You have probably noticed that our Book-of-the-Week, which has featured over 400 New Hampshire books since it began in 2007, has been absent from the blog this year. This was because while interesting books from New Hampshire authors continue to show up in my office (thank you for the donations!) new responsibilities have prevented me from having time to read through them and write posts about them.
Luckily, two fabulous librarians who work here at the NH State Library have volunteered to step in and write Book-of-the-Week so the Center for the Book can continue to share the many wonderful books written by granite state residents and about our state.
Rebecca Stockbridge is a Reference Librarian who moved here from Rhode Island and has a background in cultural anthropology. She is particularly interested in genealogy and local history and is a World War history buff. She is also interested in music and is married to a jazz guitarist.
Felicia Martin is an Acquisitions Librarian from Western Massachusetts who, as a toddler, lived on a 211-acre apple farm with one-hundred rabbits. She loves to create things and is interested in photography, gardening, and music. She is drawn to the stories of underdogs.
Felicia and Rebecca are both voracious readers and will be featuring a wide variety of books connected to New Hampshire in their Book-of-the-Week posts. I have added a signature to the end of all the posts on this blog so you will be able to tell who is writing each post. Book-of-the-Week will resume on Monday.
Showing posts with label The Director's Calendar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Director's Calendar. Show all posts
8/11/16
2/21/12
Book of the Week #8
K. D. Mason lives and writes on New Hampshire's seacoast. His Jack Beale mysteries (yes, I'm still on a mystery kick) are set in a fictional version of his home ground. Harbor Ice is the first in the series.
It has been a brutally cold winter in theNew Hampshire coastal town ofHarbor, leaving drifts of sea water frozen solid in the salt marsh. Finally, the weather warms enough for the ice to begin to break up and drift out to sea. That’s when a woman’s body is found under a slab of ice left by the outgoing tide. Max, the feisty redheaded bartender at Ben’s Place, recognizes that the body in the ice is her aunt’s partner. This triggers a series of events that will eventually threaten Max’s life as well. It is up to her best friend, Jack Beale, to unravel the mystery.(publisher's blurb) Rye
Mr. Mason did a reading recently at Rye Public Library. If you missed him there, he has several other NH appearances coming up. Personally, I'm hoping to make it to the May event.
- Tonight, 2/21/12 at 7pm at River Run Bookstore: a reading from Dangerous Shoals, Q&A, and book signing
- Thursday, 2/21/12 at 7pm Nashua Public Library will host a local author's night which including K. D. Mason
- Friday, 5/11/12 at Cornucopia Wine & Cheese Market there will be a book signing as part of a beer (Throwback Brewery) and cheese (Hickory Nut Farm) tasting starting at 4pm.
11/15/11
It seems to happen every couple years
Time got away from me and I realized today that I missed posting a book of the week for the last 2 weeks. There is a book posted for this week (#46), but week #44 and week #45 had no books posted. After a slow start in 2007 I missed 2 weeks in 2009. As it has happened again in 2011 I clearly need to be careful in 2013.
11/5/10
Book of the Week #44
Palazzo Inverso by D. B. Johnson (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010).This book was part of the Rapid Reviews: 30 Books in 30 Minutes program at the New Hampshire Library Association meeting this week. I had seen this book before -- it is very cool -- and was happy to be reminded of it just as I was looking for the 200th book-of-the-week to write about.
Author D. B. Johnson is a Granite State resident and the illustrator of Bear's Picture by Daniel Pinkwater, a past Ladybug Picture Book Award nominee.
