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| Geoff Herbach and Sam Osterhout |
The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg
Geoff Herbach is a cofounder of the Lit6
Project, a Midwestern literary group, and
their project Electric Arc Radio, a literary
tragicomedy, which is recorded live and airs
on Minnesota Public Radio. He is also the
author of The Miracle Letters of T.
Rimberg. Rimberg's odyssey is reminiscent
of Forrest Gump's in which letters punctuate the
bizarre events in his life.
Sam Osterhout is an author and storyteller
whose work can be heard on Minnesota Public
Radio and live in bars and bookstores and
back alleys across the country. His stories
are usually followed by non-denominational
hug-fests, which are themselves followed by
non-denominational booze-fests.
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| Hillary Jordan |
Mudbound
It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is
trying to raise her children on her husband's
Mississippi Delta farm. Two young men return
from the war to work the land. One is Laura's
brother-in-law and the other, Ronsel, is the
eldest son of
the black sharecroppers who live on the
McAllan farm. Despite his proven bravery, Ronsel
is still considered less than a man in the
Jim Crow South. The men and women of each
family relate their versions of events and we
are drawn into their lives as they become
players in a tragedy on the grandest scale.
Jordan grew up in Texas and Oklahoma and received her MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Mudbound, her first novel, was awarded the 2006 Bellwether Prize, founded by Barbara Kingsolver to recognize literature of social responsibility. |
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| Margot Livesey |
The House on Fortune Street
Through four ingeniously interlocking
narratives, Dara, a counselor; Cameron,
Dara's father; Abigail, an aspiring actress;
and Sean, an academic and boyfriend to
Abigail, the reader gradually comes to
understand how these characters' lives are
shaped by both chance and determination.
Whatever the source, there is no mistaking
the tragedy that strikes the house on Fortune
Street.
Livesey is the acclaimed author of the novels Homework, Criminals, The Missing World, Eva Moves the Furniture, and Banishing Verona. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, and she is the recipient of grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Born in Scotland, she currently lives in the Boston area and is a writer in residence at Emerson College. |
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| Rose Moss at the Hotel Marlowe |
In Court
Rose Moss was born in Johannesburg, South
Africa and has lived in the United States
since 1964. She has published two novels,
The Family Reunion, which was
short-listed for a National Book Award, and
The Terrorist, and a work of
non-fiction, Shouting at the
Crocodile. Her non-fiction has appeared
in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times,
Atlantic Monthly and other similar
publications and in scholarly journals.
Please note: This event is part of the monthly PEN/NE reading series and is held at the Hotel Marlowe in Cambridge. Please see our website for directions. |
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| Reeve Lindbergh |
Forward from Here: Leaving Middle Age--and other Unexpected Adventures
In her funny and wistful new book, Reeve
Lindbergh contemplates entering a new stage
in life, turning sixty, the period her
mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, once described
as "the youth of old age." With a wry sense
of humor, Reeve contemplates the infirmities
of the aging body, as well as the many new
drugs that treat these maladies.
Lindbergh is the author of several books for adults and children. They include the memoir of her childhood and youth, Under a Wing, and No More Words, a description of the last years of her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She lives with her husband, Nat Tripp, and several animals on a farm in northern Vermont. |
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| Laura and Leo Espinosa |
Otis and Rae and the Grumbling Splunk
The Espinosas will be celebrating the launch
of their new picture book. They met while
working as graphic designers in NYC. They now
live in Cambridge with their family.
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| Henry Winkler |
The Life of Me: Enter at Your Own Risk
Inspired by the true life experiences of
Henry Winkler, the Hank Zipzer series, about
the world's greatest underachiever, is funny,
touching, and deals with learning differences
in a gentle and humorous manner. The
Life of Me is #14 in the Hank Zipzer
series.
Winkler is an accomplished actor, producer and director. In 2003, Henry added author to his list of achievements as he co-authored a series of children's books. Mr. Winkler will be signing ONLY copies of the Hank Zipzer series and will not personalize books. He wants to be able to get to everybody in the time allotted. This is a very special way to spend a couple of hours on Mother's Day! |
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| Aleksandar Hemon |
The Lazarus Project
Hemon was born in Sarajevo. He and his family
fled Bosnia soon after the violence began in
1992. They left behind not only relatives but
a comfortable middle class existence. Hemon
settled in Chicago due in large part to its
substantial Bosnian population. He has
assimilated through his passion for soccer
and by teaching English to other immigrants.
Before he became the success he is today he
worked assiduously at his writing and
knowledge of English. He wrote his first
story in English in 1995 and has now
completed three books. The first was a story
collection, The Question of Bruno
followed by Nowhere Man a novel. His
third is also a novel The Lazarus
Project.
Hemon has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the winner of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" grant. He has worked to nurture an understanding of cultural differences having lived through a very strange journey himself. His work appears regularly in The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review, and Best American Short Stories. |
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| Jeff Talarigo |
The Ginseng Hunter
Set at the turn of the twenty-first century
in China along the Tumen River, which
separates northeast China and North Korea,
The Ginseng Hunter is an unforgettable
portrait of life along a fragile border.
While a lone ginseng hunter spends his days
up in the mountains looking for ginseng and
preparing for winter while tragic events
unfold across the river. His story is based
on actual events that are happening today in
North Korea, also known as the DPRK, and
along the Northeast border of China, to where
many North Korean refugees are fleeing.
