• Tuesday, November 5th at 4:30pm (Talk)

Betsy Hartmann & Michael Klare will read from their new books at the 3rd Floor Conference Room, Gordon Hall, UMass, 418 No. Pleasant Street, Amherst.   Hartmann’s most recent book is The America Syndrome Apocalypse War & Our Call to Greatness.   She is also author of Reproductive Rights & Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control & the novel Deadly Election.   Klare’s most recent book is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change.   He is author of numerous books about resources & geopolitics, including Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, & The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources.

• Tuesday, November 5th at 5:00pm (Conversation)

Hosted by Amherst College professors Alexander George & Nishi Shah, Stephen Carter & Nicholas Christakis will talk in the Stirn Auditorium, Amherst College, as part of this year’s Point/Counterpoint series.   For more information go here.

• Thursday, November 7th at 4:30pm (Talk)

Arthur Kleinman will speak in Pruyne Lecture Hall, Fayerweather Hall, Amherst College about his new book, The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband & a Doctor.   Dr. Kleinman is one of the most renowned & influential scholars and writers on psychiatry, anthropology, global health, & cultural issues in medicine.   His new book is a moving memoir & an extraordinary love story that shows how an expert physician became a family caregiver & learned why care is so central to all our lives and yet is at risk in today’s world.

• Thursday, November 7th at 5:00pm (Talk)

Daniel Walkowitz will give the Kristallnacht Memorial Lecture, “[Re]Thinking Jewish Heritage: Opportunities & Limits Amidst Openings & Closings” at the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, & Memory Studies, UMass, 758 North Pleasant Street, Amherst.   His most recent book is The Remembered & Forgottten Jewish World: Jewish Heritage in Europe & the United States.   For information, see here.

• Thursday, November 7th at 7:00pm (Poetry reading)

Franny Choi will read from her recent work. Choi is a writer of poems, essays, & plays.   She is the author of two poetry collections—most recently, Soft Science, as well as Floating, Brilliant, Gone, & a chapbook, Death by Sex Machine. – She edits for Hyphen Magazine & co-hosts the podcast VS alongside fellow Dark Noise Collective member Danez Smith.

• Friday, November 8th at 7:00pm (Reading)

“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.

• Sunday, November 10th at 4:00pm (Poetry reading)

Terry Johnson will read from her second poetry collection, Plunge, set in Italy during & after World War II.   Johnson began her career as a concert harpsichordist before finding her true calling as a sixth grade public school teacher.   She received an M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts & has published in numerous journals and anthologies.   Johnson loves to travel and still hopes to master the subjunctive tense in Italian. — See here for more information.

• Monday, November 11th at 7:00pm (Talk)

Local architect & builder Jonathan Wright will talk about his new book, Living Building Makers: Creating Sustainable Buildings that Renew our World.   Wright has been an expert builder specializing in the construction & design of sustainable, healthy, high-performance buildings.   Wright Builders, Inc. constructed two Living Buildings on the Hampshire College campus known as the R.W. Kern Center & the Hitchcock Center for the Environment.   Living Building Makers is a tribute to the unsung individuals — builders, tradespeople, designers, engineers, educators, craftspeople, & owners – who rolled up their sleeves to play a part in creating two of the greenest buildings in the world.

• Tuesday, November 12th at 12:00 noon - 1:00pm (Noontime Book Conversation)

Noontime Book Conversation This month the group will discuss work by Flannery O'Connor.   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.

(December’s discussion will meet on Tuesday the 12th.   The topic of discussion will be Anne Carson’s The Beauty of the Husband.

• Tuesday, November 12th at 7:00pm (Talk)

Sonia Nieto & daughter, Alicia Lópes will read from their recent book, Teaching, a Life's Work: A Mother-Daughter Dialogue. Nieto is Professor Emerita of Language, Literacy & Culture at the School of Education, UMass, Amherst.   With experience teaching students at all levels & from many socioeconomic & cultural backgrounds, Nieto is one of the leading authors & teachers in the field of multiculturalism & has received numerous awards for her scholarly work, teaching, activism, & advocacy, including 8 honorary doctorates.   She has been a visiting scholar at various universities in the United States, as well as in Puerto Rico & Spain.   López is an award-winning ESL teacher who writes a blog, maestrateacher.com, on teaching, parenting, & life.

• Wednesday, November 13th at 4:30pm (Reading)

Joseph O’Neill will read from his new collection of short stories, Good Trouble at the Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Frost Library, Amherst College, as part of Amherst College’s visiting writers series.   For more information see their events page.

• Thursday, November 14th at 8:00pm (Reading)

Ocean Vuong will read from his new novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous in the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, UMass, Amherst as part of the Visiting Writers Series.   Vuong, who teaches in the UMass MFA Program, is also author of the collection of poetry, Night Sky With Exit Wounds .   He is a recent winner of the MacArthur “Genius” Award.   For more information see the UMass MFA’s Visiting Writer Series event page.

• Sunday, November 17th at 3:00pm (Poetry reading)

jubilat/Jones Reading Series at the Jones Library, Amherst.   Eric Baus & Andrea Rexilius will read.   Meet the poets at an informal Q & A session that follows the reading.

• Monday, November 18th at 7:00pm (Talk)

Director of the Labor Center here at UMass, Cedric de Leon will talk about his recent book, Crisis!: When Political Parties Lose the Consent to Rule.   De Leon got his start in the labor movement as a researcher for the Connecticut School Bus Drivers Alliance Local 76 SEIU in 1994.   From 1995 to 1996 he worked on the Chateau Ste. Michelle, Bruce Church, & strawberry campaigns for the United Farm Workers in Connecticut, & Salinas & Watsonville, California.   He then became an organizer for District 1199 SEIU in Providence.   After a brief hiatus in England, Cedric returned to the labor movement as a rank-&-file member of Local 3550 American Federation of Teachers at the University of Michigan.   He was local union president from 2000 to 2002 &, after finishing his dissertation, became lead organizer for the University of Michigan lecturers’ union, AFT Local 6244.

• Tuesday, November 19th at 4:00pm (Book launch party)

Join us in celebrating the publication of a new book by UMass political science professor Adam Dahl, Empire of the People: Settler Colonialism & the Foundations of Modern Democratic Thought.   Empire of the People examines the constitutive role of settler colonialism in shaping modern norms of democratic legitimacy.

• Tuesday, November 19th at 7:00pm (Talk)

E. Patrick Johnson, Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies & African American Studies at Northwestern University, will discuss his new book, Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women, with Amherst College professor Judith Frank.   Johnson is author of numerous books, including No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies & Appropriating Blackness.

• Wednesday, November 20th at 7:00pm (Talk)

Jim Hicks, David Ball, Corine Tachtiris, & Amanda Seaman, will read from AND THERE WILL BE SINGING: An Anthology of International Writing from the Editors of “The Massachusetts Review”.   Published in celebration of its landmark sixtieth anniversary, the Massachusetts Review   has put together a collection of the best contemporary & emerging international writers & writers in translation from MR’s last decade.

• Thursday, November 21st at 7:00pm (Talk)

Jim Boyce will talk about his two new books, The Case for Carbon Dividends, & Economics for People & the Planet: Inequality in the Era of Climate Change.   Boyce, is a senior fellow at the Political Economy Research Institute & professor emeritus of economics, UMass, Amherst.   His previous books include Economics, the Environment, & Our Common Wealth, Reclaiming Nature, Natural Assets, & The Political Economy of the Environment.

• Saturday, November 30th at 7:00pm (Sale)

Small Business Saturday!   10% off all children’s books!   And don’t forget, all Saturday’s are free parking until Christmas.