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ODYSSEY GALLERY

The Odyssey Gallery

Pictures of recent events

 

ON THE AIR

The Odyssey Bookshop is one of five independent bookstores participating in WAMC's Roundtable on Tuesday mornings, just after the 10:00 news. People from the Odyssey will be on about once a month, talking about our favorite books. 

Click here to see the list of the books we have talked about.


The Odyssey Bookshop
9 College St.
S. Hadley, MA 01075

413-534-7307
800-540-7307
fax 413-532-3654

email odysseybks@aol.com

 

Late August / September 2010 Calendar of 
Author Appearances and Events

All events are free and open to the public and are held at The Odyssey unless otherwise noted.

Call (413) 534-7307 to reserve a space. If you can’t attend, we can reserve a signed book for you.


Print the Month-at-a-Glance

 Printer friendly Calendar with details  


New: Reserve a seat online.

Please take a moment to reserve your seat for any of these events online. Reserving helps us better plan for the event, and helps you by assuring that if there are any changes or cancellations, you will be contacted immediately.  Please note that we cannot take reservations for those events taking place outside of the Odyssey Bookshop (i.e. Mount Holyoke College).

Click Here
to reserve your seat. 

You may also reserve a seat by calling 534-7307


Please call the Odyssey at 534-7307 or email us to reserve a place for an event. (If emailing, please give us your phone number.) If we have your name and telephone number, we'll be able to call you with last-minute cancellations or changes. Click on an event in the calendar for details. 

Late August /September 2010

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

22

23

24

25   7 pm
Howard Bryant, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron

26

27

28

29     3 pm
T. Greenwood,
The Hungry Season
30 31 Sept 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11   10:30 a.m.
David Hyde Costello, I Can Help
12 13   7 pm
The Odyssey Crime Club will discuss The Dirty Secrets Club by Meg Gardiner

7pm, The New York Room, MHC

Jordan Flaherty, Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Hurricane Katrina and the Jena Six 

14 15   7 pm, Gamble Auditorium, Side B, MHC

Ann Jones, War Is Not Over When It's Over:  Women Speak Out From the Ruins of War
16   7pm
Tracy Winn, Mrs. Somebody Somebody
17    18   11 am
Jarrett Krosozcka,
Lunch Lady and the Summer Camp Shakedown
19   11 am
Sundays with Shakespeare will discuss All's Well That Ends Well
20   7pm
The Odyssey's Open Fiction Group will discuss The Quickening by Michelle Hoover
21  7pm
Richard Towne, Nothing But Our Best: A Holyoke Industrialist and His Company


7:30 p.m., Symphony Hall, Springfield

Stephen Breyer, Making Our Democracy Work

22   7 pm
Corinne Demas, The Writing Circle
An Odyssey Bookshop Breakout Fiction Selection

Wine and cheese will be served at the event.

23 24   8 pm, Symphony Hall, Springfield
Anthony Bourdain

For tickets, please see: www.symphonyhall.com
Please note that while the Odyssey Bookshop is selling books for this event, we are NOT the ticket vendor.

25   11 am
David Rubel, If I Had a Hammer: Stories of Building Homes and Hope with Habitat for Humanity
26 27  7pm
Gerald McLellan,
A Silent Cry
28   3pm, All Saints Episcopal Church

Mo Willems, Knuffle Bunny Free: An Unexpected Diversion

This is a ticketed event.  Please see below for details.

29    7 pm
Daphne Kalotay, Russian Winter
30   7pm
Scott Spencer, Man in the Woods
   

August 25 • Wednesday • 7 pm

Howard Bryant

The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron

In the thirty-four years since his retirement, Henry Aaron’s reputation has only grown in magnitude: he broke existing records (RBIs, total bases, extra-base hits) and set new ones (hitting at least thirty home runs per season fifteen times, becoming the first player in history to hammer five hundred home runs and three thousand hits). But his influence extends beyond statistics, and at long last here is the first definitive biography of one of baseball’s immortal figures.  Based on meticulous research and interviews with former teammates, family, two former presidents, and Aaron himself, The Last Hero chronicles Aaron’s childhood in segregated Alabama, his brief stardom in the Negro Leagues, his complicated relationship with celebrity, and his historic rivalry with Willie Mays—all culminating in the defining event of his life: his shattering of Babe Ruth’s all-time home-run record.

