Canaan Town Library is presenting the 22nd year of thir Meetinghouse Readings series. Here's the announcement:
Four Evenings Of Storytelling and Poetry By Great Authors!
This year's edition of the Meetinghouse Readings features outstanding poets Major Jackson and Carol Westberg, the go-for-broke short stories of Creston Lea and the deep family drama of Katharine Britton's debut novel, Her Sister's Shadow. Groundbreaking narrative histories by Neil Goodwin and Tom Powers retell, respectively, the Revolutionary War raid on Royalton, Vermont and the end of effective Native American resistance in the far West with the killing of Crazy Horse. Cultural historian Howard Mansfield looks at how time and place are coming undone in our ultra-mobile Internet era, and Sally Brady's memoir, A Box of Darkness: The Story of a Marriage looks at ties that bind even when trust is broken.
It's going to be a great season of readings at this unique, grassroots literary festival. Join us!
July 7, 2011
MAJOR JACKSON Holding Company: Poems
HOWARD MANSFIELD Turn and Jump: How Time & Place Fell Apart
July 14, 2011
CRESTON LEA Wild Punch
NEIL GOODWIN We Go As Captives: The Royalton Raid and the Shadow War on the Revolutionary Frontier
July 21, 2011
KATHARINE BRITTON Her Sister's Shadow
SALLY BRADY A Box of Darkness: The Story of a Marriage
JULY 28, 2011
TOM POWERS The Killing of Crazy Horse
CAROL WESTBERG Slipstream
In The 1793 Meetinghouse In Canaan, N.H.'s Historic District, Opposite The Beach On Canaan Street Lake. SUPERB ENTERTAINMENT BY SOME OF THE NATION'S FINEST WRITERS.
FREE ADMISSION AND REFRESHMENTS.
Sponsors include James Laffan, Esq., Timothy J. Caldwell Estate Planning!!!
Authors' Books For Sale, courtesy of the Norwich Bookstore
Hosted By William Craig
ALL READINGS BEGIN AT 7:30 P.M..
Please, No Infants, Toddlers or Squirmers!
Directions: Route 4 to the blinking light in Canaan; 2 miles up Canaan Street to the Old Meetinghouse
6/28/11
Book of the Week #26
Anne Molloy, author of numerous books for young readers, and the second woman ever to serve on the Board of Directors of the Portsmouth Atheneaum, tells the story of Celia Laighton Thaxter's early life in this charming book.
"Don't catch a crab, don't catch a crab, was the message of Celia's oars in the thole pins as she crossed from her island to Gosport Harbor. The leather of the heavy dory oars creaked it, and the squeak of the thole pins in thier holes joined in the rhythmic warning. Celia kept her mind on rowing so completely she hadn't noticed other voices and other warnings. She was rowing as if the dory and its oars were a part of her. Her strokes were smooth and there was a steady boil of water at the bow. Gradully she heard another sound. It was the smack of rising wind on the face of the water. She looked up without breaking the rhythm of her strokes and saw dark clouds scudding over the gray sky. They carried along beneath them a gray curtain that shut out the horizon. It blurred the sails of a lumber schooner far away. Then with a whisper the curtain swooped toward Celia and the dory." (p. 165)
6/22/11
Book of the Week #25
Ann Joslin Williams, an Assistant Professor at the University of New Hampshire, set this novel (her first) in the fictional town of Leah, New Hampshire which was created by her father, the author Thomas Williams.
Williams will be reading from her novel at Water Street Bookstore tonight (June 22) and at Gibson's Bookstore on July 21, 2011. She is also doing a virtual book tour on TLC Book Tours.
