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Amherst Books
8 Main Street  Amherst, MA 01002   ·  413.256.1547 ·  800.503.5865 · books @ amherstbooks.com   
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Events

< April 2019 >

Events listed in white are at the bookshop; events listed in yellow are elsewhere.

Unless noted otherwise all events are free & open to the public.

Tabish Khair will read from recent work.   Khair is an Indian English author & associate professor in the Department of English, University of Aarhus, Denmark.   His books include Babu Fictions; The Bus Stopped, which was shortlisted for the Encore Award; The Thing About Thugs, which has been shortlisted for a number of prizes, including the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature & the Man Asian Literary Prize; How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position; & Just Another Jihadi Jane.
JM Holmes is an Amherst College alum, where he won the Burnett Howe prize for fiction.   Since then he has won the Henfield prize for literature & a Pushcart prize.   His work has appeared in The Paris Review & The White Review, among other places.   His debut book, a collection of fiction, How Are You Going to Save Yourself, has received wide praise.   Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.
Anne Halley Poetry Prize Reading   Amit Majmudar, winner of the 14th annual Anne Halley Poetry Prize, sponsored by the Massachusetts Review, will read from recent poetry.   Author of several volumes of poetry & chapbooks, Majmudar is the author of the poetry collections 0°, 0°, which was a finalist for a Poetry Society of America’s Norma Faber First Book Award, & Heaven & Earth, which poet A.E. Stallings chose for a Donald Justice prize.   Majmudar has also published the novels Partitions & The Abundance.  

The Anne Halley Poetry Prize is named in memorial for Anne Halley, to honor her 25 years of work as poetry co-editor of the Massachusetts Review as well as her work as a poet & writer.   Her last collection of poetry, Rumors of the Turning Wheel, was published by University of Massachusetts Press in 2003.

