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Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library

AN EVENING WITH AMERICAN AUTHOR, JOURNALIST, AND PROFESSOR PAUL HENDRICKSON – JUNE 20 @ 5:00 PM

Author Paul Hendrickson

We are thrilled to welcome celebrated author Paul Hendrickson to our 13th annual Author Event on June 20 at 5:00 PM at the historic Kennebunk River Club Casino, 116 Ocean Avenue in Kennebunkport. Purchase tickets online at Eventbrite.

Paul Hendrickson is an American author, journalist, and professor. His eighth book, Fighting the Night, will be published on May 7, 2024. It is an account of his father flying Black Widow night fighters on Iwo Jima in the last part of World War II. The book will come out on the twenty-first anniversary of his father’s death.

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE!

He is the author of the 2011 New York Times best seller and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost. For the 2004 book Bound for Glory: America in Color 1939-43, Hendrickson wrote the introduction and accompanying text. In 2003, he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy. His 1996 work about Vietnam, The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War, was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is the recipient of writing fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lyndhurst Foundation, and the Alicia Patterson Foundation. Before joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, Hendrickson was a staff feature writer at the Washington Post from 1977 to 2001.

Hendrickson was born in California but grew up in the Midwest and in a Catholic seminary in the Deep South, where he studied for seven years for the missionary priesthood. This became the subject of his first book, published in 1983: Seminary: A Search. He is also the author of Looking for the Light: The Hidden Life and Art of Marion Post Wolcott, a finalist for the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award.

In 2009, Hendrickson was a joint visiting professor of documentary practice at Duke University and of American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Hendrickson has degrees in English from St. Louis University and Pennsylvania State University. He is married and has two grown sons and lives with his wife, Cecilia, outside Philadelphia.

“We are honored to have Mr. Hendrickson join us this year,” said Graves Library Executive Director Mary-Lou Boucouvalas. “We are also extremely grateful for the wonderful community support provided by our event sponsors. One hundred percent of the funds raised will support the ongoing operations of the Library.”

This special fundraiser is being underwritten by Spinnaker Trust, along with the Kennebunk River Club, Lupine Books,  Allyn and Norma Lamb, Mike and Denise Iafolla, Robert and Marjie Dennis, Mutasia, Billy and Rosemary Shore, John and Mary Mills, Tom and Sarah Vander Schaaff, Kitchen Chicks Catering, the Colony Hotel, Anne and Ken Raynor, Edison Press, Hurlbutt Designs, Schooner Eleanor, SoPo Wine Company, Maine & Vine, and the Wine House on Main.

The ticket price of $75 includes an autographed copy of Fighting the Night. Tickets can be purchased at Graves Library and online through Eventbrite. Call (207) 967-2778 or visit our website at www.graveslibrary.org for more information. Seating is limited.

PROGRAM FOR THE EVENING

5:00 PM – 5:45 PM                       DOORS OPEN PROMPTLY AT 5:00 PM.   RECEPTION WITH WINE AND LIGHT REFRESHMENT

5:50 PM – 6:00 PM                       WELCOME and THANK YOU TO SPONSORS

6:00 PM – 6:10 PM                       ANNOUNCEMENT OF JOYCE BUTLER STUDENT HISTORY AWARD

6:10 PM – 6:15 PM                       INTRODUCTION OF PAUL HENDRICKSON

6:15 PM – 7:00 PM                       INTERVIEW WITH PAUL HENDRICKSON

7:00 PM – 7:30 PM                       BOOK SIGNING

NY TIMES BEST SELLING AUTHOR – JENNIFER ACKERMAN – AUGUST 6 @ 2:00 PM

We are delighted to have New York Times Best Selling Author Jennifer Ackerman visit with us on Sunday, August 6 at 2:00 pm for a special lecture.

Jennifer Ackerman has been writing about science, nature, and health for more than three decades. Her work aims to explain and interpret science for a lay audience and to explore the riddles of the natural world, blending scientific knowledge with strong storytelling. She has won numerous awards and fellowships, including a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a Silver Medal Award for Nature Writing from the International Regional Magazine Association, and fellowships at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College (now the Radcliffe Institute), Brown College at the University of Virginia, and the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University.

Jennifer’s most recent book is What an Owl Knows: The new science of the world’s most enigmatic birds. In pre-publication reviews, Publisher’s Weekly called the book “a masterful survey,” and Kirkus, “fascinating food for thought for owl seekers.” Jennifer also recorded the audiobook for What an Owl Knows. Her previous book, The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think (Penguin Press, 2020; paperback, 2021), was a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and was nominated for numerous other awards. It’s published in more than a dozen languages. Her New York Times bestseller, The Genius of Birds (Penguin Press, 2016; paperback 2017), has been translated into close to 30 languages. The book was named one of the 10 best nonfiction books of 2016 by The Wall Street Journal, a Best Science Book of 2016 by National Public Radio’s “Science Friday”, a Best Book of the Year by The Spectator and the National Post, and a Nature Book of the Year by the London Sunday Times. It was a finalist for the 2017 National Academies Communication Book Award and for the 2017 Smart Book Award in Poland.

Other books include Birds by the Shore: Observing the Natural Life of the Atlantic Coast (a 2019 reissue by Penguin Press of her first book, Notes from the Shore); Ah-Choo! The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold (Twelve, 2010), which was named a finalist for the Books for a Better Life Award’; and Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream:  A Day in the Life of Your Body (Houghton Mifflin, 2007; Mariner Paperbacks, 2008), which explores the biological events we experience over the course of a day. The latter was selected as a New York Times “Editor’s Choice” and was chosen as a main selection for the Scientific American Book Club.  It has been published in 13 languages. Ackerman’s book Chance in the House of Fate:  A Natural History of Heredity (Houghton Mifflin 2001; Mariner Paperbacks 2002) was named a New York Times “New and Noteworthy” paperback and was selected as a Library Journal Best Book of the Year in 2002. She is the editor of The Curious Naturalist and the co-author with Dr. Miriam Nelson of The Social Network Diet and The Strong Women’s Guide to Total Health. 

Jennifer’s essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, Scientific American, National Geographic, Natural History, Parade, and many other publications. She has written on subjects ranging from the work of Chuck Close to the microbiome of the human body, the evolutionary origin of birds, the sexual habits of dragonflies, the neural nature of dyslexia, the biology of cranes, parasites as agents of evolutionary change, ocean circulation, the wildlife of Japan, and the work of Nobel laureate and developmental biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard. Her writing has been collected in several anthologies, among them, Flights of Imagination:  Extraordinary Writings About Birds, ed. Richard Canning (Greystone, 2010), The Penguin Book of the Ocean, ed. James Bradley (Penguin Australia, 2010), Best American Science Writing, ed. Alan Lightman (Perennial, 2005), Shorewords (University of Virginia Press, 2003), Stories from Where We Live—the North Atlantic Coast, ed. Sara St. Antoine (Milkweed, 2001), The Beach Book, ed. Aleda Shirley (Sarabande Books, 2000), The Seacoast Reader, ed. John A. Murray (Lyons Press, 1999), From the Field, ed Charles McCarry (National Geographic, 1997), The Nature Reader, ed. Daniel Halpern and Dan Frank (Ecco Press, 1996), and Best Nature Writing (Sierra Club books, 1996).

We are grateful to our Graves Library Snack Team for providing treats for our program.  We are also grateful to The 1802 House for sponsoring this event!  Doors open at 1:30.  Parking is available at the Village Fire Station (North Street) and Consolidated School (School Street).  Please call the Library for more information (967-2778).  Copies of the book will be for sale and signing after the program.

The Library is located at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport, Maine.