"With the enigmatic work of M.C. Escher as his inspiration, Johnson puts brush to paper to imagine a startling world that changes on every page. A grand Palazzo is under construction, and young Mauk, restricted to sharpening the Master's pencils, has mischievously shifted the building drawings. As a result, carpenters now stand on their heads, painters hang from the ceiling, and fountains spray down instead of up. With everything in disarray, Mauk races through the now-distorted Palazzo with the Master in close pursuit. Viewers can track his adventure through the running text at page bottom, which, with the help of an arrow, directs them, at the final page, to turn the book around. The story then continues with, of course, an appropriate shift in perspective, and readers soon find themselves back at the beginning-or are they at the end? Children will delight in discovering Mauk in a variety of places and poses and will be intrigued with the inverted architectural details that Johnson supplies. With the help of brown-and-white multishaded drawings, the illustrator provides a never-ending loop of clever optical trickery." (School Library Journal review)
10/25/10
Book of the Week #43
Live Free or Undead by Diverse Hands and edited by Rick Broussard (Concord, NH: Plaidswede, 2010)From the press release:
"An anthology of short fiction in a horror vein written by local authors and set in the familiar locations of New Hampshire will appear in bookstores just in time for Halloween. “Live Free or Undead: Dark Tales from the Granite State” is being released by Plaidswede Publishing of Concord and should be available across the state by Oct. 14. The book presents 20 spine-tingling tales, some by first-time writers and some by such well-known New Hampshire authors as Rebecca Rule, Brendan Dubois, David Elliott and Hugo Award winner James Patrick Kelly. The book cover is illustrated by Dover artist Marc Sutherland and the whole project was edited by New Hampshire Magazine Editor Rick Broussard."
Last Friday night I attended a reading for this book --as part of the Concord Literary Festival-- where many of the contributing authors were in attendance and read to us from their story. Becky Rule and James Patrick Kelly both read their entire stories, everyone else left the audience at a cliffhanger. Luckily the books were available for sale at the event so I didn't have to wait long to find out what happened in the various stories.
If you weren't able to be there Friday, you have several more opportunities coming up to hear the stories read by the various authors:
- Double Midnight Comics, Manchester, is planning a double dose of zombie fun as the creators behind the hit comic anthology Zombiebomb join some of the creators behind the new NH short story anthology Live Free or Undead to sign their books!
- A horror-fiction reading event at Rye Public Library, Wednesday October 27th, 2010 at 7 pm
Selections from the new collection Live Free or Undead with guest authors Brendan DuBois, Michael DeLuca, Elaine Isaak, and Andy Richmond. - On Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 11am Toadstool Books, Peterborough will host a reading from this brand new collection of spooky tales edited by Rick Broussard and featuring a story from local author Seth Blake and stories from Joyce Wagner, Kristopher Seavey, & Lorrie Lee O'Neill who will be there to read and sign.
- At 7pm on Saturday, October 30, 2010 Toadstool Books, Milford will host Lorrie Lee O'Neill, David Elliott, David O'Keefe & Gregory L. Norris reading their contributions to Live Free or Undead.
10/20/10
Concord Literary Festival Events at the NHSL
What do novelist Katherine Towler, Moose of Humor Rebecca Rule, journalist Kevin Flynn, and New Hampshire Poet Laureate Walter Butts have in common? They have all had books featured as books-of-the-week on this blog. This outstanding group of New Hampshire authors will all be reading at the NH State Library on Saturday, October 23, 2010 as part of the Concord Literary Festival. Thanks to Gibson's Bookstore --a festival partner--we expect to have books by our readers available for sale at the event.
The Center for the Book began featuring a book-of-the-week on its blog in January 2007 and has included novels, history, biography, poetry, children's and young adult literature, cookbooks, and various other books that struck my fancy in the nearly 200 weeks since then. When the New Hampshire Writer's Project asked us to be part of the Concord Literary Festival it seemed like a great opportunity to bring the book-of-the-week out of cyberspace and into the library with a group of featured authors reading from their recent work. The writers who were invited to read are all local authors and were chosen to show the diversity of book-of-the-week titles as well as to complement the other programs that are planned as part of the Festival, many of which also feature authors whose books have been books-of-the-week (John Walters and Marty Kelley, for example.)
