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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

< November 2017 >

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.

Jennifer Taub will talk in the 3rd Floor Conference Room, Gordon Hall, 418 No. Pleasant Street, UMass, Amherst, as part of a series entitled, “The Right Wing Assault on America: What Is It? How Can We Defeat It?”   Taub, who teaches at Vermont Law School, is author of Other People’s Houses: How Decades of Bailouts, Captive Regulators, & Toxic Bankers Made Home Mortgages a Thrilling Business.
Robert Madrygin will read from his new novel, The Solace of Trees.   Madrygin’s debut novel is about a Bosnian War orphan of Muslim heritage who escapes his homeland, finds a new family in New England, & learns to deal with his trauma—& years later falls into the depths of post-9/11 America’s extraordinary rendition program.
Join Hampshire Collge professor Lise Sanders in celebrating the recent publication of her edition of Janet Doncaster by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.   Fawcett (1847–1929), known today for her leadership of the British constitutional suffrage movement, distinguished herself initially as an author of works on political economy & women’s rights.   Janet Doncaster, published in 1875, explores the politics of marriage & domesticity at a time when middle–class women were actively challenging the sexual double standard in the realms of law, education, work, & family.   Sander’s edition includes a critical intrdouction, explanatory notes, & more.   Sanders is also author of Consuming Fantasies: Labor, Leisure, & the London Shopgirl, 1880–1920.
Andreas Weber will talk about his new book, Matter & Desire: An Erotic Ecology, at the Franklin Patterson Hall’s Main Lecture Hall, Hampshire College, Amherst.   In it, the internationally renowned biologist & philosopher rewrites ecology as a tender practice of forging relationships, of yearning for connections, & of expressing these desires through our bodies.   Being alive is an erotic process—constantly transforming the self through contact with others, desiring ever more life.
Kwame Anthony Appiah will speak on “How Not To Think About Race, Culture & Class” in the Stirn Auditorium, Amherst College.   Appiah is author of numerous books, including In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, & The Ethics of Identity.   His most recent book is As If: Idealization & Ideals.
Local polymath Andrea Lawlor will read from her new novel, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl.   Lawlor, who teaches at Mt. Holyoke College, is author of a chapbook of poems, Position Papers; is a fiction edtior for Fence magazine; & is former editor/publisher of the Pocket Myths publication series.   Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, jubilat, the Millions, the Brooklyn Rail, Encyclopedia, & Mutha.   Lawlor will be introduced by UMass English professor, Jordy Rosenberg.
jubilat/Jones Reading Series at the Jones Library, Amherst.   Samuel Ace & Camille Rankine will read.   Meet the poets at an informal Q & A session that follows the reading.   For more information go to the jubilat Event page.

Help Laura Briggs & Kirsten Leng celebrate the publication of their new books!   Briggs is author of the newly published How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump, & Leng is author of Sexual Politics & Feminist Science: Women Sexologists in Germany, 1900-1933.   Both Briggs & Leng teach in the UMass Department of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies.
Local poet Janet MacFadyen will read from her new collection of poetry, Waiting to be Born.   MacFadyen is the author of A Newfoundland Journal & two chapbooks: In the Provincelands & In Defense of Stones.   Her work has been nominated for the Forward & Pushcart prizes, & has appeared in numerous journals, including The Atlanta Review, Crannóg, The Malahat Review, Osiris, & Poetry, among others.
For the 20th anniversary of the Eqbal Ahmad Symposium, Fahd Ahmed & Kelly Lytle Hernandez will speak in the Robert Crown Center, Hampshire College, Amherst.   Ahmed is a grassroots organizer on the issues of racial profiling, immigrant justice, police accountability, national security, & educational justice over the last 17 years.   He is the Executive Director of DRUM—Desis Rising Up & Moving of New York City where he has served in various capacities since 2000.   Hernandez is a professor of History & African American Studies as well as Director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA.   She is the author of the award-winning book, Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol, & recently published City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, & the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles.
Julie Iromuanya will read in Memorial Hall, UMass, Amherst, from her debut novel, Mr. & Mrs. Doctor.   Iromuanya has short stories & novel excerpts appearing or forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, Passages North, the Cream City Review, & the Tampa Review, among other journals.   Her writing has been shortlisted for several awards, including the Glimmer Train Family Matters & Very Short Fiction prizes, & the Kenyon ReviewShort Fiction Contest.   Sponsored by the University of Massachusetts MFA Program’s Visiting Writers Series.
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.
Peter Bush will read from his new translation of Joan Sales’ Catalan classic of the Spanish Civil War, Uncertain Glory.   Sales, a combatant in the civil war, distilled his experiences into a timeless story of thwarted love, lost youth & crushed illusions.   A thrilling epic that has drawn comparison with the work of Dostoevsky & Stendhal, Uncertain Glory is a homegrown counterpart to classics such as Homage to Catalonia & For Whom the Bell Tolls .  
Nancy MacLean will talk about her new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Rights Secret Plan for America, at the Bernie Dallas Room in Goodell Hall, UMass.   MacLean is an award-winning scholar of the twentieth-century U.S., whose new book has been described by Publishers Weekly as ”a thoroughly researched & gripping narrative… [&] a feat of American intellectual & political history.   Booklist called it ”perhaps the best explanation to date of the roots of the political divide that threatens to irrevocably alter American government.“
Vievee Francis will read from her recent poetry.   Francis is author of Blue-Tail Fly; Horse in the Dark, which won the Cave Canem Northwestern University Poetry Prize for a second collection; & most recently, Forest Primeval, which won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award & the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry.   Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.
Amherst Books Noontime Book Conversation Michael Greenebaum will lead a discussion of So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell.   The Conversation is not a book group in the traditional sense: it expects readers to come & go as their schedules & interests allow.   If you can, purchase your copy from Amherst Books with a 10% discount.   The group meets on the second Tuesday of every month.   Feel free to bring your lunch; water will be provided.
Join us in celebrating the publication of a new book by UMass political science professor Regine Spector—Order at the Bazaar: Power & Trade in Central Asia.   Spector worjks on comparative politics, political economy, post-Soviet studies & when relevant history, geography, & anthropology, to better understand the creative, contentious, & politically fraught processes that undergird the creation of new market economies.
Sebastian Junger will talk in the Johnson Chapel, Amherst College.   Junger is an American journalist, author & filmmaker famous for the best-selling book The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea; his award-winning chronicle of the war in Afghanistan in the documentary films Restrepo & Korengal; & his book War.   His most recent book, Tribe: On Homecoming & Belonging, studies war veterans from an anthropological perspective & asks how “do you make veterans feel that they are returning to a cohesive society that was worth fighting for in the first place?”