Talarigo asks that those interested in
learning more about this particular
humanitarian crisis go to www.LiNKglobal.org .
Talarigo won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for his first novel The Pearl Diver. He now lives in the Boston area and teaches at Grub Street. |
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| Linda Bamber and David Rivard |
Metropolitan Tang and Sugartown
Bamber teaches English and creative writing
at Tufts University. Her fiction, poetry, and
essays have appeared in the Harvard
Review, Ploughshares, Raritan, New York Times
Book Review, and elsewhere.
Metropolitan Tang is her first book of
poetry.
Rivard is the author of Bewitched Playground, Wise Poison, which won the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets, and Torque. He teaches at Tufts University and in the M.F.A. Writing program at Vermont College. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. |
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| Deborah Weisgall |
The World Before Her
The year is 1880 and the place is Venice.
Marian Evans--whose novels appear under the
pen name
George Eliot and have made her one of the most
famous Englishwomen of her time--has come to
this enchanted city on her honeymoon. Newly
married to John Cross, twenty years her
junior, she hopes to put to rest all of her
guilt. The parallel story of a sculptress
named Caroline Spingold brings us to Venice
one hundred years later, in 1980. Linked by
city, as well as by themes of art, love, and
marriage, The World Before Her tells
of these two women--and their surprising
similarities--in alternating chapters.
Weisgall has written extensively about the arts--painting, music, performance--for the New York Times, the Atlantic, Esquire, Connoisseur, and The New Yorker. Her first novel, Still Point, was set in the world of ballet, and her family memoir, A Joyful Noise, focused on the role of music--both operatic and cantorial--in her father's celebrated lineage. |
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| Katherine Hall Page and Peter Abrahams |
Body in the Gallery and Delusion
Katharine Hall Page is the author of fifteen
previous Faith Fairchild mysteries. Her first
book, The Body in the Belfry received
the Agatha Award for Best First Mystery
Novel, and her short story The Would
Widower received the Agatha Award for
best short story. Body in the Gallery
is the latest in the Faith Fairchild series.
A woman's world is turned upside down when new evidence frees a man she put in prison with her testimony years ago in this latest ingenious thriller from the author Publishers Weekly calls "one of the best contemporary thriller writers around." Delusion is Peter Abrahams' latest. He is also the author End of Story, Oblivion, and Lights Out, which was nominated for an Edgar best novel award. |
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| Ellen Cooney |
Lambrusco
The extraordinary Resistance movement of the
Italian people in the Second World War is
brought to life in Cooney's captivating,
deeply moving story of a mother's search for
her son. Cooney has drawn on her heritage as
a third-generation Italian-American to invoke
not only a country in crisis but also its
literature, its moods, and, most of all, its
music.
Cooney is the author of six previous novels, including A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Literary Review, and Glimmer Train, among other publications. Cooney now lives in midcoast Maine. |
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| Will Allen |
The War on Bugs
Will Allen is the co-manager of Cedar Circle
farm and the founder and former executive
director of the Sustainable Cotton Project.
His is also co-chair of Farms not Arms, a
policy advisory board member of the Organic
Consumers Association, and serves on the
board of Rural Vermont. In his book
War on Bugs Allen reveals how
advertisers, editors, scientists, large scale
farmers, government agencies, and even Dr.
Seuss, colluded to convince farmers to use
deadly chemicals, hormones, and genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) in an effort to pad
their wallets and control the American farm
enterprise. Allen goes on to detail how
consumers and activists have responded and
struggled against toxic food.
This event is happening with considerable assistance from Carolyn Mugar, founder of Farmaid. |
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| Nancy Carlsson-Paige |
Taking Back Childhood
Carlsson-Paige is a professor of early
childhood education and conflict resolution
at Lesley University. She is an ongoing
consultant for several PBS kids' shows, as
well as an active public speaker and guest
lecturer across the country. Her work has
been featured in Time, The Wall Street
Journal, Parenting, Mothering, and USA
Today, and on NPR, the Discovery Channel,
and ABC.
"In Taking Back Childhood, Dr. Carlsson-Paige explains the many ways our culture and media are threatening our children's healthy development. She gives adults concrete strategies for fighting back. Today's parents need this book." Marian Wright Edelman President, Children's Defense Fund. |
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| Leif Enger |
So Brave, Young, and Handsome
A stunning successor to his bestselling
novel Peace Like a River, Enger's new
work is a rugged and nimble story about an
aging train robber on a quest to reconcile
the claims of love and judgment on his life,
and the failed writer who goes with him.
Enger was raised in Osakis, Minnesota so he knows of what he writes. He worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio for nearly twenty years. He still lives in Minnesota with his family. |
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| Jared Bernstein |
Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed?
"Absolutely invaluable. [This book] is cribs
notes to everything that is wrong--and could
be right--with the US economy. Jared
Bernstein is the econ teacher we all wish we
had."
Naomi Klein author of The Shock Doctrine
Bernstein is senior economist and director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC. He is the author of All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy and is the coauthor of eight editions of the State of Working America. His work has been published in The American Prospect, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the New York Daily News. As well as being a featured weekly commentator on a variety of CNBC programs, he makes regular appearances on various NPR programs, including Morning Edition and Marketplace. |
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