Katherine Towler will read beginning at 10am. She is author of the novels Snow Island, Evening Ferry, and Island Light. This trilogy of novels set on a fictional New England island chronicles the lives of two generations in two island families and the impact of the wars of the twentieth century on the island community. Praised by the Boston Globe as "luminous and moving," Snow Island was chosen as book-of-the-week #52 in 2007. Katherine Towler currently teaches graduate students in the low residency MFA Program in Writing at Southern New Hampshire University and works as a freelance writer specializing in publications and promotional materials for schools and non-profits. She lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Rebecca Rule will read beginning at 11am. Her newest release, Headin' for the Rhubarb! A New Hampshire Dictionary (well, kinda) will set you straight on the correct meaning of New Hampshire's native expressions and how to pronounce them, to boot. Two of Becky’s previous books, Live Free and Eat Pie: A Storyteller's Guide to New Hampshire, and Could Have Been Worse: True Stories, Embellishments and Outright Lies have been books-of-the-week. A New Hampshire native, she has published two other collections of short stories. The Best Revenge was named Outstanding Work of Fiction by the NH Writers Project. For seventeen years she wrote a column on NH books and writers, “Bookmarks,” that appeared in various New Hampshire newspapers.
At noon Kevin Flynn will be reading from Our Little Secret with his wife and co-author Rebecca Lavoie. In 2010 Wicked Intentions: The Sheila LaBarre Murders was the selected as book-of-the-week #22. This was his first book and was the story that he has described as changing his life. Kevin Flynn is a native of Holyoke, MA and currently lives in Hopkinton, NH. He got his start in journalism at the age of 19 working as a news writer for News Radio WHYN-AM. In the subsequent twenty years, Kevin has become an award-winning journalist working in radio and TV and a respected author. Flynn and Lavoie are collaborating on another true crime book, due in stores January 2012.
New Hampshire Poet Laureate Walter Butts will read beginning at 1pm. Walter is the author of several poetry collections, including Sunday Evening at the Stardust Café, and the chapbooks What to Say if the Birds Ask, Sunday Factory, White Bees, and A Season of Crows. He has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and a Massachusetts Artists Foundation Award, and has taught in poetry workshops at the University of New Hampshire. He is a member of the faculty of the BFA in Writing Program at Goddard College, and his poems appear frequently in such magazines as Atlanta Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Cimarron Review, Mid-American Review, and Poetry East, and have been anthologized in numerous publications including Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets (2009 book-of-the-week #13).
The Concord Literary Festival is sponsored by the New Hampshire Writers’ Project and thirty community partners, including the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library. Events will be held throughout the downtown area on October 21-23, 2010 and include author readings and book signings, poetry readings and slam performances, workshops, films, a New Hampshire horror story reading, plays and First Amendment discussions.
The Center for the Book began featuring a book-of-the-week on its blog in January 2007 and has included novels, history, biography, poetry, children's and young adult literature, cookbooks, and various other books that struck my fancy in the nearly 200 weeks since then. When the New Hampshire Writer's Project asked us to be part of the Concord Literary Festival it seemed like a great opportunity to bring the book-of-the-week out of cyberspace and into the library with a group of featured authors reading from their recent work. The writers who were invited to read are all local authors and were chosen to show the diversity of book-of-the-week titles as well as to complement the other programs that are planned as part of the Festival, many of which also feature authors whose books have been books-of-the-week (John Walters and Marty Kelley, for example.)
Katherine Towler will read beginning at 10am. She is author of the novels Snow Island, Evening Ferry, and Island Light. This trilogy of novels set on a fictional New England island chronicles the lives of two generations in two island families and the impact of the wars of the twentieth century on the island community. Praised by the Boston Globe as "luminous and moving," Snow Island was chosen as book-of-the-week #52 in 2007. Katherine Towler currently teaches graduate students in the low residency MFA Program in Writing at Southern New Hampshire University and works as a freelance writer specializing in publications and promotional materials for schools and non-profits. She lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Rebecca Rule will read beginning at 11am. Her newest release, Headin' for the Rhubarb! A New Hampshire Dictionary (well, kinda) will set you straight on the correct meaning of New Hampshire's native expressions and how to pronounce them, to boot. Two of Becky’s previous books, Live Free and Eat Pie: A Storyteller's Guide to New Hampshire, and Could Have Been Worse: True Stories, Embellishments and Outright Lies have been books-of-the-week. A New Hampshire native, she has published two other collections of short stories. The Best Revenge was named Outstanding Work of Fiction by the NH Writers Project. For seventeen years she wrote a column on NH books and writers, “Bookmarks,” that appeared in various New Hampshire newspapers.
