Join us for a special lunch with Mary Laura Philpott, author of I Miss You When I Blink. Ann Patchett calls the collection of essays “Relentlessly funny, self-effacing and charming.” Your $44 ticket includes lunch from Altra Strada Restaurant and a copy of I Miss You When I Blink. Buy tickets in-store or by phone at 781-431-1160, or online through Eventbrite (fees apply).
Adrienne Brodeur presents Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me, a daughter’s tale of living in the thrall of her magnetic, complicated mother, and the chilling consequences of her complicity. Wild Game has been named a Best of Fall book by NPR, People, Entertainment Weekly, Kirkus, and more.
This is a free event, however we ask that you RSVP. You can do so in-store, by phone at 781-431-1160, or online at store.wellesleybooks.com/event/adrienne-brodeur. All RSVP methods are free.
Please note that you must buy your copy of Wild Game from Wellesley Books in order to meet Adrienne at the event and have her it.
About Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
A daughter’s tale of living in the thrall of her magnetic, complicated mother, and the chilling consequences of her complicity.
On a hot July night on Cape Cod when Adrienne was fourteen, her mother, Malabar, woke her at midnight with five simple words that would set the course of both of their lives for years to come: Ben Souther just kissed me.
Adrienne instantly became her mother’s confidante and helpmate, blossoming in the sudden light of her attention, and from then on, Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help orchestrate what would become an epic affair with her husband’s closest friend. The affair would have calamitous consequences for everyone involved, impacting Adrienne’s life in profound ways, driving her into a precarious marriage of her own, and then into a deep depression. Only years later will she find the strength to embrace her life—and her mother—on her own terms.
Wild Game is a brilliant, timeless memoir about how the people close to us can break our hearts simply because they have access to them, and the lies we tell in order to justify the choices we make. It’s a remarkable story of resilience, a reminder that we need not be the parents our parents were to us.
About the Author
ADRIENNE BRODEUR began her career in publishing as the co-founder, along with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, of the fiction magazine Zoetrope: All-Story, which won the National Magazine Award for Best Fiction three times and launched the careers of many writers. She was a book editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for many years and, currently, she is the Executive Director of Aspen Words, a program of the Aspen Institute. She has published essays in the New York Times. She splits her time between Cambridge and Cape Cod with her husband and children.
George Howe Colt, National Book Award finalist for The Big House, presents The Game: Harvard, Yale, and America in 1968, the story of that iconic American year, as seen through the young men who lived it and were changed by it. Learn more at store.wellesleybooks.com
About The Game: Harvard, Yale, and America in 1968
*A New York Times Notable Book*
*A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year*
From the bestselling National Book Award finalist and author of The Big House comes “a well-blended narrative packed with top-notch reporting and relevance for our own time” (The Boston Globe) about the young athletes who battled in the legendary Harvard-Yale football game of 1968 amidst the sweeping currents of one of the most transformative years in American history.
On November 23, 1968, there was a turbulent and memorable football game: the season-ending clash between Harvard and Yale. The final score was 29-29. To some of the players, it was a triumph; to others a tragedy. And to many, the reasons had as much to do with one side’s miraculous comeback in the game’s final forty-two seconds as it did with the months that preceded it, months that witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, police brutality at the Democratic National Convention, inner-city riots, campus takeovers, and, looming over everything, the war in Vietnam.
George Howe Colt’s The Game is the story of that iconic American year, as seen through the young men who lived it and were changed by it. One player had recently returned from Vietnam. Two were members of the radical antiwar group SDS. There was one NFL prospect who quit to devote his time to black altruism; another who went on to be Pro-Bowler Calvin Hill. There was a guard named Tommy Lee Jones, and fullback who dated a young Meryl Streep. They played side by side and together forged a moment of startling grace in the midst of the storm.
About the Author
George Howe Colt is the bestselling author of The Big House, which was a National Book Award finalist and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; Brothers; November of the Soul; and The Game. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife, the writer Anne Fadiman.