"In Down From Cascom Mountain, newlywed Mary Hall brings her husband to settle in the rural New Hampshire of her youth to fix up the house she grew up in and to reconnect to the land that defined her, with all its beauty and danger. But on a mountain day hike, she watches helplessly as her husband falls to his death. As she struggles with her sudden grief, in the days and months that follow, Mary finds new friendships--with Callie and Tobin, teenagers who live and work on the mountain, and with Ben, the gentle fire watchman. All are haunted by their own losses, but they find ways to restore hope in one another, holding firmly as they navigate the rugged terrain of the unknown and the unknowable, and loves lost and found." (from publisher's material)
6/21/11
Book Events this Week
Tuesday, 6/21/2011
- Courtney Sullivan will read from her new novel Maine at River Run at 7pm
- Water Street Bookstore will host Ann Joslin Williams at 7pm talking about Down from Cascom Mountain
- Neil Gaiman will be the guest for Writers on a New England Stage at The Music Hall at 7:30pm. This event is sold out, but is typically broadcast on NHPR. (If you have a ticket you don't plan to use let me know immediately -- Gaiman is one of my favorite authors and an amazing reader to listen to.)
- Michael Sims, author of the new E.B. White biography The Story of Charlotte's Web will be speaking at River Run at 7pm
- Maxine Kumin and Deborah Brown will be at Gibson's at 7pm
- Gary Braver will be signing his new thriller Tunnel Vision at Barnes & Noble, Manchester at 5pm
- Maxine Kumin and Deborah Brown will be at MainStreet BookEnds of Warner at 1pm
- Toadstool Bookshop, Milford will host Paul Doiron reading from his new mystery featuring Maine game warden Mike Bowditch, Trespasser at 2pm
6/20/11
2011 Dublin Winner
Let the Great World Spin by Dublin author Colum McCann, has won the 2011 International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award. The Award is organized by Dublin City Libraries, on behalf of Dublin City Council and sponsored by IMPAC, an international management productivity company. The prize is €100,000. It is the largest prize for a single novel published in English. Uniquely, the IMPAC DUBLIN receives its nominations from public libraries around the globe.
"Colum McCann joins a long list of eminent novelists to win this award" said the Lord Mayor and Patron of the Award, Gerry Breen, “and it is wonderful and fitting to have a Dublin winner in the year that Dublin was awarded UNESCO City of Literature designation, a designation in perpetuity.”
Let the Great World Spin has beaten off competition from 161 other titles, nominated by 166 public libraries from 43 countries. It was first published in the USA by Random House and in the UK by Bloomsbury. The shortlist of ten novels included novels from the USA, Australia, Canada, and Ireland. Colum McCann is the second Irish author to win the prize. It was award to Colm Toibín in 2006 for The Master. Let the Great World Spin was also the most popular choice of libraries worldwide. It received 14 nominations from libraries in Ireland, Germany, Greece, Norway, the USA and Canada.
About the book…..
New York, August 1974: a man is walking in the sky. Between the newly built Twin Towers, the man twirls through the air. Far below, the lives of complete strangers spin towards each other: Corrigan, a radical Irish monk working in the Bronx; Claire, a delicate Upper East Side housewife reeling from the death of her son; Lara, a drug-addled young artist; Gloria, solid and proud despite decades of hardship; Tillie, a hooker who used to dream of a better life; and Jazzlyn, her beautiful daughter raised on promises that reach beyond the skyline of New York. In the shadow of one reckless and beautiful act, these disparate lives will collide, and be transformed for ever.
"Colum McCann joins a long list of eminent novelists to win this award" said the Lord Mayor and Patron of the Award, Gerry Breen, “and it is wonderful and fitting to have a Dublin winner in the year that Dublin was awarded UNESCO City of Literature designation, a designation in perpetuity.”
Let the Great World Spin has beaten off competition from 161 other titles, nominated by 166 public libraries from 43 countries. It was first published in the USA by Random House and in the UK by Bloomsbury. The shortlist of ten novels included novels from the USA, Australia, Canada, and Ireland. Colum McCann is the second Irish author to win the prize. It was award to Colm Toibín in 2006 for The Master. Let the Great World Spin was also the most popular choice of libraries worldwide. It received 14 nominations from libraries in Ireland, Germany, Greece, Norway, the USA and Canada.
About the book…..
