The Northshire Women Read group will meet on Monday, February 6th, 6pm at The Inn at Manchester.
Our book choice for February is, The Tiger's Wife: A Novel, by Tea O'Breht.

New members are always welcome. If you would like more information on this reading group, please contact nscheemaker@northshire.com .

For Valentine's Day - the spoken, unspoken and bespoke romantic lives of five famous and famously articulate couples.

The Love Lives of the Artists tells the stories of Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé, Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Diego and Frida, and Henry Miller and Anaïs Ninfive couples who approached their relationships with the same rebellious creativity as they practiced in their art. From their early artistic development and their first experiences in love, to their artistic marriages and their affairs and then to their fights and reconciliations, addictions, nervous breakdowns and continued creativity. The Love Lives of the Artists describes the promise and the price of freedom and creativity in love.

Amherst Bulletin interview with Dan Bullen: Book by Daniel Bullen explores famous couples' open relationships.

For more information link to the author's Facebook page, here.

The Northshire Cookbook Reading Group will meet on Wednesday, February 15th, at 6pm, at the Inn at Manchester. If you love to collect cookbooks, explore new recipes, and nosh on home prepared food in a group - this could be the reading experience for you!

This month, we're cooking comfort food from the delicious pages of, Roast Figs Sugar Snow: Winter Food to Warm the Soul, by Diana Henry. Pick up your copy in the bookstore, choose a recipe to prepare and share with the group on the night of the meeting. Please email Nancy, nscheemaker@northshire.com, to register and let her know what's cookin!

Join Alan Benoit, AIA and his guests for this month’s Sustainable Living presentation on creating the “Perfect House”. Whether you are buying, building, or renovating a house, it is important that you spend your money wisely. This overview will illustrate the elements that are essential to ensure that you are doing so.

If you would like more information about this fun, dynamic, afternoon reading group, please email Sarah Knight at sknight@northshire.com.

A delectable comedy for every woman who's ever wondered if buying that six-dollar box of organic crackers makes her a hero or a sucker.

Perfect for foodie and all-natural mamas, Julia's Child examines motherhood’s choices: organic vs. local, paper vs. plastic, staying at home vs. risking it all. Cookbook author Sarah Pinneo delves into the delicious world of fiction with hilarious results.

Sarah Pinneo, like her character Julia, understands the work vs. stay at home decision. Sarah was a Wall Street dealmaker for ten years before making the transition from breadwinner to bread baker. Now a food journalist, and co-author of The Ski House Cookbook), Sarah blogs on her home page at sarahpinneo.com, and about her adventures (and misadventures!) in book publicity at Blub is a Verb on SheWrites.com. Pinneo lives in Ludlow, Vermont, and Hanover, New Hampshire.

The Book Doctors, Arielle Eckstut and her ex-client/current husband, David Henry Sterry, authors of ,The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published will be making a house call, and they want YOU to PITCH your BOOK at their Pitchapalooza.

Click here for the New York Times article.

WHAT: Pitchapalooza is American Idol for books (only without Simon). Twenty writers will be selected at random to pitch their book. Each writer gets one minute—and only one minute! In the last month, three writers have gotten publishing deals as a result of participating in Pitchapalooza.

WHO: Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry are co-founders of The Book Doctors, a company dedicated to helping authors get their books published. They are also co-authors of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How To Write It, Sell It, and Market It… Successfully. Arielle Eckstut has been a literary agent for 18 years at The Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. She is also the author of seven books and the co-founder of the iconic brand, Little MissMatched. David Henry Sterry is the best-selling author of 12 books, on a wide variety of subject including memoir, sports, YA fiction and reference. They have taught their workshop on how to get published everywhere from Stanford University to Smith College. They have appeared everywhere from The New York Times to NPR’s Morning Edition to USA Today.

HOW: At Pitchapalooza, judges will help you improve your pitch, not tell you how bad it is. Judges critique everything from idea to style to potential in the marketplace and much, much more. Authors come away with concrete advice as well as a greater understanding of the ins and outs of the publishing industry. Whether potential authors pitch themselves, or simply listen to trained professionals critique each presentation, Pitchapalooza is educational and entertaining for one and all. From Miami to Portland, from LA to NYC, and many stops along the way, Pitchapaloozas have consistently drawn standing-room-only crowds, press and blog coverage, and the kind of bookstore buzz reserved for celebrity authors.

PRIZE: At the end of Pitchapalooza, the judges will pick a winner. The winner receives an introduction to an agent or publisher appropriate for his/her book.

PRICE OF ADMISSION: To sign up to for the chance to pitch (a drawing during the event) you must purchase a copy of The Essential Guide To Getting Your Book Published

If you buy the book:

- You are entered into the drawing for the chance to make a pitch

- You get the 20 minute consultation - whether or not you are chosen to make a pitch.