“Brawny…The Last Hero had the forceful sweep of a well-struck essay as much as that of a first-rate biography.”  The New York Times


August 29 • Sunday • 3 pm

T. Greenwood

The Hungry Season

It’s been five years since the Mason family vacationed at the lakeside cottage in northeastern Vermont, close to where prize-winning novelist Samuel Mason grew up. The summers that Sam, his wife, Mena, and their twins Franny and Finn spent at Lake Gormlaith were noisy, chaotic, and nearly perfect. But since Franny’s death, the Masons have been flailing, one step away from falling apart. Lake Gormlaith is Sam’s last, best hope of rescuing his son from a destructive path and salvaging what’s left of his family. From the acclaimed author of Two Rivers comes a compelling and beautifully told story of hope, family, and above all, hunger—for food, sex, love and success—and for a way back to wholeness when a part of oneself has been lost forever.

This compelling study of a family in need of rescue is very effective, owing to Greenwood’s (Two Rivers) eloquent, exquisite word artistry and her knack for developing subtle, suspenseful scenes... Greenwood’s sensitive and gripping examination of a family in crisis is real, complex, and anything but formulaic.”  --Library Journal (starred review)


September 11 • Saturday • 10:30 am

David Hyde Costello

I Can Help

“Uh-oh. I'm lost,” a little duck says. “I can help,” says a monkey, who swings down from a tree and points out Mama duck.  Then the monkey loses his balance! Who can help him?! Giraffe can!  And so the fun begins in this story, beautifully illustrated in watercolor and line, about how easy it is to help someone in need. 

“Each animal has offered a solution suited to its skills, and the words are easily memorized with their variations: perfect intellectual engagement on the preschool level.” Newsday


September 13 • Monday • 7 pm

The Odyssey Crime Club will discuss The Dirty Secrets Club by Meg Gardiner.  Called the next suspense superstar by Stephen King, Gardiner presents the first novel in a new series featuring San Francisco psychologist Jo Beckett. Investigating a series of suicides, Jo finds they are all part of the Dirty Secrets Club, a group of A-listers with nothing but money and plenty to hide. This month’s selection is discounted 20%.


September 13 • Monday • 7 pm
The New York Room, Mary Woolley Hall, Mount Holyoke College

Jordan Flaherty

Floodlines: Community and Resistance From Katrina to Jena Six

Floodlines is a firsthand account of community, culture, and resistance in New Orleans. The book weaves together the stories of gay rappers, Mardi Gras Indians, Arab and Latino immigrants, public housing residents, and grassroots activists in the years before and after Katrina. From post-Katrina evacuee camps to torture testimony at Angola Prison to organizing with the family members of the Jena Six, Floodlines tells the stories behind the headlines from an unforgettable time and place in history.

“This is the most important book I’ve read about Katrina and what came after. In the tradition of Howard Zinn this could be called ‘The People’s History of the Storm.’ Jordan Flaherty was there on the front lines.” — Eve Ensler, playwright of The Vagina Monologues and activist and founder of V-Day


September 15 • Wednesday • 7 pm
Gamble Auditorium, Side B, Art Museum, Mount Holyoke College

Ann Jones

War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women Speak Out From the Ruins of War

From the renowned authority on domestic violence, a startlingly original inquiry into the aftermath of wars and their impact on the least visible victims: women.  In 2007, the International Rescue Committee, which brings relief to countries in the wake of war, wanted to understand what really happened to women in war zones. Answers came through the point and click of a digital camera. On behalf of the IRC, Ann Jones spent two years traveling through Africa, East Asia, and the Middle East, giving cameras to women who had no other means of telling the world what war had done to their lives.  The photography project—which moved from Liberia to Syria and points in between—quickly broadened to encompass the full consequences of modern warfare for the most vulnerable. Even after the definitive moments of military victory, women and children remain blighted by injury and displacement and are the most affected by the destruction of communities and social institutions. And along with peace often comes worsening violence against women, both domestic and sexual.  Dramatic and compelling, animated by the voices of brave and resourceful women, War Is Not Over When It’s Over shines a powerful light on a phenomenon that has long been cast in shadow.

“Underfunded and doubted in First and Third World countries, the project reveals the link between misplaced rage by depressed former soldiers and the women who suffer culturally sanctioned violence, while the U.N.’s antirape resolutions are ignored. In spite of the graphically grim material, Jones provides glimpses of hard-won triumphs, including separate bathing areas in Burmese refugee camps and the promise of peace for women by a thoughtful local chief.” – Publisher’s Weekly


September 16 • Thursday • 7 pm

Tracy Winn

Mrs. Somebody Somebody

In this astonishing debut, Tracy Winn poignantly chronicles the souls who inhabit the troubled mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts, playing out their struggles and hopes over the course of the twentieth century. Through a stunning variety of voices, Winn paints a deep and permeating portrait of the town and its people: a young millworker who dreams of marrying rich and becoming “Mrs. Somebody Somebody”; an undercover union organizer whose privileged past shapes her cause; a Korean War veteran who returns to the wife he never really got to know—and the couple’s overindulged children, who grow up to act out against their parents; a town resident who reflects on a long-lost love and the treasure he keeps close to his heart. Winn’s keen insight into class and human nature, combined with her perfect, nuanced prose, make Mrs. Somebody Somebody truly shine.

