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Phoenix Profiles
Screen Free Week
Fiction
Nonfiction
Young Adult Picks
Beginning & Middle Readers
Raising Passionate Readers
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Upcoming Events...

View the full events calendar online
- click here! 

Sat. Story Time

Saturdays at 11am
Phoenix Books Burlington   
Read more.
   
Family Game Night    

Wednesday, May 1st 5:00-8:00pm at
Phoenix Books Essex
A Screen Free Week event!

Rebecca Rupp:
How Carrots Won the Trojan War 

Thursday, May 2nd
at 7:00pm at
Phoenix Books Essex
A Screen Free Week event! 

Calling all gardeners, foodies, and anyone who loves their vegetables!
Read more. 
Bob's Birthday Bash!

Saturday, May 4th from 12-2:00pm at the Jericho Community Center
A Screen Free Week event! 

Join us for a birthday extravaganza in celebration of the tenth anniversary of Tracey Campbell Pearson's Bob! Read more.  
Poker Hill Arts Reception

Sunday, May 5th from 4:00-6:00pm
Phoenix Books Essex
A Screen-Free Week event! 

Join us to celebrate the work of young artists.
Read more.   
Tracey Medeiros: The Vermont Farm Table Cookbok
Wednesday, May 8th
at 7:00pm at
Phoenix Books Essex
&
Thursday, May 9th at 7:00pm at Phoenix Books Burlington

Celebrate all the delicious flavors that Vermont has to offer - just in time for Mother's Day!
Read more. 
VT Mommies Adult Story Time
Tuesday, May 14th from 6:30- 9:00pm
at Phoenix Books Essex

Dan Brown at Lincoln Center Live Stream 

Wednesday, May 15th
at 7:30pm at
Phoenix Books Burlington

Read more.
Bill Mares: The Bach Road to Boston 

Thursday, May 16th
at 7:00pm at
Phoenix Books Burlington

A heartwarming story of Bill's experience running the Boston Marathon.
Read more. 
Inspired by Maddie:
Art Opening & Reception
  Saturday, May 25th from 6:00-8:00pm at Phoenix Books Essex
An Open Studio Weekend event! 
 
Meet Theron and Maddie of Maddie on Things, as well as the local artists and community members taking part in this exhibit. Read more.

Howard Coffin: Something Abides

Wednesday, May 29th
at 7:00pm at
Phoenix Books Essex

Discover the Civil War in today's Vermont with Howard Coffin.
Read more.

Jody Baron
& Peter Beamish: Spiritual Lovemaking

Thursday, May 30th
at 7:00pm at
Phoenix Books Burlington

Learn to use lovemaking to heal your spirit, grow your relationships, and open yourself to greater authenticity.
Read more.

Discoveries in Wine: Discover a New Winery     

Thursday, May 30th at 6:30pm at Phoenix Books Essex ($30)

Live, love, and learn about wine with us! 

Read more.    
Marta Williams: My Animal, My Self

Thursday, May 31th
at 7:00pm at
Phoenix Books Essex

Would you like to actively communicate with your animal companions?
Read more. 
May is Timeless Picture Book Month! 

20% Off* Select Timeless Picture Books
 
*Discount only applies at Phoenix's "brick-and-mortar" locations
 
 
 
Reading Group Recommendation 

Also check out Sedaris' new book, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls.

A recent transplant to Paris, humorist David Sedaris presents a collection of some of his strongest work yet, including the title story about his hilarious attempt to learn French.  
 

 
 May 2013
Dear Friends, 

The internet is a great place to make connections - and as you know, you can connect to Phoenix on a number of social networking sites.  Still, we're most interested in the face-to-face connections that take place when we help you discover just the right gift for Mother's Day, when you meet a local author at one of our events, when we collaborate with community organizations, and when you sit down in the Cafe at Phoenix Books Essex with your friends or family.  This month, we hope you'll join us in devoting some extra time to face-to-face, experiential activities - not just for Screen Free Week (4/29-5/5) but every week.  Read more below, then come on in - because you might be waiting for Memorial Day to plant your garden, but you don't have to wait another moment to cultivate your community.

See you among the shelves!

Sincerely,

Mike, Renee, Adam, Beth, Billy, Christy, Colleen, Dan, Donna, Evelyn, Heather, Kari, Kathy, Kelly, Kit, Kristen, Nick, Phil, Rachel F., Rachel O., Scout, Sean, Tod, and Wendy


PHOENIX PROFILES: MIKE AND RENEE
Renee and Mike take some time off to enjoy a wine seminar at The Cafe at Phoenix Books Essex.

 

For the first installment of "Phoenix Profiles," we're featuring co-owners Mike and Renee.  Keep an eye out in later issues for more profiles of our booksellers here at Phoenix Books!

