph over abusive monopolies, political bosses, and corrupting money brokers. Roosevelt led a revolution that he bequeathed to Taft only to see it compromised as Taft surrendered to money men and big business. The rupture between the two led Roosevelt to run against Taft for president, an ultimately futile race that resulted in the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson and the diminishment of Theodore Roosevelt's progressive wing of the Republican Party.

The Bully Pulpit describes a time in our history that enlightened and changed the country, ushered in the modern age, and produced some unforgettable men and women.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, and an oft-seen political commentator. She is the author of biographies of several U.S. Presidents, including Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995, Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir, and Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, which was made into the movie Lincoln. 

Please join us on Thursday, December 5 at 7pm, when Marcella Pixley discusses and signs the new paperback edition of her Young Adult novel, Freak.

"An expertly-and lovingly-narrated story about girls and bullying . . . Stunning."

-- Kirkus, starred review

For Miriam Fisher, a budding poet who reads the Oxford English Dictionary for fun, seventh grade is a year etched in memory "clear as pain." That's the year her older sister, Deborah, once her best buddy and fellow "alien," bloomed like a beautiful flower and joined the high school "in" crowd. And that's the year the popular "watermelon girls" turn up the heat in their cruel harassment of Miriam - ripping her life wide open in shocking, unexpected ways. Teased and taunted in school, Miriam is pushed toward breaking, will she find the inner strength to prove she's a force to be reckoned with?

Marcella Pixley is a writer and a middle school language arts teacher at the Carlisle Public Schools. Her poetry has been published in various literary journals, and she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is also the author of Without Tess. She lives in Westford, Massachusetts, with her husband and two sons. 

What a pleasure it was to host Andre Dubus III with his book of linked novellas, Dirty Love.

Mr. Dubus started the program by extolling the benefits of "brick and mortar" bookshops like ours - thank you all for your response of a hearty round of applause!

He read an excerpt from one of the novellas, spoke about his own writing routine, and took questions before breaking to personally greet members of the audience and sign books.