Two journalists on Political History and the 2016 Election
Porter Square Books is pleased to welcome Michael Cohen & Sarah Jaffe. In American Maelstrom, Michael A. Cohen captures the full drama of this watershed election, establishing 1968 as the hinge between the decline of political liberalism, the ascendancy of conservative populism, and the rise of anti-government attitudes that continue to dominate the nation’s political discourse. In this sweeping and immersive book, equal parts compelling analysis and thrilling narrative, Cohen takes us to the very source of our modern politics of division.
In Necessary Trouble, journalist Sarah Jaffe leads readers into the heart of these movements, explaining what has made ordinary Americans from Seattle to St. Louis to Atlanta become activists. As Jaffe shows, Americans, regardless of political alignment, are boldly challenging who wields power in this country. They are poised to permanently remake politics as we know it and in many cases, they already have.
Novelist ANITA DIAMANT discusses her newest nonfiction
ANITA DIAMANT, hosted by Brookline Booksmith, discusses her newest guide. Newly revised and updated, The Jewish Wedding Now, is the definitive guide to planning a Jewish wedding—written by bestselling novelist ANITA DIAMANT, author of The Red Tent and The Boston Girl, and one of the most respected writers on contemporary Jewish life.
This event is not ticketed.
Memoirist/Essayist DAVID GESSNER on Ultimate Frisbee
Brookline Booksmith hosts DAVID GESSNER as he reads from his memoir Ultimate Glory: Frisbee, Obsession, and My Wild Youth.
Before his rise as an acclaimed essayist and nature writer, GESSNER devoted his 20’s to the cult-ish sport of Ultimate Frisbee. Sacrificing his body and potential career, he spent countless hours in pursuit of fleeting glory. Ultimate Glory is a portrait of the artist as a young ruffian.
This event is not ticketed.
Novelists MARGOT LIVESEY (Mercury) and LIZ MOORE (The Unseen World)
Join Papercuts for a double-author event with MARGOT LIVESEY, New York Times bestselling author of Mercury and The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing, and LIZ MOORE, author of The Unseen World.
In Mercury, Donald believes he knows all there is to know about seeing. An optometrist in suburban Boston, he is sure that he and his wife, Viv, who runs the local stables, are both devoted to their two children and to each other. Then Mercury—a gorgeous young thoroughbred with a murky past—arrives at Windy Hill and their world changes.
Named one of the Best Books of 2016 by Publishers Weekly, MOORE’s The Unseen World is the moving story of a daughter’s quest to discover the truth about her beloved father’s hidden past.
This event is ticketed; you can purchase tickets here.
PHILIP SMUCKER on “Riding with George” about his ancestor, George Washington
Porter Square Books hosts author PHILIP G. SMUCKER, a fifth-great grandnephew of George Washington, with his nonfiction book Riding with George.
SMUCKER uses his background as a war correspondent, sports reporter, and amateur equestrian to weave an insightful tale based upon his own travels in the footsteps of Washington as a surveyor, sportsman, and field commander. Riding with George is “boots-in-stirrups” storytelling that unspools Washington’s rise to fame in a never-before-told tale. It shows how a young Virginian’s athleticism and Old World chivalry propelled him to become a model of right action and good manners for a fledgling nation.
This event is not ticketed.
Actress and Memoirist MARIANNE LEONE Reads from her Latest, Ma Speaks Up
Porter Square Books welcomes local memoirist MARIANNE LEONE with her latest acclaimed work, Ma Speaks Up: And a First-Generation Daughter Talks Back.
Ma Speaks Up is a record of growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, with the wrong family, in the wrong religion. Though Marianne’s girlhood is flooded with shame, it’s equally packed with adventure, love, great cooking, and, above all, humor. The extremely premature birth of Marianne’s beloved son, Jesse, bonds mother and daughter in ways she couldn’t have imagined. The stories she tells will speak to anyone who has struggled with outsider status in any form and, of course, to mothers and their blemished, cherished girls.
This event is not ticketed.
Author/Philosopher/Biker ALAN FISHBONE reads from Organ Grinder
Porter Square Books welcomes author ALAN FISHBONE as he reads from Organ Grinder, essays about mortality and freedom at the intersection of ancient philosophy and biker culture.
ALAN FISHBONE is the motorcycle-riding classical scholar who offers wisdom gathered from the poetry of antiquity, and from near-death experiences on the open road in his work Organ Grinder: A Classical Education Gone Astray.
This event is not ticketed.
Listen: How Pete Seeger Got America Singing by LEDA SCHUBERT
Porter Square Books welcomes children’s books author LEDA SCHUBERT with her literary tribute to Pete Seeger, American folk singer and social activist who spoke/sang to support international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture, and environmental causes.
In this gorgeously written and illustrated tribute to legendary musician and activist Pete Seeger, author LEDA SCHUBERT highlights major musical events in Mr. Seeger’s life as well important moments of his fight against social injustice. From singing sold-out concerts to courageously standing against the McCarthy-era finger-pointing, Pete Seeger’s life is celebrated in this bold book for young readers with gorgeous illustrations by Raul Colon.
This event is not ticketed.
Architect ROSALYN ELDER Explores the Historical Legacy of Massachusetts
Join Porter Square Books with nonfiction author ROSALYN ELDER to explore the history of 742 sites in 141 towns across Massachusetts in Exploring the Legacy.
ROSALYN D. ELDER is a registered architect and entrepreneur with a passion for the arts, architecture and cities, and history. ELDER founded and operated Treasured Legacy, an African American cultural boutique from 1992 to 1998 at Copley Place in Boston’s South End. She co-founded and operated Jamaicaway Books, a multi-cultural bookstore, in Jamaica Plain, MA.
In Exploring the Legacy, visit sites around the state that contain the histories of individuals such as: Onesimus, whose knowledge led to the development of inoculations to fight small pox in 1721; Belinda Royall, who filed the first successful reparations lawsuit in 1783; and Jan Matzeliger’s invention of a shoe lasting machine in 1883 which led to the mass production of shoes.
This event is not ticketed.
JAMES MCGRATH MORRIS on Hemingway and Dos Passos During WW1
Harvard Book Store and Mass Humanities are joined by bestselling biographer JAMES MCGRATH MORRIS—author of the National Book Prize–winning Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, The First Lady of the Black Press and Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power—for a discussion of his latest book, The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War.
After meeting for the first time on the front lines of World War I, two aspiring writers forge an intense twenty-year friendship and write some of America’s greatest novels, giving voice to a “lost generation” shaken by war.
Eager to find his way in life and words, John Dos Passos first witnessed the horror of trench warfare in France as a volunteer ambulance driver retrieving the dead and seriously wounded from the front line. Later in the war, he briefly met another young writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was just arriving for his service in the ambulance corps.
This event is co-sponsored by Mass Humanities
This book will be for sale at the event for 20% off. There will also be a signing after the event.
No tickets required for attendance.
