• Monday, December 2nd at 7:00pm (Talk)

3rd Annual Ellsberg Lecture — The Ellsberg Initiative for Peace & Democracy invites you to join us for a lecture, “Back to the Wall, Face to the Sun: Where We Stand in the Climate Fight” with Bill McKibben, the acclaimed environmentalist who helped found 350.org, at the Old Chapel, UMass, Amherst.   McKibben will offer an overview of the climate crisis & insights on where the climate movement must go from here.   For more information, see the Ellsberg Initiative website.

• Wednesday, December 4th at 6:15pm (Book launch party)

Join us in celebrating the publication of a new book by UMass professor, Jennifer Heuer —The Soldier’s Reward: Love & War in the Age of the French Revolution & Napoleon.   The French Revolution & Napoleonic Wars devastated Europe for nearly a quarter of a century.   The Soldier’s Reward recovers the stories of soldiers & their relationships to family an&d domestic life during this period, revealing how prolonged warfare transformed family & gender dynamics and & rise to new kinds of citizenship.   Heuer is professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.   She is the author of The Family and the Nation: Gender & Citizenship in Revolutionary France, 1789–1830, & the editor (with Mette Harder) of Life in Revolutionary France.

• Thursday, December 5th at 6:00pm (Reading)

Native Mexican author Yuri Herrera & his translator Lisa Dillman will read from Herrera’s Latest novel, Season of the Swamp in the Old Chapel, UMass, Amherst as part of the UMass Visiting Writers Series.   Herrera’s first novel Trabajos del reino (Kingdom Cons) won the Premio Binacional de Novela Joven 2003 & received the “Otras voces, otros ámbitos” prize for the best novel published in Spain in 2008.  His second novel, Señales que precederán al fin del mundo (Signs Preceding the End of the World) was a finalist of the Rómulo Gallegos Prize, & he & Dillman—who has translated all of his work—shared the 2016 Best Translated Book Award.

• Thursday, December 5th at 7:00pm (Doors open at 6:30) (Party & Concert)

Fiesta de la Simcha: A Joyous Multicultural Celebration at the Bombyx, 130 Pine Street, Florence, MA.   In a time of rising anti-immigrant, antisemitic, & anti-Latino incidents, Fiesta de la Simcha brings us together in joy & community for a groundbreaking mash-up of Puerto Rican cuatro & Jewish klezmer music featuring Fabiola Méndez, Ezekiel's Wheels Klezmer Band, & Professor Ilan Stavans, who will present his new cookbook, Sabor Judio: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook.   For more information & tickets, see here

• Friday, December 6th at 10:00pm - 8:00pm (Card Day)

Lighting of the Merry Maple; extra long hours, & everything in the store 20% off — excluding gift certificates & books not in stock; i.e. no special orders.

• Saturday, December 7th at 10:00pm - 8:00pm (Card Day)

Extra long hours, & everything in the store 20% off — excluding gift certificates & books not in stock; i.e. no special orders.

• Tuesday, December 10th at 5:00pm - 6:00pm (Book signing)

Adam Shatz will sign copies of his latest book, The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon.   Shatz is the US editor of The London Review of Books, & a contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, & The New Yorker, among other publications.   As well as The Rebel’s Clinic, which has been named a best book of 2024 by The New Yorker & Vulture, Shatz is author of Prophets Outcast: A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing about Zionism & Israel, & Writers & Missionaries: Essays on the Radical Imagination.

• Wednesday, December 11th at 7:00pm (Reading)

University of Massachusetts professors, Daniel Sack & David Rodríguez-Solás will read from & talk about their new books.   Sack, who teaches here in the Commonwealth Honors College & the English Department at UMass, is author several books, including After Live: Possibililty, Potentiality, & the Future of Performance, for which we had a book launch party; Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape; Imagined Theatres: Writing for a Theoretical Stage, for which we had a book launch party; & most recently, Cue Tears: On the Act of Crying.   Rodríguez-Solás teaching interests are in modern & contemporary Spanish & Catalan theater, cultural memory, & visual & performance studies.   Aside from his most recent book, Performing the Transition to Democracy: Theater & Performance in 1970s Spain, Rodríguez-Solás is author of Teatros nacionales republicanos: la Segunda República y el teatro clásico español.

• Thursday, December 19th at 10:00am - 9:00pm

Downtown Amherst Sip & Shop Stroll   The Amherst Business Improvement District is thrilled to announce a new downtown event for visitors & community members to enjoy a quintessential New England Holiday Evening.   Downtown will be alight & alive with festive local holiday shopping, eating, drinking, music, horse-drawn carriage rides, caroling, & merriment.   A wonderful evening to get out, have a magical experience, & support small local businesses!