Mike DeSanto is the adult book buyer for both Phoenix locations. He's even been known to whip up an amazing cappuccino. He is also married to Renee Reiner, Phoenix's other owner. When he's not gardening, acting, or teaching chi running, he reads history and natural science books.

Renee Reiner, a veteran bookseller since she and Mike bought The Book Rack and Children's Pages in 1995, took the lead in opening our second location in downtown Burlington. "Having successfully created a vibrant community bookstore," she says, "I will look back many years from now and say I've lived a good life."
WHAT IS SCREEN FREE WEEK?

 

Screen-Free Week is a national celebration when children, families, schools, and communities spend seven days turning off entertainment screen media and turning ON life!  It's time to unplug and play, read, create, garden, explore nature, and spend time with family and friends.

Come in anytime during the week for suggestions for great screen-free activities, and don't forget to come by for:
Wednesday 5/1: Family Game Night from 5-8pm
Thursday 5/2: How Carrots Won the Trojan War with Rebecca Rupp at 7pm
Saturday 5/4: Bob's Birthday Bash from 12-2pm at the Jericho Community Center
Sunday 5/5: Poker Hill Arts Art Show Reception from 4-6pm

Phoenix Books' Screen Free Week program was featured on the official Screen Free Week blog
SPOTLIGHT ON THE KOBO GLO

 

Do you like reading after dark? Or even just in cozy spaces that might not offer the best light? Then the Glo was designed with you in mind! This standard size eReader has a built-in reading light to allow for reading in any level daylight. And this light is no mere on/off switch. The Glo's frontlit screen is manipulated on a sliding scale so you pick the brightness that's just right for your situation. Come into either of our stores to try one out today!
 FICTION

Prophet of Bones, by Ted Kosmatka 

A relentlessly suspenseful high-concept thriller set in a world where science has run amuck and the key to unlocking a terrifying secret lies in the hands of one man. Paul Carson, a brilliant young scientist, is summoned from his laboratory job to the remote Indonesian island of Flores to collect DNA samples from the ancient bones of a strange, new species of tool user unearthed by an archaeological dig. The questions the find raises seem to cast doubt on the very foundations of modern science, but before Paul can fully grapple with the implications of his find, the dig is violently shut down by paramilitaries. (Hardcover, Fiction) 

 

You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, by Tom Gauld
The New York Times Magazine cartoonist Tom Gauld follows up his widely praised graphic novel Goliath with You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, a collection of cartoons made for The Guardian. Over the past eight years, Gauld has produced a weekly cartoon for the Saturday Review section of Britain's best-regarded newspaper. Only a handful of comics from this huge and hilarious body of work have ever been printed in North America-and these have been available exclusively within the pages of the prestigious Believer magazine. (Hardcover, Graphic Novel.) 

 NONFICTION  
 

How to Find Fulfilling Work, by Roman Krznaric

The desire for fulfilling work is one of the great aspirations of our age. This book explores the competing claims we face for money, status, and meaning in our lives. Drawing on wisdom from a variety of disciplines, cultural thinker Roman Krznaric sets out a practical guide to negotiating the labyrinth of choices, overcoming fear of change, and finding a career in which you thrive. Overturning a century of traditional thought about career change, Krznaric reveals just what it takes to find life-enhancing work. (Paperback, Self-Help)    

  

  

Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation-each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.(Paperback, Psychology
)
 

In the Garden of Thoughts, by
Dodinsky

"Dodinsky's gentle wisdom and wit are like a breath of fresh air." -Karen Salmansohn, bestselling author of How to Be Happy, Dammit!

Beloved by hundreds of thousands from every walk of life and in every corner of the world, Dodinsky strikes the perfect balance of delightful whimsy and powerful emotion, inspiring you with the power to be your best self. (Hardcover, Self-Help)    

  

  
In the Body of the World, by Eve Ensler

From the bestselling author of The Vagina Monologues and one of Newsweek's 150 Women Who Changed the World, Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body - how to talk about it, how to protect and value it. While working in the Congo, she is shattered to encounter the horrific rape and violence inflicted on the women there. Soon after, she is diagnosed with uterine cancer, and through months of harrowing treatment, she is forced to become first and foremost a body-pricked, punctured, cut, scanned. As she connects her own illness to the devastation of the earth, her life force to the resilience of humanity, she is finally, fully-and gratefully-joined to the body of the world.

