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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

< October 2013 >

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.

(Click on a picture or a title to check our inventory or to purchase.)
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Amherst resident Linda Aronson will talk about her new book, Unleashed to Learn: Empowering Students to Learn at Full Capacity.   Aronson is the designer & facilitator of the high school initiative Senior Capstone.   The orientation of the Capstone is to draw forth, not impose upon.   Within the blueprint of the Capstone, students engage in learning that is of high interest, relevant, real world, applied/experiential, innovative & creative.   Students work with mentors in the community who are experts on the topic of their Capstone.   Unleashed to Learn is a powerful illustration of students learning at full capacity engendering innovation/creativity & exceeding their own & others’ expectations.
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Amherst’s own Kitty Burns Florey will talk about the new release of Script & Scribble: The Rise & Fall of Handwriting, her witty & charming eulogy to a disappearing craft.   Florey is author of many books, including the recent novel, The Writing Master, & Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog: The Quirky History & Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences. In addition to writing, she works as a freelance copy editor.
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John Wideman & Sejal Shah will read in Memorial Hall, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as part of the University of Massachusetts MFA Program’s Visiting Writers Series.   Wideman is a widely-celebrated writer & the winner of many literary awards.   He is the first person to win the International PEN/Faulkner Award twice: for Sent for You Yesterday & for Philadelphia Fire.  In 2000, he won the O. Henry Award for his short story “Weight”, published in The Callaloo Journal.   Following the publication of the Homewood trilogy, the New York Times proclaimed Wideman, “one of America’s premier writers of fiction.” Shah, who received her M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts here in Amherst, has had work published in such publications as The Asian American Literary Review,The Massachusetts Review, Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Writing , Indiana Review, & Denver Quarterly.
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Join University of Massachusetts professor Nick Bromell & friends in celebrating the publication of his new book, The Time Is Always Now: Black Thought & the Transformation of US Democracy.   Historian Robin D.G. Kelley has written that, “In this work of enormous breadth, depth, & imagination, Bromell makes what may be the most original contribution to political theory in the past decade.   In this age of alleged color blindness, Bromell has the vision & the chutzpah to turn to African American thought—ideas born of struggle, anchored in questions of dignity, human relationships, & faith—in order to revitalize American democracy.”   Bromell’s articles & essays have appeared recently in American Literature, American Literary History, Political Theory, & Raritan.
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Join University of Massachusetts professor Laetitia La Follette in celebrating the publication of her new book, Negotiating Culture: Heritage, Ownership, & Intellectual Property.   With contributions by David Bollier, Stephen Clingman, Susan DiGiacomo, Oriol Pi-Sunyer, Margaret Speas, Banu Subramaniam, Joe Watkins, & Martin Wobst—most of whom will be in attendance at this book launch party—this provocative collection of case studies in cultural ownership by scholars from a range of fields explores issues of cultural heritage & intellectual property in a variety of contexts, from contests over tangible artifacts as well as more abstract forms of culture such as language & oral traditions to current studies of DNA & genes that combine nature & culture, & even new, nonproprietary models for the sharing of digital technologies.
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Ken Kalfus will read his most recent novel, Equilateral.   Kalfus is the author of two previous novels, The Commissariat of Enlightenment, & A Disorder Peculiar to the Country; & two short story collections, Thirst, & PU-239 & Other Russian Fantasies.   Three of his books have been named New York Times Notable Books of the Year.   Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.
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jubilat/Jones Reading Series at the Jones Library, Amherst.   The reading will feature poets Ariana Reines & Christopher Janke, & will feature the publisher FENCE.   Meet the poets at an informal Q & A session that will follow the reading.   For more information go to jubilat/Jones Reading Series on Facebook.
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Peter Filkins will read from recent work.   Filkins is a translator (Ingeborg Bachmann, Alois Hotschnig, H.G. Adler) & poet.   His most recent collection of poetry is The View We're Granted.   Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.
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Julie Olsen Edwards will talk about the new collection of works, some previously unpublished, by her mother, Tillie Olsen—Tell Me a Riddle, Requa I, & Other Works.   Olsen was an activist, feminist, award-winning author, & teacher who won nine honorary degrees & whose short stories “Tell Me a Riddle” (winner of the O. Henry Award) & ‘I Stand Here Ironing” have been anthologized extensively.   She is the author of the novel Yonondio: From the Thirties; the nonfiction book Silences; as well as numerous essays; & is the editor of Mother to Daughter, Daughter to Mother: Mothers on Mothering.
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Join Amherst resident Gerald McFarland in celebrating the publication of his new novel, The Brujo’s Way, the first volume in the Buenaventura Series.   McFarland, who taught history for many years here at the University of Massachusetts, is author several non fiction books, including Inside Greenwich Village: A New York City Neighborhood, 1898-1918, & Scattered People: An American Family Moves West.   The Brujo’s Way, his first novel & set in the early 18th Century, is an exciting new departure for him.
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Ellen Fitzpatrick will be at the Amherst Cinema to introduce the movie Letters to Jackie which is based on her book, Letters to Jackie: Condolences from a Grieving Nation.   For more information, go to the Amherst Cinema website.
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Devlin Griffiths will talk about his new book, Virtual Ascendance: Video Games & the Remaking of Reality.   In it, Griffiths paints a thorough & vivid picture of the video game industry, illuminating the various—& often bizarre—ways it’s changing how we work, play & live.   He brings readers along on his own journey of discovery, from the back room of a small Irish pub where members of the second largest industry enclave meet each month, to a university clinic where the Wii is being used to treat Parkinson’s sufferers—& everywhere in between.
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Meryl Natchez will read selections in English & Russian from her new book of translations, Poems from the Stray Dog Cafe: Akhmatova, Mandelstam & Gumilev.   The three great Russian poets met, wrote, & performed at the Stray Dog Café in St. Petersburg in the early part of the 20th century & lived vastly influential & fated lives.   Natchez is co–translator of Tadeusz Borowski: Selected Poems, author of the poetry collection, Jade Suit, & contributor to Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness.   Her poems & translations have appeared in literary journals including Canary, Language & Culture, & The Atlanta Reviewv.
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Author, screenwriter & film director Marisa Silver will read from recent work.   Silver is author of several volumes of short stories & novels, including Babe in Paradise, which was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, & No Direction Home.   Her most recent novel is Mary Coin.   Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.

Updated 25 October, 2013Site MapWant to have an event?