To register:

- When ordering the book online please indicate in the instructions field if you are planning to attend. You will be emailed a registration confirmation.

- If purchasing the book in-store please give your email to a bookseller at time of purchase. You will be emailed a registration confirmation.

If you are not interested in registering as a participant - ANYBODY can attend, the event is free, no purchase or registration needed.The 20 minute consultation is over the phone. Contact is established/confirmed at the event and the consultation is followed up at a later, agreed upon, time. A GREAT GIFT IDEA for the writers in your life. For more information please call the store at 802-362-2200 • 800-437-3700 or email: events@northshire.com

Spencer Lewis, recording artist, stonemason, and author presents Cabin Songs: Searching Woody Guthrie's America and Finding Home in Vermont, his newly published memoir. An evening selected passages along with live guitar accompaniment with a discussion and book signing to follow.

These newly minted "Storysongs" come alive with Lewis’ unique and compelling approach, adding drama and passion to stories of homesteading in 1970’s Vermont amidst the infamous drug culture, traveling the open road, logging with a draft horse, and finally building relationships with the old Vermonters he befriended to achieve the ultimate goal of finding himself and his art.

Anyen Rinpoche returns to the Northshire to speak about the practice of Phowa. Phowa is the the teaching on how to prepare for our own deaths and to help others of any faith through the dying process. It is a traditional Tibetan Buddhist practice, performed by all lineages, that supports the dying person to release attachments, remember the spiritual teachings they have been given, and offer favorable conditions for liberation or a positive rebirth. It can benefit all beings, Buddhist or non-Buddhist, as well as animals.

Anyen Rinpoche was born in Amdo, Tibet. He is the heart son of Kyabje Tsara Dharmakirti Rinpoche and holder of the Longchen Nyingthig lineage. Anyen Rinpoche founded the Orgyen Khamdroling Sangha and the Phowa Foundation in Colorado. The author of The Union of Dzogchen and Bodhichitta, Momentary Buddhahood and Dying with Confidence, he also hosts the annual Medicine Buddha Monlam in Denver, Colorado.

He is the author of Dying With Confidence, Momentary Buddhahood: Mindfulness And The Vajrayana Path, Union Of Dzogchen And Bodhichitta : A Guide To The Attainment Of Wisdom, and the forthcoming Journey to Certainty (June 2012).

Please join us on Saturday, March 3 at the Spiral Press Cafe for the 3rd Annual Rock & Bowl to benefit the Community Food Cupboard. Local musicians of all ages will perform coffee-house style from 7-9pm. Suggested donation is $5.00.

"Think Globally, Educate Locally" : Please join Long Trail School on Sunday, March 4, 3-5pm for a presentation & panel discussion about Long Trail's International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme and other global initiatives.

The Northshire is proud to present local author Megan Mayhew Bergman as she presents her powerful and heartwarming debut collection of short stories Birds of a Lesser Paradise.

From veterinary clinics to prison farms, roadside zoos and the swamps of the south, Birds of a Lesser Paradise beckons readers into a world where nature continues to shape the course of our lives, despite our efforts to control and manage the environment. A talented and perceptive new writer, Bergman’s stories are full of heart without being sentimental, and deftly draw on the personal experience of a Southerner transplanted to the Northeast to weave a collection of stories about the intersection between humans, animals, and the earth.

Megan Mayhew Bergman grew up in Rocky Mount, NC and attended Wake Forest University. She has graduate degrees from Duke University and Bennington College. Her stories have appeared in numerous journals including Ploughshares, Oxford American, One Story, and Narrative. “Housewifely Arts” was included in The Best American Short Stories 2011 (edited by Geraldine Brooks). She lives in Shaftsbury, VT with her veterinarian husband, two daughters, four dogs, four cats, one horse, and several goats and chickens.

Tickets on sale now!

The Northshire welcomes Rachel Maddow, host of the Emmy Award–winning Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, as she presents her highly anticipated book Drift at Maple Street School (directions here).

$28.00 ticket entitles holder to one copy of specially priced copy of DRIFT and one general admission seat.

$8.00 ticket entitles holder to one general admission seat.

Can’t make it to the event? Pre-order DRIFT now and we will have it personalized and shipped to you. Click here for information on getting signed copies.

Rachel Maddow discusses her prescriptions for the military and her new book, Drift, with Slate.com. Listen here.

Rachel Maddow has hosted the Emmy Award-winning Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC since 2008. Before that, she was at Air America Radio for the duration of that underappreciated enterprise. She has a doctorate in politics from Oxford and a bachelor's degree in public policy from Stanford. She lives in rural western Massachusetts and New York City with her partner, artist Susan Mikula, and an enormous dog.