Unflinching, generous, and inspiring, Ensler calls on us all to embody our connection to and responsibility for the world. (Hardcover, Biography)      

 

  
What My Mother Gave Me, edited by Elizabeth Benedict

In What My Mother Gave Me, women look at the relationships between mothers and daughters through a new lens: a daughter's story of a gift from her mother that has touched her to the bone and served as a model, a metaphor, or a touchstone in her own life. The contributors of these thirty-one original pieces include Pulitzer Prize winners, perennial bestselling novelists, and celebrated broadcast journalists. Whether a gift was meant to keep a daughter warm, put a roof over her head, instruct her in the ways of womanhood, encourage her talents, or just remind her of a mother's love, each story gets to the heart of a relationship. (Paperback, Mother's Day)  

 

 
  
You're Only Human, by The Gecko
You know him and love him as one of the most famous characters on television, that humble, hardworking spokes-lizard with the fetching accent. Turns out there's so much more to him. He's a philosopher, an aphorist, a humorist, an artist, a warm companion, a natural storyteller - and, in a grand tradition, a keenly observant and wise outsider who in the course of living and traveling among us has discovered quite a lot about the things that make us human. Figuratively speaking, of course. You're Only Human is his brilliant take on people, written and illustrated with considerable charm. (Paperback, Humor)  
 
   YOUNG ADULT PICKS

The Program, by Suzanne Young  

Sloane knows better than to cry in front of anyone. With suicide now an international epidemic, one outburst could land her in The Program, the only proven course of treatment. Sloane's parents have already lost one child; Sloane knows they'll do anything to keep her alive. She also knows that everyone who's been through The Program returns as a blank slate. Under constant surveillance, Sloane puts on a brave face and keeps her feelings buried as deep as she can. The only person Sloane can be herself with is James.  But despite the promises they made to each other, it's getting harder to hide the truth. They are both growing weaker. And The Program is coming for them.  (Hardcover, Ages 14+) 

 

 

Stung, by Bethany Wiggins
Fiona doesn't remember going to sleep. But when she opens her eyes, she discovers her entire world has been altered - her house is abandoned and broken, and the entire neighborhood is barren and dead. Even stranger is the tattoo on her right wrist - a black oval with five marks on either side - that she doesn't remember getting but somehow knows she must cover at any cost. And she's right. When the honeybee population collapsed, a worldwide pandemic occurred and the government tried to bio-engineer a cure. Only the solution was deadlier than the original problem. Fiona has awakened branded, alone-and on the wrong side of the wall... (Hardcover, Ages 14+)  
   
 
BEGINNING & MIDDLE READERS 
 

How to Bicycle to the Moon to Plant Sunflowers, by Mordicai Gerstein

Step 1: Get a bicycle.  

Step 2: Build a slingshot.  

Step 3: Ask NASA to loan you a spacesuit . . .

In this simple, step-by-step instructional picture book, learn how you too can visit the moon on your bicycle! All you need is a very long garden hose, a very large slingshot, a borrowed spacesuit, and a bicycle . . . and plenty of imagination. An inspired work of whimsy, this is a spacefaring adventure for daydreamers and a starter kit for the imagination. (Hardcover, Ages 4-8.)  

 
  
Bad Unicorn, by Platte F. Clark 

It wasn't Max Spencer's idea to save the world-it just so happens that he's the only living person who can read the most fantastical book ever written: The Codex of Infinite Knowability. Princess the Destroyer is no ordinary unicorn. She loves nothing more than hunting down, killing, and eating other creatures. After all, what's the point of having a sharp horn on your forehead if you don't use it for destructive purposes? And right now Princess has a very definite purpose: Find Max and retrieve the lost Codex for an evil sorcerer and his mysterious master. Stuck in another world and with a carnivorous unicorn on his trail, Max must find the courage to save himself, his friends, and, oh yeah...the entire human race.

(Hardcover, Ages 8-12.) 

 

Capture the Flag, by Kate Messner 

Anna, Jos�, and Henry have never met, but they have more in common than they realize. Snowed in together at a chaotic Washington, DC, airport, they encounter a mysterious tattooed man, a flamboyant politician, and a rambunctious poodle named for an ancient king. Even stranger, news stations everywhere have just announced that the famous flag that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" has been stolen! Anna, certain that the culprits must be snowed in, too, recruits Henry and Jos� to help find the thieves and bring them to justice. (Paperback, Ages 8-12.) 

 
 
Hide and Seek, by Kate Messner
The action-packed sequel to Capture the Flag!
Jos�
, Anna, and Henry are junior members of the secret Silver Jaguar Society, sworn to protect the world's most important artifacts. When they discover that the society's treasured Jaguar Cup has been replaced with a counterfeit, the trio and their families rush to the rain forests of Costa Rica in search of the real chalice. But when the trail runs dry, new mysteries emerge: Who can they trust? Is there a traitor in their midst? With danger at every turn, it will take more than they realize for Jos� and his friends to recover the cup before it falls into the wrong hands.(Hardcover, Ages 8-12.)