“A rare achievement . . . Winn’s characters struggle with unexpected losses and damaging habits . . . always questioning the hard truths that hold them in place.” Atlantic Monthly


September 18 • Saturday • 11 am

Jarrett Krosoczka

Lunch Lady and the Summer Camp Shakedown

Lunch Lady and the Breakfast Bunch kids are looking forward to a relaxing summer vacation with no funny business. What evils could possibly befall them at summer camp? Of course, there is the legendary swamp monster. Stories say he haunts the camp at night. But that’s just a legend. Or is it? Once again Dee, Hector, and Terrence must help Lunch Lady prevail against a secret enemy!

 


September 19 • Sunday • 11 am

Sundays with Shakespeare, led by UMASS English professor, Arthur F. Kinney, will discuss All’s Well That Ends Well.  The month’s selection is discounted 20%.


September 20 • Monday • 7 pm

The Odyssey Bookshop's Open Fiction Group will discuss The Quickening by Michelle Hoover.  In this luminous and unforgettable debut, Hoover explores the polarization of the human soul in times of hardship and the instinctual drive for self-preservation by whatever means necessary.  This month’s selection is discounted 20%.


September 21 • Tuesday • 7 pm

Richard Towne

Nothing But Our Best: A Holyoke Industrialist and His Company

Nothing But Our Best: A Holyoke Industrialist & His Company is a story about the life of a man who, for fifty years, managed a Holyoke manufacturing company from a position of financial collapse to become one of its industry’s leaders.  From family home to factory floor, the reader meets working class residents who came to Holyoke seeking employment in the mills that thrived there as America entered the 20th Century. How these men and women used wit, humor and perseverance to survive under difficult working conditions is told from the perspective of the author’s first hand experience. One moves through the years to the company’s Board Room as the Directors wrestle with the decision about choosing who is the best partner for a merger.


September 21 • Tuesday • 7:30 pm
Symphony Hall, Springfield
part of the Springfield Public Forum's Fall Lecture series

Stephen Breyer

Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View

Supreme Court Justice Breyer shares his original and accessible theory of the United States Supreme Court's responsibility and integrity. He illuminates key decisions with fascinating stories told from his unique perspective.


September 22 • Wednesday • 7 pm

Corinne Demas

The Writing Circle
(An Odyssey Bookshop Breakout Fiction Selection. Wine and cheese will be served at the event.)

When Nancy, whose most recently published work is a medical newsletter, is asked to join a writing group made up of established writers, she accepts, warily. She’s not at all certain that her novel is good enough for the company she’ll be keeping. Her novel is a subject very close to her heart, and she isn’t sure she wants to share it with others, let alone the world. But Nancy soon finds herself as caught up in the group’s personal lives as she is with their writing. She learns that nothing—love, family, loyalty—is sacred or certain.

“If you think you’ve got a novel in you, The Writing Circle is the book for you. But even if you don’t, even if you just love reading a compelling story narrated with wit and charm, that is sad and funny by turns, and populated by characters whose moral struggles are more profound than they know, this novel will leave you completely satisfied. The Writing Circle is a reading treat. I couldn’t put it down.” — Valerie Martin, author of The Confessions of Edward Day


September 24 • Friday • 8 pm
Symphony Hall, Springfield

Anthony Bourdain

Please note that this is a ticketed event.  While the Odyssey Bookshop will be selling copies of Mr. Bourdain's books at the lecture, we are not the ticket vendor.  To purchase tickets please visit www.symphonyhall.com


September 25 • Saturday • 11 am

David Rubel

If I Had a Hammer: Stories of Building Homes and Hope with Habitat for Humanity

Somewhere in West Virginia, a thirteen-year-old girl now invites friends home without embarrassment. In a Brazilian village, children no longer sleep beneath a table when the heavy rains come. For a quarter-century in over ninety countries, Habitat for Humanity has built homes with and for the people who need them, aided by more than a million multigenerational volunteers. Two of the most devoted are former president Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn — and now this captivating account, abundantly illustrated with photos, relays their favorite stories with special resonance for young readers. Exploring everything from creative home design (like using window bars in India to keep out monkeys) to the emotional rewards of helping to build a house from the ground up, this is an essential resource for inspiring future youth volunteers.