Help us celebrate the publication of new books by Amherst College professors Pooja Rangan & Christopher Grobe!   Rangan is author of Immediations The Humanitarian Impulse in Documentary while Grobe is author of The Art of Confession The Performance of Self from Robert Lowell to Reality TV.
Polina Barskova will talk about her new book, Besieged Leningrad: Aesthetic Responses to Urban Disaster.   Barskova, who teaches at Hampshire College, has written scholarly articles on Nabokov, the Bakhtin brothers, early Soviet film, & the aestheticization of historical trauma, primarily, in the culture of the Siege of Leningrad.   She is also author of eight books of poetry & one book of prose in Russian.   Three books of her poetry in translation are This Lamentable City, Zoo in Winter, & Relocations.
Join Julio Capo in celebrating the publication of his new book, Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami Before 1940.   Capo, who teaches in the History Department at UMass, describes his new book as “a transnational queer history of a city just ‘south of the U.S. South.’   It highlights how transnational forces—including (im)migration, trade, & tourism—to & from the Caribbean shaped Miami’s queer past.”

Our very own special Catherine Newman has two new books! She will read from her new young adult novel, One Mixed-Up Night; & talk, with co-author Nicole Blum, about their new craft book, Stitch Camp: 18 Crafty Projects for Kids & Tweens — Learn 6 All-Time Favorite Skills: Sew, Knit, Crochet, Felt, Embroider & Weave.   Newman, the Academic Department Coordinator for the Creative Writing Center at Amherst College, is author of two memoirs about parenting: Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, & the Wild Magic of Growing a Family & Catastrophic Happiness: Finding Joy in Childhood's Messy Years.   Besides Stitch Camp, Blum is author of Improv Sewing: 101 Fast, Fun, & Fearless Projects & a forthcoming cider cookbook.   She is an artist & crafter, & her work has been featured in FamilyFun & Parents magazines.   Blum has taught crafting workshops at events across the country, including Maker Faire.   She runs Carr’s Ciderhouse in Hadley with her husband.
Baron Wormser will read from his latest novel, Tom o’ Vietnam.   Wormser is a prolific poet, & has written novels, short stories, & a memoir.   Wormser’s many honors & awards include a Frederick Bock Prize & fellowships from Bread Loaf, the National Endowment for the Arts, & the Guggenheim Foundation.   He was the poet laureate of Maine from 2000 to 2006.
Help us celebrate the publication of a new book by Jennifer Fronc — Monitoring the Movies: The Fight Over Film Censorship in Early Twentieth-Century Urban America.   Fronc, who teaches in the History Department here at UMass, is also author of New York Undercover : Private Surveillance in the Progressive Era.
Thomas White will talk about his new book, Conversation About America: The Faux-G.O.P.’s Assault on the Values that Define Us.   White holds the Hilton Chair in Business Ethics at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles & teaches at Mount Holyoke College.   His writings focus on issues in applied ethics.   Socrates Comes to Wall Street challenges the presuppositions that led to the 2008 meltdown & that continue to produce ongoing corporate scandals.   His pioneering In Defense of Dolphins argues against the captivity of dolphins by the entertainment industry.   In connection with his work on cetaceans, he is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.
Loretta Ross & Rickie Solinger will talk in the Old Chapel, UMass, Amherst, about their new book, Reproductive Justice: An Introduction.   See here for more information.
Crystal Parikh will talk in the Bernie Dallas Room, Goodell Hall, UMass, Amherst, about her new book, Writing Human Rights: The Political Imaginaries of Writers of Color.   She is also author of An Ethics of Betrayal: The Politics of Otherness in Emergent U.S. Literatures & Culture, & co–editor of The Cambridge Companion to Asian American Literature.
Frank Ackerman about his new book, Worst-Case Economics: Extreme Events in Climate & Finance.   Ackerman is an economist who has written extensively about the economics of climate change, energy & other environmental problems.   His book, Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything & the Value of Nothing, is a critique of cost-benefit analysis & its abuse in US environmental policy.  His other books include Poisoned for Pennies: The Economics of Toxics & Precaution, & Can We Afford the Future? Economics for a Warming World.   He has written numerous academic & popular articles, & has directed policy reports for clients ranging from Greenpeace to the European Parliament.
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