Upcoming Events
Email Newsletter icon, E-mail Newsletter icon, Email List icon, E-mail List icon Do you want to be reminded each week of our upcoming events?
Sign up for our Email Newsletter
We will never give out your e-mail address.
See Privacy.


Click Here for Current Issue

The May Events Calendar can also be viewed or printed as a pdf. here(3 MB)

Children's Events - Click Here!

Click here for information on getting signed copies!

Unless noted otherwise, these events will be held at the bookstore, free of charge.

Terry Tempest Williams
When Women Were Birds
Saturday, May 19, 7 pm

When Women Were Birds: The beloved author of Refuge returns with a work that explodes and startles, illuminates and celebrates.

Terry Tempest Williams’s mother told her: “I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won’t look at them until after I’m gone.”

Readers of Williams’s iconic and unconventional memoir, Refuge, well remember that mother. She was one of a large Mormon clan in northern Utah who developed cancer as a result of the nuclear testing in nearby Nevada. It was a shock to Williams to discover that her mother had kept journals. But not as much of a shock as what she found when the time came to read them.

Terry Tempest Williams is the award-winning author of fourteen books, including Leap, An Unspoken Hunger, Refuge , and, most recently, Finding Beauty in a Broken World. She divides her time between Castle Valley, Utah, and Moose, Wyoming.

Inside SolarFest
Thursday, May 24th, 6pm
  Please join us as we explore the making, history and future of Vermont’s own Sustainability Conference & Music Festival, SolarFest. Now a three-day summer event in Tinmouth, Vermont, SolarFest has grown from its inspired inception 17 years ago to a full-fledged educational conference, music festival and trade show drawing thousands from all over the Northeast and honored with a 2011 Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence.

Join us as we explore the myths and the truths. We’ll give you an inside look at a hard working, 97% volunteer run, not-for-profit environmental organization. Come hear the scoop on the journey, challenges, and opportunities that SolarFest has faced over the years. Explore what SolarFest brings to our unique Vermont communities, how our mission has changed lives, how we run everything on solar, and what our next steps as an organization are.

Attendees should expect an interactive evening, invitations for feedback, and opportunities to check out this season's SolarFest at a reduced rate.
Pulitzer Prize Winner Tim Weiner
Enemies: A History of the FBI
Friday, May 25, 7 pm

From Tim Weiner, whose work on the Pentagon and the CIA won him the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, comes Enemies: A History of the FBI, the first definitive history of the FBI’s secret intelligence operations, and the first book to draw from the declassified SOLO files.

Watch this exclusive, unedited interview, with Jon Stewart, as Tim Weiner discusses the evolution of the FBI, LBJ's Southern strategy and the Bush administration's controversial Patriot Act. Part 1 and Part 2.

Here is the hidden history of America’s hundred-year war on terror. The FBI has fought against terrorists, spies, anyone it deemed subversive—and sometimes American presidents. The FBI’s secret intelligence and surveillance techniques have created a tug-of-war between protecting national security and infringing upon civil liberties. It is a tension that strains the very fabric of a free republic.

Tim Weiner has won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting and writing on secret intelligence and national security. As a correspondent for The New York Times, he covered the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington and terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Sudan, and other nations. Enemies is his fourth book. His Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA won the National Book Award and was acclaimed as one of the year’s best books by The New York Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, Time, and many other publications. The Wall Street Journal called Betrayal “the best book ever written on a case of espionage.” He is now working on a history of the American military.

John Fox
The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game
Saturday, May 26, 7 pm

The Ball: Anthropologist John Fox sets off on a worldwide adventure to the farthest reaches of the globe and the deepest recesses of our ancient past to answer a question inspired by his sports-loving son:

"Why do we play ball?"

From Mexican jungles to the small-town gridirons of Ohio, from medieval villages and royal courts to modern soccer pitches and baseball parks, The Ball explores the little-known origins of our favorite sports across the centuries, and traces how a simple invention like the ball has come to stake an unrivaled claim on our passions, our money, and our lives. Equal parts history and travelogue, The Ball removes us from the scandals and commercialism of today's sports world to uncover the true reasons we play ball, helping us reclaim our universal connection to the games we love.

Listen to John's interview with Tom Ashbrook on On Point

John Fox has excavated ancient ball courts in Central America, traced Marco Polo's route across China, and bicycled Africa's Rift Valley in search of human origins. He has contributed commentary to Vermont Public Radio as well as Smithsonian, Outside, and Salon, among other publications. He lives in Boston.

Geraldine Brooks
Caleb's Crossing
Tuesday, May 29, 7 pm

Caleb's Crossing: A New York Times bestselling tale of passion and belief, magic and adventure from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author.