New York, August 1974: a man is walking in the sky. Between the newly built Twin Towers, the man twirls through the air. Far below, the lives of complete strangers spin towards each other: Corrigan, a radical Irish monk working in the Bronx; Claire, a delicate Upper East Side housewife reeling from the death of her son; Lara, a drug-addled young artist; Gloria, solid and proud despite decades of hardship; Tillie, a hooker who used to dream of a better life; and Jazzlyn, her beautiful daughter raised on promises that reach beyond the skyline of New York. In the shadow of one reckless and beautiful act, these disparate lives will collide, and be transformed for ever.
6/14/11
Book of the Week #24
This volume of poetry by Seth Abramson, a Dartmouth graduate and former NH Public Defender, was selected as the 2010 Green Rose Prize winner.
According to Publisher's Weekly (May 16, 2011):
"This book will get a lot of well-deserved attention. A former public defender in New Hampshire and now a graduate student in Wisconsin, Abramson has picked up a very large following as a blogger and commentator, covering poetry, politics, and higher education, and generating a controversial, U.S. News–style ranking of graduate programs in writing. After all that, what's left for the poetry? Plenty: serious and ambitious, full of torqued proverbs and hard-to-follow advice, Abramson's own work shows a poet uncommonly interested in general statements, in hard questions, and harder answers, about how to live: "Everyone knows what not to do/ in a dream," he warns, "and in a dream everyone has the heart/ to tell you who you are." Waking life, he implies, turns out harsher, and stranger."Personally, "Not a Pay Lawyer" was my favorite poem in this excellent collection.
6/11/11
Book of the Week #23
Charles F. Sheridan, an attorney in Concord, NH, takes us into a slice of NH history with this first person account.
"This book tells the story of Merrimack Farmers' Exchange Inc. ("the Exchange"), a New Hampshire statewide farmers cooperative, and two events that brought about the demise of the cooperative in the early 1980s. It tells the story of the events as I recall them and of my involvement in the prodeedings. The Exchange was rocked by these events in the period 1976-1980, after 50 years of sucessful operations: first by a very large embezzlement, then followed two-plus years later by local businessmen attempting to acquire its ownership and convert it from a co-op to a traditional buiness that no longer favored its farmer-owners." (p.1)
6/10/11
Looking for NH's best books
In recognition of the rich and varied literary talent in the Granite State, the New Hampshire Writers’ Project will present the tenth New Hampshire Literary Awards at a special reception and ceremony on November 4, 2011 in Manchester. Nominations will be accepted until June 15, 2011
Awards will be given in the following categories:
Awards will be given in the following categories:
- Award for OUTSTANDING CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
- Award for OUTSTANDING BOOK OF FICTION
- THE DONALD M. MURRAY OUTSTANDING JOURNALISM AWARD
- OUTSTANDING BOOK OF POETRY
- Award for OUTSTANDING BOOK OF NONFICTION
- Award for LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
Nominations are encouraged and welcome from everyone, including writers, publishers, organizations, and the general public. Self-nominations are also welcome. Guidelines for each award and the required nomination form are available on the NH Writers' project website.
6/6/11
Tips for a Great Summer Reading List
6/1/11
Book of the Week #22
Carroll, a professor at UNH, will be speaking on Friday June 3, 2011 at 7pm at Warner Town Hall to kick off the Kearsarge Area Eat Local Week.
“We have a greater inability to feed ourselves than the rest of the nation,” says Carroll, a professor of natural resources and the environment. Vermont and Maine, he says, can produce food to feed about 20 percent of their populations; Massachusetts can feed 10 percent; and New Hampshire produces enough food for just 5 percent of its people.
“The Real Dirt” follows Carroll’s “The Wisdom of Small Farms and Local Food” (2005) and “Pastures of Plenty” (2008) as the third in a trilogy of books looking at sustainable agriculture and food security in New England. The audience for the book, he says, is “anyone who eats and lives in this region. The book will give them a far deeper understanding of their own food.” (UNH Media Release)
IPPY Awards
The Independent Publisher Book Awards for 2011 were announced last week and they included a gold medal in the category of U.S. North-East - Best Regional Non-Fiction for A Space for Faith: The Colonial Meetinghouses of New England, by Paul Wainwright (Peter E. Randall Publisher).
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