Jennifer Donnelly, bestselling author of A Northern Light and Lost in a Book, presents Stepsister, a startling, fiercely feminist YA re-imagining of Cinderella.
Christine Lynn Herman presents The Devouring Gray, a YA novel that follows seventeen-year-old Violet Saunders as she moves to a new town where stone bells hang above every doorway and danger lurks in the depths of the woods.
“Fans of The Raven Boys and Stranger Things rejoice: This is your new obsession.” —Claire Legrand, bestselling author of Furyborn
Lesley University’s winter evening reading series will bring a variety of acclaimed authors to campus from Jan. 4 through Jan. 12 at Marran Theater, 34 Mellen St., Cambridge. All readings are free and open to the public.
Friday, Jan. 4 at 5 p.m.
Steven Cramer, poetry
Laurie Foos, fiction
Saturday, Jan. 5 at 6:30 p.m.
Renée Watson, guest reader, writing for young people
Sunday, Jan. 6 at 7 p.m.
Stephen Haven, poetry
Kate Snodgrass, stage and screen
Monday, Jan. 7 at 6:30 p.m.
Danielle Legros Georges, poetry
Chris Lynch, writing for young people
Wednesday, Jan. 9 at 7 p.m.
Jane Brox, nonfiction
Jason Reynolds, writing for young people
Thursday, Jan. 10 at 6:30 p.m. | Graduating Student Readings
Kyle Gregory, Rhiannon Houch, Jennifer Kudelka, Abigail C.K. Lill, Rahima Rice
Friday, Jan. 11 at 6:30 p.m. | Graduating Student Readings
Paul Astorino, Michelle Boland, John Doole, Kristina Fedeczko, Gabriella Irwin, Linda Kaufman, Elizabeth Rose
Saturday, Jan. 12 at 3:00 p.m. | Graduating Student Readings
Delyn Arey, Jo-Anne Hart, Livia Hermiz, Mundy McLaughlin, Liz Shick
Our MFA in Creative Writing holds two residencies per year, in January and June. Each residency offers a wide range of MFA faculty readings representing the program’s literary genres as well as other acclaimed visiting writers.
ALLISON PEARSON, bestselling author of I Don’t Know How She Does It, joins us at Wellesley Books to present How Hard Can It Be?, the hilarious and poignant new adventures of Kate Reddy, the beleaguered heroine of Pearson’s groundbreaking I Don’t Know How She Does It.
This is a free event, however we ask that you RSVP. You can reserve your spot in-store, by phone at 781.431.1160, or online at store.wellesleybooks.com.
The Temple Beth Zion in Brookline hosts a reading with ANI TUZMAN, author of The Tremble of Love: A Novel of the Baal Shem Tov. The reading will be followed by discussion and book signing.
The Tremble of Love is an historical novel inspired by the legendary healer and spiritual master, Rabbi Yisroel ben Eliezar, who became known as the Baal Shem Tov, the Master of the Good Name. Set in the richly textured Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the 1700s, this exquisite reimagining of one of history’s most revered and revolutionary mystics transports readers back in time to experience the true meaning of power and the timeless grace of love.
THIS EVENT IS FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
“The message of the Baal Shem Tov―ecstatic seeker, compassionate healer, mediator, mystical teacher, and peacemaker―is as needed today as it was in his lifetime: our capacity to love and care for the other is the path to lasting peace and harmony.”
~Dr. Paula Green, Founder and Senior Advisor, Karuna Center for Peacebuilding
“The Tremble of Love is a book that nourishes the spirit, a book for people of all faiths―as well as for those who have lost faith.”
~Father Gilbert Aranha, Executive Secretary for the Bishops’ Conference for Ecumenism and founder of JPK House of Love (Prema Nilaya), Mysore, India
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE TREMBLE OF LOVE AND ANI TUZMAN, please visit http://anituzman.com