“Sheaves of color photos featuring construction sites and joyful faces underscore the theme that giving people not ‘a handout but a hand up’ is genuinely worthy work.” – Kirkus Reviews


September 27 • Monday • 7 pm

Gerald McLellan

A Silent Cry

Gerald D. McLellan has written another legal thriller wrapped up in Sicilian crime, the Chicago mafia, and boxed into a high-powered Boston container which explodes with family conflicts, ignited by violence, courtroom drama, and intrigue. Emilio Barsanti, a third generation racketeer, suddenly finds himself faced with the most challenging fight of his life: a trial in Massachusetts Family Court for the custody of his son, Gregory -- and the inheritance of billions of dollars being held in trusts from the estates of his father and grandfather.



September 28 • Tuesday • 2 -- 5 pm, All Saints Episcopal Church, 
7 Woodbridge St, South Hadley, MA

Mo Willems

Knuffle Bunny Free: An Unexpected Diversion

Ticket information:

Tickets go on sale Wednesday, September 1st at 10:00 a.m.

  • The purchase of Knuffle Bunny Free is required for event entrance.

  • Tickets for one adult and two children are included with the purchase of one copy of Knuffle Bunny Free.  (Each adult and each child must have a ticket to enter).

  • Need more tickets?  The purchase of any additional Mo Willems book provides an extra two tickets.

  • Tickets can be purchased in-store or by calling us at 413-534-7307.


September 29 • Wednesday • 7 pm

Daphne Kalotay

Russian Winter
(An Odyssey Bookshop First Edition Club Selection)

In Russian Winter, the beautiful debut novel by critically acclaimed writer Daphne Kalotay, a famed ballerina’s jewelry auction in Boston reveals long-held secrets of love and family, friendship and rivalry, harkening back to Stalinist Russia. Called “tender, passionate, and moving” by Jenna Blum, the New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us, Russian Winter is a perfect choice for fans of the novels of Debra Dean (The Madonnas of Leningrad), Ann Patchett (Bel Canto), and Ian McEwan (Atonement).

“Daphne Kalotay captivates in a soaring debut novel. An elegant, compelling puzzle of family, memory and solitude that brings to life modern-day Boston and postwar Russia through a profound love story. Graceful, moving, and unexpected.” —Matthew Pearl, New York Times bestselling author of The Dante Club


September 30 • Thursday • 7 pm

Scott Spencer

Man in the Woods

Scott Spencer, the acclaimed author of Endless Love and A Ship Made of Paper, reaffirms his storytelling mastery with Man in the Woods—a gripping psychological thriller about a carpenter at loose ends and the crime of passion that radically reorders his world. Rudy Wurlitzer lauds Man in the Woods as a stunning work that offers “heartbreaking insights into the dark frailties of human nature,” and which he calls, “a page turner from beginning to end.” And New York Times bestselling author Francine Prose hails its achievement, writing, “In this brilliant novel, Scott Spencer further expands his range.”

“A smart, haunting thriller with bass reverb and a pounding heart.” —Jayne Anne Phillips, author of the National Book Award finalist Lark and Termite


Looking into the Future 
(All events take place at the Odyssey Bookshop at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted)

October 2 (3 p.m.), Mark Peter Hughes: A Crack in the Sky
October 4, Rowan Jacobsen:  American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields
October 5, Miriam Schneir:  Final Verdict: What Really Happened in the Rosenberg Case
October 6, Anna Lappe:  Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do
    about It
(Gamble Auditorium, Mount Holyoke College, 7:30 p.m.)
October 7, Archer Mayor: Red Herring

October 13, Tom Franklin
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
October 14, Samba Gadjigo: Ousmane Sembene: The Making of a Militant Artist
October 16 (11 a.m.), Norton Juster: The Odious Ogre
October 17 (3 p.m.), Lynne Christy Anderson: Breaking Bread: Recipes and Stones from Immigrant Kitchens
October 18, Winston Lavallee
: Tempest in the Wilderness
October 19, Gish Jen: World and Town
October 26, Jon Katz: Rose in a Storm
October 27, Ted Rall: The Anti-American Manifesto
October 28, Brock Clarke: Exley
October 29, Joseph Ellis: First Family: Abigail and John Adams (Hooker Auditorium, Mount Holyoke College, 
    7 p.m.)
November 3, Christopher Couch: Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics
November 4, John Casey: Compass Rose
November 6, Noel MacNeal (10:30 a.m.): Ten Minute Puppets
November 9, Therese Soukar Chehade: Loom
November 10, Susan Cheever: Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography
November 11, S.J. Rozan: On The Line
November 18, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Paul Harding, Tinkers
December 1, Lawrence Dorfman:
The Snark Handbook: Insult Edition: Comebacks, Taunts, and Effronteries
December 2, Martín Espada The Lover of a Subversive Is Also a Subversive: Essays and Commentaries (Poets 
     on Poetry)
and Roberto Marquéz (A World Among These Islands: Essays on Literature Race and National
     Identity in Antillean America
)