Patrick Donnelly will read from his new collection of poetry, Little Known Operas.   Donnelly is author of The Charge, Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin, & co-translator, with Stephen D. Miller, of the Japanese poems in The Wind From Vulture Peak: The Buddhification of Japanese Waka in the Heian Period, a scholarly history.   He is director of the annual Advanced Seminar at The Frost Place, a poetry conference center at Robert Frost’s old homestead in Franconia, NH.   Donnelly is an associate editor of Poetry International & a contributing editor of Trans-Portal.
Local science fiction author Suzanne Palmer will read from her new sf novel, Finder, at the Shutesbury Athletic Club, 282 Wendell Road, Shutesbury   Palmer is is an award-winning & acclaimed writer of science fiction.   In 2018, she won a Hugo Award for Best Novelette for “The Secret Life of Bots.”   Her short fiction has won readers’ awards for Asimov’s, Analog, & Interzone magazines, & has been included in the Locus Recommended Reading List.   Her work has also been featured in numerous anthologies, & she has twice been a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award & once for the Eugie M. Foster Memorial Award.
Join us for a group reading to celebrate the publication of Behind the Stars, More Stars: The Tagus/Disquiet Collection of New Luso-American Writing, edited by Christopher Larkosh & Oona Patrick & published by Tagus Press.   The collection presents boundary-breaking prose especially from women, people of color, & LGBTQ writers in the Luso-American & Portuguese-American literary scene centered at the Disquiet Program in Lisbon & UMass Dartmouth.   Contributors Sarah Chaves , Jarita Davis , Hugo Dos Santos , & Maggie Felisberto , all with ties to either continental Portugal, the Azores, or Cape Verde, will read.   Jeff Parker, Director of the UMass MFA Program & of the DISQUIET Intl. Literary program, will introduce the readings, & Luso-American valley local Michael Medeiros will emcee the evening.   For more information, see the Facebook page.
African American Religion & Film   Three films will be introduced & discussed by Judith Weisenfeld, Professor of Religion & African American Studies at Princeton University & author of Hollywood Be Thy Name, over two days in the Old Chapel, UMass, Amherst, followed by a public lecture with Weisenfeld on her newest book, New World A-Coming: Black Religion & Racial Identity During the Great Migration.   For more information & a schedule of movies & talks see here.
jubilat/Jones Reading Series at the Jones Library, Amherst.   Martín Espada & George Abraham will read.   Meet the poets at an informal Q & A session that follows the reading.
African American Religion & Film   Three films will be introduced & discussed by Judith Weisenfeld, Professor of Religion & African American Studies at Princeton University & author of Hollywood Be Thy Name, over two days in the Old Chapel, UMass, Amherst, followed by a public lecture with Weisenfeld on her newest book, New World A-Coming: Black Religion & Racial Identity During the Great Migration.   For more information & a schedule of movies & talks see here.
David Phillips will about his new book The Great Betrayal: How America Abandoned the Kurds & Lost the Middle East, at the Paino Lecture Hall, Beneski Building, Amherst College.   Phillips is Director of the Program on Peace-building & Human Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights.   He has worked as a senior adviser to the United Nations Secretariat & as a foreign affairs expert & senior advisor to the U.S. Department of State.   His previous publications include An Uncertain Ally: Turkey under Erdogan’s Dictatorship; The Kurdish Spring: A New Map of the Middle East; & Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco.
Poet & translator Peter Cole will read at the University Museum of Contemporary Art, UMass, Amherst.   Cole is author of several volumes of poetry, including Rift, Things on Which I’ve Stumbled, The Invention of Influence, & most recently Hymns & Qualms: New and Selected Poems & Translations.   Cole has translated important writers in Hebrew and Arabic, including Aharon Shabtai & Taha Muhammad Ali.   His many honors & awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and a genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation.   He is also the recipient of a National Jewish Book Award for Poetry, the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, a TLS Translation Prize, the American Library Association’s Sophie Brody Medal for outstanding Jewish literature, and the 2010 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.   For more information: UMass Events Calendar.
Noontime Book Conversation   The group will discuss Dag Solstad’s novel Shyness & Dignity.   Meeting ordinarily on the second Tuesday of every month from 12:00pm until 1:00pm, the group has no fixed members (although quite a few regulars).   Readers are urged to nominate a book to be read, especially if they are willing to lead the discussion.   We focus on fiction & drama with occasional foray into the graphic novel.   We limit the length of our selections to about 200 pages, although this is a guideline rather than a fixed rule.   We believe in the joy of re-reading, so some of our selections are works that many have already read at least once.   The noontime book group is under the general oversight of Michael Greenebaum (mlgreenebaum33@gmail.com) who selects the books & leads the discussions.   He is happy to hear from those with ideas or questions.   Amherst Books offers a 10% discount on the month’s book for those who plan to join the group.

