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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

< May 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.

Mount Holyoke College professor Samuel Ace will read from his new book, Our Weather Our Sea, & the re-issued Meet Me There: Normal Sex & Home in three days. Don’t wash.   Ace is a trans & genderqueer poet & sound artist.   He is the recipient of the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund Award in Poetry & the Firecracker Alternative Book Award, as well as a two-time finalist for both the Lambda Literary Award & the National Poetry Series.
Brad Leithauser will read from his new novel, The Promise of Elsewhere.   Poet & novelist, Leithauser is author of more than 16 volumes of poetry, novels & essays.   After serving as the Emily Dickinson Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College & visiting professor at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he is now on faculty at the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars.   He is winner of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.
Robert Crease will talk about his new book, The Workshop & the World: What Ten Thinkers Can Teach Us About Science & Authority, with local polymath, author, Charles Mann.   Crease, who teaches philosophy at Stony Brook, is author of numerous books on science, including, The Quantum Moment: How Planck, Bohr, Einstein, & Heisenberg Taught Us to Love Uncertainty, & The Great Equations: Breakthroughs in Science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg.   His new book is a fascinating look at key thinkers throughout history who have shaped public perception of science & the role of authority.   Mann is author of the histories 1491 & 1493, & most recently, The Wizard & the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists & Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow”s World.
Brian Adams will read from his new novel, Offline.   Adams’ most recent book, the YA rom-com environmental activist novel KABOOM!, won gold medals at the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards & the Literary Classics Book Awards.   He is also author of the adult cli-fi/rom com novel, Love in the Time of Climate Change, a Forward Reviews 2014 IndieFAB Gold Winner for Humor.   He is a Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at Greenfield Community College.  
Ayşegül Savaş grew up in Turkey & Denmark.   Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Guernica, & elsewhere, & was shortlisted for the Glimmer Train Fiction Prize & the Graywolf Emerging Writers Award.   She teaches at the Sorbonne & lives in Paris.   Walking on the Ceiling is her first novel.
Noontime Book Conversation Join the monthly reading group for a discussion, this month, of Plainsong, a novel by Kent Haruf.   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.

UMass School of Ed professor Meg Gebhard will talk about her new book, Teaching & Researching Ells’ Disciplinary Literacies: Systemic Functional Linguistics in Action in the Context of U.S. School Reform.   Written from a critical perspective, this volume provides teachers, teacher educators, & classroom researchers with a conceptual framework & practical methods for teaching & researching the disciplinary literacy development of English language learners (ELLs).   Grounded in a nuanced critique of current social, economic, & political changes shaping public education, Gebhard offers a comprehensive framework for designing curriculum, instruction, & assessments that build on students’ linguistic & cultural resources.
Poet & novelist Diane Wald will read from her new novel, The Gillyflower.   Wald is the author of Wonderbender, Yellow Hote, Lucid Suitcase, as well as numerous chapbooks.   Her awards include a two-year fellowship in poetry from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Grolier Poetry Prize, The Denny Award, The Open Voice Award, the Anne Halley Poetry Prize, & a Massachusetts Artists Foundation grant.

Local novelist Heather Abel will read from the new paperback edition of her recent novel, The Optimistic Decade.   Abel’s novel was named one of the best debuts of spring by Library Journal; one of the best books to read in May, by the BBC; named a “best new book” by People Magazine.   The New York Times’s reviewer wrote, “Abel, who previously worked as a reporter, is a perceptive writer whose astute observations keep the book funny & light even under the weight of its Big Ideas…Is this a book about the failure of Zionism, an exploration of the limits of idealism or a literary coming-of-age novel?   It’s a bit of all three.   Most interestingly, it doesn’t just rehash the story of the Holy Land we already know, but imagines a new, subversive ending.”   Abel will be joined by local poet Lesley Yalen, author of the poetry collection The Hearts of the Vikings, & two chapbooks, This Elizabeth & The Beginning In.

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