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12th ANNUAL SUMMER BOOK SIGNING FRIDAY, AUGUST 1st, 6 to 8 p.m.
This year’s Book Signing gala is bigger and better than ever! We have more authors and illustrators than ever as well as an outstanding assortment of books for every taste and age: wonderful as gifts or simply to curl up with and enjoy.
Donald Westlake returns to delight us with What’s So Funny, which has Dortmunder in worse trouble than ever, and, in Dirty Money (writing as Richard Stark), he has Parker trying to recover loot from a botched heist. In Tipperary, Frank Delaney has written a troubled love story, found in a lost diary, in which the hero encounters most of Ireland’s major literary and political figures in the late 19th century, including Wilde, Joyce, Yeats, Parnell and the founders of Sinn Fein and the IRA. Trespass, by Orange Prize winner Valerie Martin, is a disquieting novel about a book illustrator and her husband whose only son has fallen in love with a Croatian refugee. Threats real and imagined are terrifyingly juxtaposed with scenes of atrocity and ethnic cleansing. Roxana Robinson’s beautifully observed new novel, Cost, tells the story of a divorced art professor whose difficult family life is challenged further by her younger son’s devastating heroin addiction. Dave King’s The Ha-Ha, a riveting debut novel with complex characters and, yes, humor, is told from the viewpoint of a wounded Vietnam veteran, unable to speak or write, whose life changes when he’s forced to take care of a nine-year-old boy. Following on the heels of his newly reissued mystery debut, Le Crime (originally A French Country Murder), New Yorker cartoonist Peter Steiner’s thrilling sequel, L’Assassin, again features the crime-solving expertise of ex-CIA agent Louis Morgon and his partner, the gendarme of a small French village. In April Fool, John Neufeld, known for his best-selling books for teens, turns to adult fiction with an intriguing tale of “suspense, romance, politics, manners, and murder.”
For biography lovers, we have an equally great selection. In Somewhere in Heaven, Christopher Andersen tells the poignant story of paralyzed actor Christopher Reeve, and his courageous wife, Dana Reeve, who died 17 months after the death of her husband. Mother Benedict Duss, who founded the famed Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, is the subject of Antoinette Bosco’s inspiring Mother Benedict, which includes an introduction by Mother Dolores Hart, the former Hollywood star who serves as the Abbey’s Prioress. In The Last Mrs. Astor: A New York Story, Frances Kiernan gives a rounded account of the fabulous Brooke Astor, including her philanthropies and the controversy about her last years in the care of her son. Award-winning photographer Scott Ian Barry offers a different kind of social epic in Wolf Empire, with gorgeous photographs that make clear the individuality of the wolf packs he has spent some three decades observing and researching. Mount Everest, once a symbol of heroic feats, has lately become a sorry spectacle of corruption and avarice, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Kodas, who exposes the worst in High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed. But modern-day heroes still exist, and they tell their stories in They Lived to Tell the Tale, True Stories of Modern Adventure, by members of the legendary Explorers Club, which will be represented at the Book Signing by its President Emeritus John Bruno. For your own adventures, Joanne Michaels offers plenty of day-tripping ideas in The Hudson Valley & Catskill Mountains: An Explorer’s Guide, and also includes knowledgeable recommendations for restaurants and inns.
One of the country’s best-known interior designers, Bunny Williams returns to the Book Signing with Bunny Williams’ Point of View. Part memoir and part how-to manual, this lavishly illustrated tome reflects three decades of creating “elegant and comfortable houses,” and is sure to help inspire your own decorating efforts. An inspiring book of watercolors, Adam Van Doren showcases this exceptional artist, who trained as an architect and paints his favorites places in Paris, Venice, Rome and New York in the classical tradition, en plein air. In Richard Grossman’s The Tao of Emerson, selections from 19th-century American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson are juxtaposed with passages by sixth century B.C. Chinese sage, Lao Tse. The thoughts of these two men, separated by some 2,500 years, uncannily mirror and illuminate a dual message of living simply and harmoniously.
Baseball fans feel the lore of the game is almost as important as the game itself, and former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent continues his fascinating oral history project in We Would Have Played for Nothing, with reminiscences by icons from the 1950s and 1960s such as Whitey Ford, Duke Snider and Brooks Atkinson. Sportswriter Frank Deford gives us a different view of the summer game in his novel, The Entitled: A Tale of Modern Baseball, in which scandal creates a moral dilemma. In Hey Batta Batta Swing! Sally Cook and James Charlton present fun facts and figures and anecdotes for baseball fans ages 6 to 10, and also describe the way the game has changed over the years. Animal lovers 12 and under will lap up Ann Hodgman’s The House of a Million Pets, a memoir that details the past and present animal members of her household, including pygmy mice, ducklings, dogs, cats, hamsters, prairie dogs and rabbits. For those who love horses, Hiding Glory by Laura Chester tells the imaginative story of a small blue horse named Glory who takes the heroine on a fantastic adventure to the land of Joya.
This year’s extensive children’s selections also include The Wolves Are Back, a picture book written by Newbery Award-winner Jean Craighead George and gorgeously illustrated by celebrated artist Wendell Minor, the focus is on the wolves that were re-introduced to Yellowstone Park. In addition to this environmental success story, Minor collaborated with suspense writer Mary Higgins Clark on her first children’s picture book, Ghost Ship, a magical time-traveling tale about a cabin boy’s long-ago adventures. April Stevens’ Waking Up Wendell tells how everyone gets woken up in the morning on Fish Street, beginning with a small bird going ta-ta-ta tweeeeet, on to a dog next door, and so on. For younger readers and listeners, beloved author/illustrator Nancy Tafuri is back with The Busy Little Squirrel, in which her delightful ink-and-watercolor pictures show the book’s hero preparing for winter, and Blue Goose, an engaging primer about farm animals and colors. In Randall de Sève’s Toy Boat, David’s handmade boat accidentally gets swept away, but after some harrowing adventures, the boat and David are happily reunited. Etienne Delessert’s marvelous illustrations in Big and Bad and I Still Hate to Read are sure to engage kids’ imaginations and help get them learning. Betsy Howie’s The Block Mess Monster has a few Mom-inspired solutions for cleaning up Calpurnia’s room, which can be a problem since she shares it with a huge invisible creature. In Not So Tall for Six, illustrated by Frank Dormer and written by Dianna Hutts Aston, Kylie is the shortest child in her first grade class, but she’s tall enough to stand up to a bully.
In When Ruby Tried to Grow Candy, another offering for ages 4 to 8, Valorie Fisher takes us to a different kind of garden, one in which teacups, buttons and shoes grow on trees. Ruby learns that anything is possible, and grows lollipops and gumdrops. And, for children of all ages, The ABCs of Fruit and Vegetables and Beyond, co-authored by David Goldbeck, uses rhymes, jokes, recipes and fun activities to painlessly introduce the benefits of eating healthy food. – Joyce O’Brien
Admission to the 12th Annual Summer Book Signing is $25 (Visa and MasterCard accepted), payable at the door, and includes wine, cocktails and scrumptious appetizers. For reservations and information please call 364-5041. As always, part of the proceeds from purchased books will benefit the library. Our thanks go to all of this year’s wonderful authors and illustrators as well as to our generous underwriters: Union Savings Bank, J. Barclay Collins, Ackerly Brown LLP, Greyhouse Publishing, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Hayes, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Szalewicz, Clock Tower Travel, and Harney and Sons Tea Corporation.
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