Join UMass Amherst professor Anne Broadbridge in celebrating the publication of her new book, Women & the Making of the Mongol Empire .   The book positions women in their rightful place in the otherwise well-known story of Chinggis Khan (commonly known as Genghis Khan) & his conquests & empire.   (Originally scheduled for February 13th.)
Jericho Brown will read from his recent collection of poetry, The Tradition.   Brown is the recipient of the Whiting Writers Award & fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University & the National Endowment for the Arts.   His first book, Please, won the American Book Award, & his second book, The New Testament, was named one of the best poetry books of the year by Library Journal.  Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.
Juniper Literary Festival   Horacio Castellanos Moya will read from recent work in the Great Hall, Old Chapel, UMass, Amherst.   Castellanos Moya is a writer and a journalist from El Salvador.   He has published five short story collections, two essay books, a diary, & twelve novels, including Senselessness, The Dream of My Return, & Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador .   For more information, got to the Juniper Literary Festival webpage.
Juniper Literary Festival     Five College authors, Samuel Ace, Polina Barskova, Arda Collins, Noy Holland & Shayla Lawson, will read in the South College, UMass, Amherst.   For more information, got to the Juniper Literary Festival webpage.
Juniper Literary Festival     “MFA Alum Reading”   UMass MFA alums, Hannah Brooks-Motl (’13), Andrea Lawlor (’12), Arisa White (’06), & Jung Yun (’07), will read in the Great Hall, Old Chapel, UMass, Amherst.  For more information, got to the Juniper Literary Festival webpage.
Juniper Literary Festival   Danez Smith will read from recent work in the Great Hall, Old Chapel, UMass, Amherst.   Smith is a Black, Queer, Poz writer & performer & is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead, winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, & a finalist for the National Book Award; & [insert] boy whch won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award & the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry.   For more information, got to the Juniper Literary Festival webpage.
Join Amherst College professor Dominique Hill & her co-author, Durell Callier, in celebrating the publiction of their new book, Who Look at Me?!: Shifting the Gaze of Education Through Blackness, Queerness, & the Body.  
Jennifer Acker will read from her new novel, The Limits of the World, at the Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Robert Frost Library, Amherst College .   Acker is founder & Editor in Chief of The Common.   Her short stories, essays, criticism, & translations have been published in the Washington Post, n+1, Guernica, Slate, & Ploughshares, among other places.  
Flint Taylor will talk in Herter Hall Room 601, UMass, Amherst, about his new book, The Torture Machine: Racism & Police Violence in Chicago.   Taylor is a founding partner of the People’s Law Office in Chicago.   He was one of the lawyers who represented the families of slain Chicago Black Panthers Fred Hampton & Mark Clark in the landmark civil rights case against the Chicago police, the Cook County state’s attorney, and the FBI’s COINTELPRO agents.   For more than thirty years he has represented numerous survivors of Chicago police torture in criminal & civil cases, as well as in seeking reparations.   He was also co-counsel in the civil rights case brought by the victims of KKK & Nazi terror in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1979.
Local poet Jacob Chapman will read from his new chapbook, Other Places, which won the 2017 Open Country Chapbook Contest, chosen by Michael Earl Craig, author of Talkativeness, among other books.  
Mathangi Subramanian will read from her new novel, A People’ History of Heaven.   Subramanian is an award winning writer, author, & educator.   A former public school teacher, senior policy analyst for the New York City Council, & assistant vice president at Sesame Workshop, Subramanian's work has appeared in The Washington Post.com, Al Jazeera America, Quartz, The Hindu, The Wire, & The Indian Express, among others.   She has published numerous books for teens; her A People’ History of Heaven is her first novel for adults.

Join Traci Parker & Stephanie Shonekan in celebrating the publication of their new books in Theater Room #3, New Africa House, UMass, Amherst.   Parker is author of the new published Department Stores & the Black Freedom Movement: Workers, Consumers, & Civil Rights. — Shonekan is author of numerous books, including The Life of Camilla Williams, African American Classical Singer & Opera Diva, Soul, Country, & the USA: Race & Identity in American Music Culture, & most recently, two edited books, Black Resistance in the Americas & Black Lives Matter & Music.
Victor Grossman will talk about his new book, A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee, at Crotty Hall 209, 412 N. Pleasant Street.   Grossman, born Stephen Wechsler, a New York red-diaper baby of the 1930s, joined the Communist Party as a Harvard student.   Fleeing the U.S. Army during the McCarthy Era, he swam the Danube River to the Soviet Zone of Austria & was sent to East Germany.   There, he studied journalism & became a freelance writer & popular speaker.   He was pardoned by the U.S. Army in 1994 &, in 2003, published an autobiography, Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, & Life in East Germany.
Samuel Minot Jones Awards for Literary Achievement   Richard Michelson & the The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Arts will receive the Jones Library’s Sixth Annual Samuel Minot Jones Award (the “Sammy”) for Literary Achievement.   In addition, as we honor the centennial year of the Jones Libary, a special Centennial Sammy will be give to Bruce Watson.   The festivities will take place this year in Converse Hall, Amherst College.   The event doubles as a part of a capital investment campaign for the Jones Library.   For more information, go here.
Emily Dickinson reading at bookstore
“Live Lit” Students in the M.F.A. Program at the University of Massachusetts will read from their recent work.   Evenings usually include a mix of poetry & fiction.

Stephanie Kaza will talk about her new book, Green Buddhism: Practice & Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times & the recently re-released Conversations with Trees: An Intimate Ecology.   Kaza is Professor Emeritus in the Rubenstein School of Environment & Natural Resources at the University of Vermont.   She is a writer, a practicing Soto Zen Buddhist, & an active proponent of religious dialogue.   Combining an academic background in science, education, & theology, she taught religion & ecology.
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