We are very pleased to present world renowned scientist Carlene (Cardy) Raper and her memoir “Love, Sex, and Mushrooms: Adventures of a Woman in Science” at 5:30pm on Friday, February 10.

As Peter R. Day, coauthor of “Plant-Fungal Pathogen Interaction” remarked: “Books about sex in fungi rarely reward the casual interest of the general reader generated by ‘sex’ in their titles….Cardy Raper’s autobiography is a refreshing exception….What makes it so readable and engrossing is her frank account of her circumstances both in and out of the laboratory. This book will encourage aspiring students, men as well as women, in how to overcome difficulties.” – Jason Stajich, The Hyphal Tip: Digesting the Fungal Genomes

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Even if you are not a scientist, “Sex, Love, and Mushrooms” offers a fascinating study of what it took for a woman to forge a career in the face of personal and professional obstacles in the mid- to late- twentieth century. This is much more than an inspirational tale, however, because the life recalled is complicated on both the personal and the professional level and this complexity is related with candor, credibility, and without sentimentality. The writing is engaging and compelling, as the title promises, and you’ll learn of the love and sex life not only of mushrooms but also of people who are human, real, and totally alive. Also, the story carries a clear feminist message without a trace of polemic. A marvelous reading experience! – M. Norris, Amazon reviewer

We hope you’ll join us for what promises to be a fascinating evening!

Everyone’s Books is very excited to to present Writer and Poet Christian McEwen and her new book, “World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down” at 6:30pm on Friday, February 3 – next Gallery Walk.  The book is beautiful meditation on taking time to just be, to walk, to enjoy the pleasures of life and the natural world.  What we shouldn’t lose sight of is that this is all fodder for the imagination.

Whenever I feel the world pressing me to pack more do into my day, I quip to no one in particular, I’m a 33 rpm girl in a 45 rpm world. And yes, I know that’s old school.

But perhaps you relate. Perhaps, like me and like author Christian McEwen, you harbor the nagging feeling that you’ve stumbled drunk and alone through a door and into a land where the locals all bleat cheerfully about being “crazy-busy!”

Exit, please? – Karen Sandstrom, Cleveland Plain Dealer

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Throughout her creative life, Christian McEwen‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’11) encounters in art and literature have taught her a deceptively simple lesson: slow down. The writer, who has worked in poetry, prose, film, and theater, recently published a new book, World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down (Bauhan Publishing, 2011), about how slowing the pace of life can lead to breakthroughs in learning, wellness, and – perhaps most pertinent to artists – creativity.

We asked Christian if we could share a section of her new book, as well as some of the tactics she suggests for expanding creativity through a more measured mode of living. – ArtSake blog post, Excerpt and exercises written by Christian McEwen.

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Poet Christian McEwen inhabits a sense of time that has all but disappeared in our frenzied world. Francesca met her several years ago over a poetry project with Smith College and she became a friend, the kind of friend to have leisurely conversations with over tea or to take a walk with along the Mill River in Northampton, MA, just a stone’s throw from her home. Her home is a writers’ sanctuary — books are everywhere, and the largest room in the house is her study. There’s no TV. She has created a generous space for unstructured time, that building block of contemplation, creativity and convivial conversation — all central to the life of the writer and poet.

But everyone needs that kind of space — and we get too little of it. We are more and more infected with what McEwen calls “hurry sickness.” It’s making us lonelier, more stressed, and less resilient. Children are losing recess, people have no time for friends — unless they’re on Facebook — and our health is suffering, too. We are missing life as we rush through it. It’s time to slow down. – Francesca Rheannon, The Writer’s Voice.

We think this is going to be a fantastic talk and hope to see you all here!

Well it’s taken a heck of a long time, but I have complete the second round of updates in New and Notable (under Featured Titles).  I’ve highlighted some of our favorite children’s books of the fall, along with the middle grades and young adult.

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We’ve had number of requests for more adult fiction in Spanish* – if you have any suggestions, please let us know.

* we only have 3-4 adult books in Spanish at the moment

New Hampshire author, health journalist, and licensed Homeopath Katina Makris will be in store to discuss her new book “Out of the Woods: Healing From Lyme Disease and Other Chronic Illness” at 5:30pm on Friday, December 2nd.

“Lyme disease can be difficult to diagnose, and Makris uses her own story to inform others about the confusion among much of the medical community. She exposes the inadequate testing procedures for Lyme – her first three tests came back negative.

Makris’ evocative writing guides the reader through the integral moments in her healing journey. Despite the years lost to misdiagnosis, she fights on with unwavering fortitude. Her story of self-determination and self-discovery delivers a vitally important message: those afflicted by such a complex disease must become a part of their own healing process.”

– review by Laura Piazza at Recipes For Repair.

“A health care professional as well as a healer, she [Makris] writes about the course of this incapacitating illness both as a doctor and as a patient. Sliding from a robust, healthy homeopathic physician with a very active family and busy practice, she rapidly became a bedridden woman who could barely hold her head up. As the disease progressed her life crumbled around her.”

– review by Irene Conlan at the Self Improvement Blog.

Hope to see you there!

Northampton authors Tom Weiner and Randy Kehler will be in store to discuss and sign copies of Tom’s new book, ‘Called To Serve: Stories of Men and Women Confronted by the Vietnam War Draft‘ at 6:30pm on Thursday, Dec 1.