Bethia Mayfield is a restless and curious young woman growing up in Martha's vineyard in the 1660s amid a small band of pioneering English Puritans. At age twelve, she meets Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a secret bond that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's father is a Calvinist minister who seeks to convert the native Wampanoag, and Caleb becomes a prize in the contest between old ways and new, eventually becoming the first Native American graduate of Harvard College. Inspired by a true story and narrated by the irresistible Bethia, Caleb’s Crossing brilliantly captures the triumphs and turmoil of two brave, openhearted spirits who risk everything in a search for knowledge at a time of superstition and ignorance.

Geraldine Brooks is the author of Year of Wonders and the nonfiction works Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence. Previously, Brooks was a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, stationed in Bosnia, Somalia, and the Middle East.

Tim Bryant
A Father's Gift
Friday, June 8, 7 pm

A Father's Gift, a Next Generation Indie Book 2012 Finalist in the Parenting/Family category.

A few years ago, Tim Bryant started writing stories about his father and what it was like growing up on their Manchester dairy farm. Vermont family farms are disappearing. Manchester once had 130 farms. Today, we have only a few farms in the immediate Manchester area. A Father's Gift reminds the readers of a time when local agriculture was a major economic driver.

A graduate of Burr and Burton Academy, Tim received his degree in engineering and returned to his Manchester home to work with on the family farm. He has been a dairy farmer all of his life and is the Director of the New England Food and Dairy Board. In 1972, he and his wife Nancy purchased a farm in Pawlet. They raised their three children and are now the proud grandparents of five.

Castle Freeman
Round Mountain
Saturday, June 9, 7 pm

The Round Mountain Project: A very special event showcasing the powerful, enduring, and evolving power of print. In exchange for a (FREE!) copy of Round Mountain, readers agree to give money to a charity of their choice—including groups focused on aiding the communities affected by Hurricane Irene. And they agree to pass their book along so that others can give.

The twelve short stories in Round Mountain—the new collection from acclaimed writer Castle Freeman, Jr.—are set in the kind of small, rural Vermont towns most severely affected by Hurricane Irene in late 2011. To aid the ongoing relief efforts in these communities and others, Freeman, the Concord Free Press, and Kodak are collaborating in an innovative way - aimed at raising funds for Hurricane Irene relief organizations.

To date, books published by the Concord Free Press—including works by Gregory Maguire, Lucius Shepard, Scott Phillips, Wesley Brown, and others—have inspired more than $243,000 in donations to charities throughout the world.

Listen to our friends at Books on the Nightstand for more about this great and inspiring program!.

Richard Russo and Katie Russo
Interventions
Friday, June 22, 7 pm

Pulitzer-prize winner Richard Russo's Latest Book is a Tribute to the Printed Word.

In what many perceive as a coldly relentless digital age, Pulitzer-prize winning author, Richard Russo has teamed up with his daughter, artist Kate Russo, to create Interventions, their tribute to the printed book. For it, they chose three previously published stories, Horseman, High and Dry, and The Whore’s Child. The title novella, Intervention, is a neverbefore- published story of one man's struggle to face his own mortality and the unspoken truth he never realized he knew. All four positively crackle with Russo’s piercing and understated insight into the lives of ordinary people. “[they] have some element in which an outside force profoundly intervenes in someone’s life.” Richard noted in an interview with PW's Judith Rosen, That’s what Kate does as an artist.” Read the full article here. Kate added, “we wanted a book about the obsessions people have and what drives them to that point.”

But what makes the book truly special is the unusual format–each story is an individually soft-bound volume with a cover illustration by Kate. Framable prints of her paintings accompany each book and all are collected into a slipcase. The format is an integral part of Interventions. The Russos' intention is for the reader to experience the work in the tangible, tactile way only a printed book can provide.


Mark Your Calendar For These Great Upcoming Author Appearances:
Tip! Print this section for a convenient reminder list!

May 19 Terry Tempest Williams When Women Were Birds
May 24 Inside SolarFest
May 25 Tim Weiner Enemies: A History of the FBI
May 26 John Fox The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game
May 29 Geraldine Brooks Caleb's Crossing

June 8 Tim Bryant A Father's Gift
June 9 Castle Freeman Round Mountain
June 22 Richard Russo Interventions

 

Have a question or a suggestion regarding our events program?
Please e-mail us at events@northshire.com.  Thank you!

 
©1999 - 2012 Northshire Information, Inc.
4869 Main Street Manchester Center, Vermont 05255
802-362-2200 • 800-437-3700