Book of the Week (6/9/2025)

The Ghost Lab: How Bigfoot Hunters, Mediums, and Alien Enthusiasts Are Wrecking Science by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling (PublicAffairs, 2025)

A surprising and compelling journey into the business of paranormal investigation, and the state of scientific literacy in America.

In 2010, in a small New Hampshire town, next door to a copy center and framing shop, a ghost lab opened. The Kitt Research Initiative’s mission was to use the scientific method to document the existence of spirits. Founder Andy Kitt was known as a straight-shooter; and was unafraid — perhaps eager — to offend other paranormal investigators by exposing the fraudulence of their less advanced techniques. But when KRI started to lose money, Kitt began to seek funding from the paranormal community, attracting flocks of psychics, alien abductees, witches, mediums, ghost hunters, UFOlogists, cryptozoologists and warlocks from all over New England, and the world. And there were plenty of them around.

The Ghost Lab tells the astonishing story of the wild ecosystem of paranormal profiteers and consumers, through the astonishing story of what happened in this one small town. But it also maps the trends of declining scientific literacy, trust in institutions, and the diffusion of a culture that has created space for armies of pseudoscientists to step into the minds of an increasingly credulous public.

With his distinct voice, eye for a story and ability to show how one community's experience reflects that of a society, Matt Hongoltz-Hetling crafts a powerful narrative about just how fragmented our understanding of what is real and what is not has become. --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling is a freelance journalist specializing in narrative features and investigative reporting. He has been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, won a George Polk Award, and been voted Journalist of the Year by the Maine Press Association, among numerous other honors. He is the author of two prior books, A Libertarian Walks into a Bear and If It Sounds Like a Quack. Matthew is currently a reporter for the Valley News, a daily newspaper in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

Join Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling at Gibson's Bookstore on Thu., July 17, 2025 at 6:30 pm where he will be discussing his newest book!

Dublin Literary Award Winner 2025

The Adversary by Michael Crummey has been selected as the winner of the 2025 Dublin Literary Award.

About the Book:

In an isolated outport on Newfoundland’s northern coastline, a ruthless act of sabotage is the opening salvo in a battle between the man and woman who own Mockbeggar’s largest mercantile firms, each fighting for the scarce resources of the north Atlantic fishery, each seeking a measure of revenge on the person they despise most in the world. As their unshakeable animosity spirals further each year, the community is increasingly divided and even the innocents in Mockbeggar find themselves forced to take sides, with devastating consequences. The Adversary is a dark, enthralling novel about love and its limitations, the corruption of power and the power of corruption. --Publisher's blurb

2025 Ladybug Voting Materials

The 2025 Ladybug Picture Book Award Voting Materials are now available!

Voting materials, including picture ballots, paper tally sheets, as well as an online tally sheet, are available on the Ladybug web page, here.

We will be posting information about a different Ladybug nominee each Friday throughout the Summer and will issue a pdf voters guide featuring all the titles by Labor Day. A post about the first Ladybug nominee will go out on Friday, June 27, 2025 here on the Book Notes Blog.

New Hampshire children, from preschool to third grade, will select the winning picture book when they vote in November 2025. The deadline for sending in votes is Sunday, December 21, 2025 at 4:30 pm.

3 on a Theme: New England

Hiking with Kids New England: 50 Great Hikes for Families by Sarah Lamagna

Wit and Wisdom: The Forgotten Literary Life of New England Villages by Joan Newlon Radner

Wicked Weird & Wily Yankees: A Celebration of New England's Eccentrics and Misfits by Stephen Gencarella

Book of the Week (6/2/2025)

The King of Books by Gina Perry (Feiwel & Friends, 2025)

A laugh-out-loud story about an enthusiastic king who learns the power of books!

It’s Book Day, everyone!

And the King of Books cannot wait to show off all the things that he can do with his magnificent collection.

He can make dizzying book towers, fearsome book-quakes, and even handy book trays for his meals. Much to the horror of his trusty advisors, though, it seems that the King of Books is oblivious to their original purpose.

But when a fearsome Moat Monster takes exception to the King’s antics, the King of Books has to unlock the full potential of reading in order to save the realm.

Gina Perry has crafted a comical story with friendly and bright art that treats all of her subjects with grace and compassion, and showcases the power of the written word (and also that books are much easier to read when you hold them the right side up). --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

New England author and illustrator Gina Perry has been working in children’s books since 2005. She has 17 books to her credit from early readers, to picture and chapter books, and illustrated middle grade. Gina lives on the seacoast of New Hampshire with her family and Hank the pug. She's always on the lookout for moose, but has yet to spot one.

Book of the Week (5/26/2025)

New England Shipbuilding: Vessels That Made History by Glenn A. Knoblock (The History Press, 2021)

For more than four hundred years, New England shipyards have contributed significantly to America's maritime and naval supremacy. This compelling story is presented through the histories of seventy ships built from the colonial era down to modern times. Well-known vessels like the Constitution, the Nautilus, the Flying Cloud and the infamous whale ship Essex are included, but so, too, are lesser-known ships, including the ill-fated Wyoming and the far-ranging voyager Union. Every type of vessel is covered--their building or voyages making nautical news, often in exciting fashion, and their exploits filled with adventure, danger, tragedy and survival. Historian and author Glenn A. Knoblock explores the construction, life and demise of these ships and details their contribution to our nation's maritime heritage. --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

Glenn A. Knoblock is an independent scholar and author of over twenty books. Knoblock has served as the main military contributor to Harvard and Oxford University's landmark African American National Biography, and he has also written for the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. His work documents a wide variety of subjects in New Hampshire and New England history, including African American history, historic cemeteries and grave markers, as well as covered bridges, the Kancamagus Highway, and New Hampshire's loon population. He holds a B.A. in History from Bowling Green State University. 

Glenn and his wife Terry, and their daughter Anna, as well as their goldendoodle Shiloh, live in Wolfeboro Falls, NH.

Book of the Week (5/19/2025)

Written in Granite: Monadnock Poems & Stories by Sebastian Lockwood (Independently published, 2024)

Written in Granite, has fourteen poems and four stories. Folded in with the text are a series of paintings and photographs that reflect the themes of the poems and stories. Many of the poems are woven into the short stories. The stories are set in 1862 in the Fox Tavern at Hancock Inn, New Hampshire. Three of the stories feature three famous women, two of whom knew each other. Emily Dickinson, as The Woman in White in, Rooks & Indian Pudding and Helen Hunt Jackson in The Woman with an Owl On Her Head knew each other well and were powerful friends. Fly Rod Crosby was an extraordinary sportswoman and fellow sharpshooter with Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane. --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

Storyteller and podcaster Sebastian Lockwood tells the great epics: Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Caesar, Beowulf and Monkey. His studies in Classics and Anthropology at Boston University and Cambridge University in the UK laid the foundation for bringing these great tales into performance. Lockwood’s performances are designed to take complex texts and make them accessible and exciting for audiences from 5 to 95. Lockwood has tutored and taught classes in higher education for 25 years. Lockwood launched two storytelling podcasts in 2022: Blowing Up Stumps- tales from New and Old England (with Maine storyteller Matt Gile), and Monkey- the Journey to the West.  He now concentrates on performance, podcasting, workshops, and audiobook narration. Lockwood lives under Crotched Mountain in a 1792 house with his wife, jazz singer and LUX Lifestyle founder, Nanette Perrotte.