‘If we really want to build a better world, it would be great to see this book on the desk of every high school guidance counselor in America. For those who wish to fathom, the dilemmas and challenges that the Vietnamese Conflict (Technically, it is not listed as a war.) brought to the young men of this country, in the 1960s and early 1970s, I recommend it. It is an important companion piece to some of the better histories of that period.’

– review by John J. Fitzgerald, The Hawblog (Historians Against the War blog)

‘The book “tells the back stories” of where people came from, what their family was like, who they were in relationships with, if they went to college – “things that inform your choices,” the author said. So although he is reaching out for the widest audience possible, he hopes those who had to make a choice about service will read the book and come to a better understanding of the people who made different choices’

– review by Cori Urban from MassLive.com

Hope to see you there!

Local Author DeDe Cummings will be discussing and signing copies of her new cookbook Cooking Well: IBS; Over 100 Easy Recipes for Irritable Bowel Syndrome Plus Other Digestive Diseases Including Crohn’s, Celiac, and COlitis. DeDe will be appearing at the Elliot St Cafe – date to be announced.

In the meantime, come check out her book filled with yummy recipes regardless.

Nationally renowned poet, performer, and essayist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha will be in store this Saturday, November 5th at 5pm to discuss and sign copies of her new book The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities.

“The extent of the violence affecting our communities is staggering. Nearly one in three women in the United States will experience intimate violence in her lifetime. And while intimate violence affects relationships across the sexuality and gender spectrums, the likelihood of isolation and irreparable harm, including death, is even greater within LGBTQI communities. To effectively resist violence out there—in the prison system, on militarized borders, or other clear encounters with “the system”—we must challenge how it is reproduced right where we live. It’s one thing when the perpetrator is the police, the state, or someone we don’t know. It’s quite another when that person is someone we call a friend, lover, and trusted ally…Fearless, tough-minded, and ultimately loving, The Revolution Starts at Home offers life-saving alternatives for ensuring survivor safety while building a road toward a revolution where no one is left behind.” – review INCITE! Women Of Color Against Violence [ed. note - you should be reading this blog]

Too often, social justice-affiliated groups assume that all members promote the same principles in their personal lives that they do in their political lives: human dignity, solidarity and peace. Yet given the staggering statistics on the global prevalence of sexual assault, domestic violence and workplace harassment, it would be naïve to assume that activists are immune to such problems. And for many marginalized communities–including undocumented immigrants, sex workers, and LGBT groups, among others–the police and criminal courts are not always viewed as a safe course for finding justice. The Revolution Starts at Home offers alternative ways for communities to prioritize survivors and address rape, assault, domestic violence and sexual harassment.

- review by Allison McCarthy in Ms Magazine.

“Attempts to deal with intimate partner violence for able-bodied folk are pretty woefully inadequate. However, as Peggy Munson testifies during this searing chapter in ‘The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Partner Violence Within Activist Communities’, attempts to deal with disabled persons who are surviving intimate partner violence are in many ways non-existent and at best are sadly lacking in many areas.”

review by UnusualMusic on Alas, A Blog {ed. note – yet another blog you should be reading]

What happens when violence is enacted in deemed safe spaces? When the same partner that might hit you or not take no for an answer, is the one staffing the anti-police brutality group? When your community’s distrust in the criminal justice and legal system means either submitting to the very same system you are working against or taking justice into your hands?

…the book explores that even with the best intentions, the best actions and behind the most radical and progressive of politics, the systems that activists work so hard to dismantle are often buried inside of all of us. The book focuses on multiple forms of abuse, with diverse voices that stretch beyond the gamut of atypical representations of what abuse victims look like. What has always been referred to as the “open secret,” the book breaks down the taboos surrounding abuse in romantic, personal and activist relationships that not only gives results, but also does so in a way that aims not to isolate the abused and the abuser.

review by Coco Papy in Persephone Magazine

Hope to see you here!

Internationally known author, educator, and storyteller Michael Caduto will be in store to discuss and sign copies of some of his books, which include Catch the Wind, Harness the Sun: 22 Super-Charged Projects for Kids, Riparia’s River, and of course, written with Joseph Bruchac: Native American Plant Stories, Native American Stories (originally from Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children), and finally, Keepers of the Animals: Native American Stories and Wildlife Activities for Children.

He will be here on Friday, November 4th at 6pm.

Here you can watch Michael light marsh gas on fire!:

Hope to see you here!

On Friday, October 21st from 5-6 PM, Everyone’s Books is pleased to host S. Brian Willson reading from and discussing his new autobiography Blood On the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson. Brian will be going to a vigil at 6, so if you can, please arrive slightly early for the discussion.

S. Brian Willson is a Viet Nam veteran whose wartime experiences transformed him into a revolutionary nonviolent pacifist. He gained renown as a participant in a prominent 1986 veterans fast on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. The fast was in response to funding of Reagan’s Contra wars in Central America. One year later, on September 1, 1987, he was again thrust into the public eye when he was run over and nearly killed by a U.S. Navy Munitions train while engaging in a nonviolent blockade in protest of weapons shipments to El Salvador. Since the 1980s he has continued efforts to educate the public about the diabolical nature of U.S. imperialism while striving to “walk his talk” (on two prosthetic legs and a three-wheeled handcycle) by creating a model of right livelihood including a simpler lifestyle.

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