At noon Kevin Flynn will be reading from Our Little Secret with his wife and co-author Rebecca Lavoie. In 2010 Wicked Intentions: The Sheila LaBarre Murders was the selected as book-of-the-week #22. This was his first book and was the story that he has described as changing his life. Kevin Flynn is a native of Holyoke, MA and currently lives in Hopkinton, NH. He got his start in journalism at the age of 19 working as a news writer for News Radio WHYN-AM. In the subsequent twenty years, Kevin has become an award-winning journalist working in radio and TV and a respected author. Flynn and Lavoie are collaborating on another true crime book, due in stores January 2012.
New Hampshire Poet Laureate Walter Butts will read beginning at 1pm. Walter is the author of several poetry collections, including Sunday Evening at the Stardust Café, and the chapbooks What to Say if the Birds Ask, Sunday Factory, White Bees, and A Season of Crows. He has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and a Massachusetts Artists Foundation Award, and has taught in poetry workshops at the University of New Hampshire. He is a member of the faculty of the BFA in Writing Program at Goddard College, and his poems appear frequently in such magazines as Atlanta Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Cimarron Review, Mid-American Review, and Poetry East, and have been anthologized in numerous publications including Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets (2009 book-of-the-week #13).
The Concord Literary Festival is sponsored by the New Hampshire Writers’ Project and thirty community partners, including the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library. Events will be held throughout the downtown area on October 21-23, 2010 and include author readings and book signings, poetry readings and slam performances, workshops, films, a New Hampshire horror story reading, plays and First Amendment discussions.
10/13/10
Ted Kooser in Concord Tomorrow
On October 14, 2010 The NH Writers' Project and the Concord Monitor will present the first Donald Hall-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Poetry to Ted Kooser, a Pulitzer-Prize winner who preceded Hall as U.S. poet laureate. This is a kick-off event for the Concord Literary Festival.
Kooser will read his poems after the presentation. Hall will be there and will also read briefly. Kooser is an incredibly accessible poet whom Dana Gioia, former head of the National Endowment for the Arts, has called one of the most original poets of his generation."There is to my knowledge no poet of equal stature who writes so convincingly in a manner the average American can understand and appreciate," Gioia wrote of Kooser. "He has transformed the common idiom and experience into fresh and distinctive poetry."
Date: October 14, 2010 at 7pm
Venue: Concord City Auditorium
Cost: $10; buy your tickets at the Monitor's office, Gibson's Bookstore, or at the door.
Kooser will read his poems after the presentation. Hall will be there and will also read briefly. Kooser is an incredibly accessible poet whom Dana Gioia, former head of the National Endowment for the Arts, has called one of the most original poets of his generation."There is to my knowledge no poet of equal stature who writes so convincingly in a manner the average American can understand and appreciate," Gioia wrote of Kooser. "He has transformed the common idiom and experience into fresh and distinctive poetry."
Date: October 14, 2010 at 7pm
Venue: Concord City Auditorium
Cost: $10; buy your tickets at the Monitor's office, Gibson's Bookstore, or at the door.
7/29/10
Book of the Week #30
A Slender Thread by Katharine Davis (NY: New American Library, 2010)As a girl swimming in the waters of Bow Lake, where she and her family spent every summer, Margot Winkler knew her big sister, Lacey, would keep her safe. Decades later, Lacey’s home in a small New Hampshire town is often Margot’s refuge from her less settled situation with her live-in lover, Oliver, in Manhattan. But everything changes just beforeThanksgiving, when Lacey
meets Margot’s arrival for the holiday with devastating news.
Lacey’s life seemed close to perfect –a loving husband, twin daughters on the brink of womanhood, and a home filled with the beautiful creations she weaves. Now a rare disease is slowly stealing her ability to use language. As Lacey’s words slip away, Margot struggles to support Lacey and her family while remaining close to Oliver and pursuing her own dreams. Somehow she must imagine the future, even thought the past draws her powerfully. Somehow she must find the courage to help her sister discover a new voice, keenly aware of the slender threads that bind them to this life and to each other.
