• Tuesday, December 2nd at 5:00pm (Book launch party)

Join Environmental Toxicologist Emily Monosson in celebrating the publication of her new book, Unnatural Selection: How We Are Changing Life, Gene by Gene.   Monosson, who lives in the Valley, is editor of two previous books— Evolution in a Toxic World: How Life Responds to Chemical Threats, & Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory: Women Scientists Speak Out.

• Wednesday, December 3rd at 8:00pm (Poetry reading)

Mark Wunderlich will read from his new collection of poetry, The Earth Avails.   Wunderlich is author of 3 volumes of poetry, including Voluntary Servitude, which won the Lamda Literary Award.   Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.

• Thursday, December 4th at 5:00pm (Book signing)

Shawn Alexander will sign copies of his books, An Army of Lions: The Civil Rights Struggle Before the NAACP, & T. Thomas Fortune the Afro-American Agitator: A Collection of Writings, 1880-1928.   Alexander got his PhD from the University of Massachusetts, here in Amherst, where he later taught.   He now teaches at the University of Kansas in the African & African American Studies Department & is director of the University of Kansas’ Langston Hughes Center.

• Thursday, December 4th at 8:00pm (Reading)

Ben Lerner will read at Memorial Hall, UMass, Amherst, from his new much-acclaimed novel, 10:04, as part of the University of Massachusetts MFA Program’s Visiting Writers Series.   Lerner is a poet, novelist, essayist, & critic.

• Friday, December 5th at 3:00pm (Book launch party)

Help us celebrate the publication of SOS—Calling All Black People: A Black Arts Movement Reader, with editors John Bracey, Sonia Sanchez , & James Smethurst.   The aesthetic counterpart of the Black Power movement, the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s & 1970s, burst onto the scene in the form of artists’ circles, writers’ workshops, drama groups, dance troupes, new publishing ventures, bookstores, & cultural centers, & had a presence in practically every community & college campus with an appreciable African American population.  SOS—Calling All Black People brings together nearly 700 pages of key writings from that era.   Bracey & Smethurst both teach in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, here in Amherst.   Sanchez is an award-winning poet, playwright, & author of children’s books.

• Saturday, December 6th at 1:00pm (Book signing)

Jim Rooney will sign copies of his new memoir, In It for the Long Run: A Musical Odyssey.   Rooney, who graduated from Amherst College in 1960, helped found the Pioneer Valley Folksong Society.   He managed the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge, then became a Director of the Newport Folk Festival.   He also worked as a tour manager & stage manager for the Newport Jazz Festival & produced the first New Orleans Jazz Festival in 1968.   Aside from In It for the Long Run, Rooney is author of Bossmen: Bill Monroe & Muddy Waters, & Baby, Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years.   He will be playing with Chris Brashear at the Pioneer Valley Folklore Society’s “Song & Story Swap” hosted by Paul Kaplan at 7:00pm.   For more information about that see here.

• Thursday, December 11th at 7:00pm (Poetry reading)

Peggy O’Brien will read from her new collection of poetry, Trusting Ice.   O’Brien, who teaches English here at the University of Massachusetts, is author of several previously published volumes of poetry, including Frog Spotting & Sudden Thaw.   She is author of Writing Lough Derg: From William Carleton to Seamus Heaney & is editor of The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women’s Poetry.

• Friday, December 12 at 5:00pm (Book launch party)

Join us in celebrating a new book by Amherst College professor Leah Schmalzbauer —The Last Best Place: Gender, Family, & Migration in the New West.   Schmalzbauer, who joined the Amherst College faculty recently, works on how globalization affects daily life for those who are income-poor & socially marginalized.   The Last Best Place asks us to consider the multiple racial & class-related barriers that Mexican migrants must negotiate in the unique context of Montana’s rural gentrification.   Her first book was Striving & Surviving: A Daily Life Analysis of Honduran Transnational Families.

• Saturday, December 20th at 12 Noon (Book signing)

Meet Lynn Levine, author of Mammal Tracks & Scat: Life-Size Tracking Guide & the new Mammal Tracks & Scat: Life-Size Pocket Guide.   Levine is a consulting forester & an environmental educator focusing on the forest ecosystem.   She has been teaching tracking since 1988.   Levine is also author of the children’s book, Snow Secrets, & co-author of Working with Your Woodland: A Landowner’ Guide.