Book Events in Our Own Backyard

If you read yesterday's post about the National Book Festival and felt bad that you missed so many great authors, take heart -- the October calendars of New Hampshire bookstores are packed with upcoming visits by some amazing authors! Here is a sampling:

River Run Books in Portsmouth will host -- among others -- Lucy Therrien, Joe Hill, Susan Cheever, Charles Barasch, David Hackett Fischer, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. They are also hosting events as part of the NH Writers' Trail 2008 Portsmouth Literary Festival. Gregory Maguire and Madeline Albright will each appear during October as part of Writers on a New England Stage at the Music Hall in Portsmouth.

Toadstool Bookshops will host -- among others -- Tess Gerritsen (at the Milford store), Marty Kelley (Milford), Mark Borax (in Keene), The Write Sisters (Milford), John Scieszka (Milford), Kathleen Duble & Alexander Farquharson (in Peterborough), D. Quincey Whitney (Keene).

Donald Hall will be reading from his new memoir Unpacking the Boxes at Gibson's in Concord on Thursday, October 2.

Water Street Bookstore in Exeter will host -- among others -- Joe Hill, poets Lesley Kimball and Adam Shlager, Jon Scieszka, and Ben Rose.

National Book Festival 2008

According to the Press Release from the Library of Congress there were more than 120,000 people in attendance at the 8th National Book Festival this past Saturday. For the 7th year in a row I was among them. State Librarian Micheal York (pictured at left speaking to a young visitor), NHSL Reference Librarian Charles Shipman and I spent the day stamping the festival maps of thousands of children and handing out materials about New Hampshire in the Pavillion of the States with the tireless assistance of volunteers from the Junior League of Washington. On the back of the festival map (pictured at right) each state's Center for the Book recommends a book for young readers. This year we recommended Women of Granite by the Write Sisters and distributed a matching puzzle (pictured above right) based on the women in the book. Six out of the seven authors, and the illustrator of Women of Granite were in attendance at the Festival and paid a visit to our table. (pictured below are -- from left -- Kathleen Deady, Diane Mayr, Janet Buell, and Barbara Turner; Charles Shipman is in the background). We were each able to attend a couple of the author programs going on at the festival (if we were willing to brave the periodic downpours on this soggy, humid day) and there were some excellent ones. I went to hear Kay Ryan, who was recently appointed as the Library of Congress’s 16th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2008-2009. Her reading was followed by an interview in which she talked about her work, her life, and her plans as Poet Laureate. She suggested (to thunderous applause) that promoting funding for branch libriaries might be a suitable project for her term as laureate. The Library of Congress will be posting webcasts of the author presentations on the Festival site. I encourage you to watch Kay Ryan's presentation, it was excellent! Podcasts of interviews, recorded with Festival authors a few weeks ago, are already available.

Book of the Week #39

Unpacking the Boxes: A Memoir of a Life in Poetry by Donald Hall (Houghton Mifflin, 2008)

Donald Hall, in addition to being a great poet, is a wonderful storyteller and this latest volume illustrates that. In this book Hall tells stories of his childhood, his education, why V-J Day has a special significance for him, the role of books in his life, about being an Academic Poet, and many more great stories that he unearthed in the boxes brought back from his Mother's house after her death.

Book of the Week #38

The Comfort of Our Kind: A Novel by Tom Stoner. (Thomas Dunne Books, 2008)

Texas author Tom Stoner has set his first novel in Franklin Notch, New Hampshire. It is the quirky story of a family caught in a battle between good and evil.

"I'm from a family of characters. My father, when he was young, was Wes the Cartoon man, a regionally famous host of a kiddie TV show. These days he is notorious for inventing bad history. My brother, Reggie, was the sports
announcer on a Nashua TV station. Last year after he was fired, he fell apart, moved to Orlando, and now he is famous for living undetected in Cinderella's Castle for eight months.
My sister, Veronica, is unhappy, has always been unhappy. Burdened by her strangled blend of doubt and fear, she is America's most misanthropic nurse.
Our mother sees things before they happen. When she was young, she was Sister Donica Lenore, the nun who made a bargain with God." (Comfort of Our Kind, p. 5)

Book of the Week #37

This Desired Place by Julia Older (Hancock, NH: Appledore Books, 2007)

This is the second book in Julia Older's Shoals trilogy and it was the 2007 gold medal finalist for Best Northeast Regional Fiction by the Independent Publisher Book Awards. It is also featured on the Reading Group Choices book discussion site. Julia Older is the author of 25 books and counting, and has been featured in the NH Poets Showcase. She lives in southern New Hampshire.

In this novel "Thom Taylor is cast onto the lawless Isles of Shoals at the gateway to the New World. Bawdy butcher Babb and his saucy Barbadoes serving wench quickly teach him the ropes of turning cod into cash. They are but a few of the real-life characters that help and hinder the fictive narrator of this sweeping 17th century saga." (quoted from jacket copy) The first book in the trilogy, Island Queen would be a great companion to last week's "Book of the Week"

"As I rowed back to Star Island I thought how each of the islands fostered salient traits much like people whose dispositions resemble their physical features. The way Church Island stuck into the Atlantic Ocean somehow made it more of a third party; whereas Star and Appledore, facing each other, shared pleasantries across the channel. Star had the practical advantage with its forts, though the garrison had but two rusty cannon." (p. 153)

Book of the Week #36

Ribbon Treasures from Celia's Garden by Faye Labanaris (American Quilter's Society, 2008)


This seemed like the perfect book for me to choose this week. With Labor Day, the traditional end of summer, just past a way to "garden" through the coming winter seems called for and this is a quilt-y week for me as I get ready to go on quilt retreat this weekend.


Faye Labanaris, a New Hampshire author and quilting teacher, has once again been inspired by the beauty of Celia Thaxter's Island Garden and has created a beautiful book that shows you how to create flowers from ribbon. The book begins with Celia Thaxter's story and includes quotes from Celia's work throughout. Detailed color photos walk you through creating the flowers and historical photos related to Celia Thaxter are also included.