Katharine Davis, a seasonal resident of Maine, will be reading from this, her latest novel, at RiverRun Bookstore on Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 7pm. I plan to be there to pick up my copy!
6/22/10
Center for the Book Directors and Politicos Share a Meeting Place
There is a long-standing tradition among the Directors of the Centers for the Book. When we go to Washington, DC each spring for our Idea Exhange meeting there is a dinner the night before the official meeting at a Capitol Hill Chinese restaurant. Apparently it is a hot-spot for politicians as well: Mass. delegation comes together over Chinese - The Boston Globe
3/16/10
LAL Packets are in the Mail
I just got back from delivering the Letters About Literature semi-finalist packets to the post office. Forty-seven NH students should find packets from the Center for the Book in their mailboxes in the next few days letting them know that their letters were selected.
There are a few semi-finalists who did not include their home addresses on their entry coupons. Those students will receive their packets care of their schools -- this group includes students from Dunbarton Elementary School, Haverhill Cooperative Middle School, Lisbon Regional School, and Marlborough School. NOTE to SCHOOLS: The students who receive packets care of the school are not necessarily all the students selected as semi-finalists from that school.
Once the signed release forms are returned to us (there is a self-addressed, stamped envelope in each packet to speed this up) the NH students who wrote semi-finalist letters will be announced and a letter sent to the principal of each school that had semi-finalists letting them know who the students from their school were.
There are a few semi-finalists who did not include their home addresses on their entry coupons. Those students will receive their packets care of their schools -- this group includes students from Dunbarton Elementary School, Haverhill Cooperative Middle School, Lisbon Regional School, and Marlborough School. NOTE to SCHOOLS: The students who receive packets care of the school are not necessarily all the students selected as semi-finalists from that school.
Once the signed release forms are returned to us (there is a self-addressed, stamped envelope in each packet to speed this up) the NH students who wrote semi-finalist letters will be announced and a letter sent to the principal of each school that had semi-finalists letting them know who the students from their school were.
2/14/10
Happy Valentine's Day
If you're looking for a good Valentine's Day book, check out this Book of the Week from 2007.
1/15/10
Book of the Week #2
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (NY: Grand Central Publishing, c1960)
The book of the week is typically a book that has come to my attention recently and seems (to me at least) connected to New Hampshire. This week was spent working on Big Read: New Hampshire Reads To Kill a Mockingbird so very little else has captured my attention.
During March 2010 there will be programs and events focusing on this classic novel throughout New Hampshire. There are 100 partners in the project including schools, libraries, bookstores, and other NH organizations.
Check out what we are planning at http://bigreadnh.org
12/14/09
What happened to the Book of the Week?
The annual holiday book show on NHPR's The Exhange was on two Fridays ago. Dan Chartrand from Water Street Bookstore and Micheal Herrmann from Gibson's were the guests and they talked about a lot of great books. That was week #48, and I was waiting until the show was on to write about a book that week because I wanted to feature something from the show. I heard most of the show live as I drove to a meeting, and there were several books discussed that appealed to me to write about. By the time I got back from the meeting lots of other stuff was demanding my attention and next thing I knew it was week #49.
I found copies of several of the books that had been discussed on the show and I got a couple of new books in the mail last week. These were added to the large (and ever-growing) pile of potential books-of-the-week in my office. Somehow a few quiet minutes to look at the books and decide what I wanted to say never materialized. It is now Monday of week #50.
I am determined to get back on track but have decided that trying to make up the missed weeks is apt to put me farther behind. Please consider the past 2 weeks a Book-of-the-Week vacation. (The first one since 2007.)
I found copies of several of the books that had been discussed on the show and I got a couple of new books in the mail last week. These were added to the large (and ever-growing) pile of potential books-of-the-week in my office. Somehow a few quiet minutes to look at the books and decide what I wanted to say never materialized. It is now Monday of week #50.
I am determined to get back on track but have decided that trying to make up the missed weeks is apt to put me farther behind. Please consider the past 2 weeks a Book-of-the-Week vacation. (The first one since 2007.)