  

  

Lunch Lady and the Video Game Villain, by
Jarrett J. Krosoczka
The race is on for a new student council president, and the Breakfast Bunch is rallying for Hector! The competition is already heavy, but the race heats up when school security is at stake: student and staff high-tech gadgets are disappearing left and right. Whoever the culprit is, this is one stealthy thief-and the school is so busy with the election that he gets away with it every time. Luckily some of Lunch Lady's own culinary gadgets have eluded the crook, but will they be enough to catch this sticky-fingered bandit? And will Hector be able to pull off a victory? (Paperback, Ages 7-10)  


The Legend Thief, by E.J. Patten
Ben Ripley is a middle-schooler whose school is not exactly average - he's spent the last year training to be a top-level spy and dodging all sorts of associated danger. So now that summer's finally here, Ben's ready to have some fun and relax. Except that's not going to happen, because a spy-in-training's work is never done, and the threats from SPYDER, an enemy spy organization, are as unavoidable as the summer heat. Will Ben be able to keep his cover-and his cool? (Hardcover, Ages 8-12) 
   
   RAISING PASSIONATE READERS

 

Bink & Gollie: Best Friends Forever , by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee

STAFF FAVORITE!

All righty, then! Celebrate the tall and short of a marvelous friendship with a new Bink and Gollie adventure. Slapstick and sweetness, drollery and delight abound in this follow-up to the Geisel Award-winning, New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book Bink and Gollie, written by the beloved and best-selling Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee and brought to hilarious life by Tony Fucile. (Picture Book, Ages 6-9.)    

  
 

 

Bluebird, by Bob Staake 

In his most beautiful and moving work to date, Bob Staake explores the universal themes of loneliness, bullying, and the importance of friendship. In this emotional picture book, readers will be captivated as they follow the journey of a bluebird as he develops a friendship with a young boy and ultimately risks his life to save the boy from harm. Both simple and evocative, this timeless and profound story will resonate with readers young and old. (Picture Book, Ages 4-8)  

 


The Dark, by Lemony Snicket & Jon Klassen
   

Best-selling author Lemony Snicket teams up with best-selling illustrator Jon Klassen to create a poetic and wondrous picture book about conquering fear of the dark. Laszlo is afraid of the dark. The dark lives in the same house as Laszlo. Mostly, though, the dark stays in the basement and doesn't come into Lazslo's room. But one night, it does. This is the story of how Laszlo stops being afraid of the dark. With emotional insight and poetic economy, two award-winning talents team up to conquer a universal childhood fear. (Picture Book, Ages 3-6)     

  

Tea Rex, by Molly Idle 

Cordelia is throwing a tea party, but she'll need more help than Emily Post can provide. Playing host to an unusual guest - a T-Rex - Cordelia tries her best to make sure the party is a smashing success. But no matter how closely Cordelia follows hosting etiquette, her prehistoric friend plays by his own rules. But ever the perfect hostess, Cordelia takes these challenges in stride. You never know when someone will return the favor and play host to you! (Picture Book, Ages 3-5)  

 

Miss Maple's Seeds, by Eliza Wheeler
Every summer, Miss Maple gathers lost seeds that haven't yet found a home in which to sprout. She takes them on field trips to explore places they might grow. All winter long, she keeps them safe and warm in her cozy maple tree house. Then, come spring, she sends them off into the wide world to ride the winds and tides and find roots of their own, and grow into the magnificent plants they're destined to become. (Picture Book, Ages 3-5)    
 

Shimmer & Splash, by Jim Arnosky
Local Author!
 
What can you see in the deep blue sea? Dolphins, stingrays, men o' war, and more! In Shimmer and Splash, acclaimed author and artist Jim Arnosky-whose award-winning nature books delight children, parents, and teachers alike-captures the endless variety of spectacular marine species. From the beautiful (starfish, coral reefs) to the scary (sharks, barracudas) to the yucky (jellyfish), these undersea inhabitants will amaze kids...especially in the seven fantastic gatefolds! (Picture Book, Ages 6-10)   





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Phoenix Books Essex at the Essex Shoppes & Cinema
21 Essex Way #407, Essex, VT 05452 | 802.872.7111
Phoenix Books Essex Hours:
Mon-Fri: 9am-8pm
Saturday:  10am-8pm
Sunday:    10am-6pm

Phoenix Books Burlington in Downtown Burlington
191 Bank Street, Burlington, VT 05401 | 802.448.3350
Phoenix Books Burlington Hours:
Mon-Thurs: 10am-8pm
Fri-Sat: 10am-9pm
Sunday: 11am-6pm