• Tuesday, April 5th 5:00pm(Book launch party!)

Join us in celebrating the publication of a new novel by local author David Gillham, Shadows of Berlin, of which Publisher’s Weekly wrote in a Starred review, “A tribute to resilience & starting over.   This is heart-wrenching & memorable.”   Gillham is the New York Times bestselling author of City of Women, & Annelies: A Novel of Anne Frank.

• Wednesday, April 6th 18th at 6:00pm (Poetry reading)

David Mills will read from recent poetry at the Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Frost Library, Amherst College.   Mills is author of multiple volumes of poetry, including most recently, Boneyarn.   He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts; The American Antiquarian Society; The Queens Council on the Arts & Breadloaf.   He has recorded his poetry for ESPN and RCA Records & lived in Langston Hughes’ landmark Harlem home.   For more information, go to the Amherst College announcement.

• Thursday, April 14th at 5:00pm (Reading & book launch)

Uzma Aslam Khan will read from her new novel, The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali, in the Harold F. Johnson Library, Main Floor, Hampshire College, Amherst.   She will be joined by Shailja Patel for a conversation about the book after the reading.   Khan is author of several novels, including Trespassing, nominated for the Commonwealth Prize in 2003 & The Geometry of God, a Kirkus Reviews’ Best Book of 2009.

• Wednesday, April 20th at 7:30pm (Reading)

Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi will read in the Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Frost Library, Amherst College, Amherst, from her new novel, Savage Tongues.   Van der Vliet Oloomi is author of two previous novels, Fra Keller, & Call Me Zebra, which won the 2019 Pen/Faulkner Award & the John Gardner Award.

• Wednesday, April 20th at 7:30pm (Talk)

Ronald Crutcher—author, esteemed cellist, & President Emeritus at the University of Richmond, will give a talk entitled, “You Didn’t Hear a Word I Said: The Critical Role of Conversations Across Difference in a Democratic Society” in the Isenberg Hub, UMass, Amherst.   For more information go here.

• Wednesday, April 27th at 4:30pm (Talk)

Cartoonist & best-selling author Roz Chast will give the Jacobs Lecture, “Can’t We Talk about Something More Jewish?” at the Campus Center Auditorium, UMass, Amherst.   For more information, see here.

• Thursday, April 28th at 4:30pm (Book launch party)

Join Hampshire College professors Lise Sanders & Pamela Stone in celebrating the publication of Bodies & Lives in Victorian England: Science, Sexuality, & the Affliction of Being Female.   The book offers an overview of what it was like to be female & to live & die in Victorian England (c. 1837-1901), by situating this experience within the scientific & social contexts of the times.   Sanders is author of an earlier book, Consuming Fantasies : Labor, Leisure, & the London Shopgirl, 1880-1920, & Stone is editor of several books, including, Childbirth Across Cultures: Ideas & Practices of Pregnancy, Childbirth & the Postpartum.

• Thursday, April 28th at 6:30pm (Reading)

Daniel Bullen will talk about his recent book, Daniel Shays’s Honorable Rebellion: An American Story, at the Northfield Public Library, 115 Main Street, Northfield, MA.   Bullen recounts the months from summer 1786 through winter 1787 when Massachusetts farmers organized nonviolent resistance to flagrantly unjust laws & economic policies.   From his headquarters in Pelham, Daniel Shays maintained the peace for five months, closed four courts with thousands of men before being forced into exile in Vermont, shortly before the people won reforms in an electoral landslide.   This book removes Shays’ Rebellion from the shadows of American history, & restores the people’s legacy of dignified, nonviolent protest.   Bullen is also author of The Love Lives of the Artists & The Dangers of Passion: The Transcendental Friendship of Ralph Waldo Emerson & Margaret Fuller.   See the Library's website for more details.

• Saturday, April 30th — Independent Bookstore Day

Independent Bookstore Day is a one-day party that takes place at independent bookstores across the country.   Every store is unique & every party is different—so sample a few!   At Amherst Books we’ll have exclusive books & literary items to give away & to sell, cookies, a raffle, special discounts, & everything in between.   It’s a celebration you won’t want to miss!