9/24/09
Book of the Week #38
To My Countrywomen: The Life of Sarah Josepha Hale by Muriel L. Dubois; illustrated by Lisa Greenleaf. (Bedford, NH: Apprentice Shop Books, 2006)This Saturday is the National Book Festival on the Mall in Washington, DC. The Center for the Book at the NH State Library was, as in previous years, asked to select a book to be featured on the Pavillion of the State's “Discover Great Places Through Reading” map. We chose to feature this work by and about New Hampshire women.
Muriel Dubois and Lisa Greenleaf are both residents of the Granite State and have created this illustrated biography of America's first woman editor. Sarah Josepha Hale was an early activist for women's education and property rights. She is best known for her role in the establishment of Thanksgiving as a national holiday and as the author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
The Sarah Josepha Hale Award, one of New England's oldest and most distinguished literary awards, is named for this famous daughter of Newport, NH.
9/17/09
Granite State Reads on the radio
Either tomorrow or Monday between 5:30 and 9am WGIR (AM 610) will be running a short piece about our Granite State Reads grant project. We appreciate their efforts to spread the word about this grant opportunity for NH's literacy projects!
8/2/09
Saturday Morning at Bayswater
This past Saturday I visited Bayswater Book Company in Center Harbor for a booksigning event with Barbara Delinsky. Ms. Delinsky lives (part-time) in the lakes region and many of her fans, and neighbors, turned out on this beautiful Saturday morning to see her and get their books signed. In the picture at left she is signing The Secret Between Us for my Mom.
7/19/09
Barbara Delinsky coming to Bayswater
Barbara Delinsky will be signing books at Bayswater Book Company on August 1 from 11:00am until 1:00pm.
Barabara Delinsky's announcement:
Barabara Delinsky's announcement:
It's book signing time again. Saturday, August 1, is the date - Bayswater Book Company, in Center Harbor, New Hampshire, is the place. The signing coincides with the July 28 debut of the mass market paperback publication of The Secret Between Us, but Bayswater will also be selling my newest hardcover, While My Sister Sleeps, as well as others of my recent books. I'll start signing at 11:00 a.m. and continue until about 1:00 p.m.
Bayswater Books is at 23 Main Street, smack in the center of Center Harbor. If you'd like more information, feel free to call the owner, Michelle Taft, at (603) 253-8858, or email her at bayswaterbook@gmail.com. Moreover, if you can't make it on August 1, but would like to pre-order a personalized copy of While My Sister Sleeps, please call Michelle and she will take your information. She offers a 10% discount on pre-orders. I hope to see you on August 1!
7/10/09
Book of the Week #27
The Webster Lake Picture Book by Bill Cain (blurb.com, 2008)This book is composed of beautiful color photos of Webster Lake in Franklin, NH. The author, who spent his childhood vacations at the lake now has his "own place on its shores." If you call the office and find that I am away, there is a good chance that I am enjoying one of these views (page 24 is a likely candidate).
6/12/09
Literary Corner
Eleanor Strang, Chair of the Center for the Book Advisory Board, invited me to be a guest on Literary Corner, a program she hosts for Derry Community Television. We taped the program yesterday afternoon and talked about current and future projects of the Center. If you live in Derry, check the Cable 17 schedule to see when you can watch. (Search for "Literary Corner" to find dates and times.)5/28/09
National Book Festival 2009
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will serve as Honorary Chairs of the 2009 National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress.
Now in its ninth year, this popular event celebrating the joys of reading and lifelong literacy will be held on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009, on the National Mall in Washington, DC, between 7th and 14th Streets from 10am to 5pm (rain or shine). The event is free and open to the public.
The Center for the Book at the NH State Library plans, once again, to participate in the Festival's Pavillion of the States.
Now in its ninth year, this popular event celebrating the joys of reading and lifelong literacy will be held on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009, on the National Mall in Washington, DC, between 7th and 14th Streets from 10am to 5pm (rain or shine). The event is free and open to the public.
The Center for the Book at the NH State Library plans, once again, to participate in the Festival's Pavillion of the States.
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