Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library

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.

RICHARD RUSSO AND ANDRE DUBUS, III AT VINEGAR HILL – OCTOBER 19, 2023

RICHARD RUSSO AND ANDRE DUBUS, III:  IN CONVERSATION

 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2023

Vinegar Hill Music Theater, 53 Old Post Road, Arundel Maine

General admission ticket is $50.00  

PURCHASE TICKETS NOW

 

 

 

A (cash bar) cocktail hour and book sales will start at 5:30 pm followed by an intimate conversation with award-winning authors—and dear friends—Richard Russo and Andre Dubus, III at 6:30 p.m. 

Come autumn, Dubus and Russo will have just released brand new novels. Dubus’ Such Kindness, the story of a working-class white man’s terrible fall, has been called “A powerful portrait of recovered dignity” by People magazine. In Somebody’s Fool, Russo returns to North Bath, in upstate New York, and to the characters that captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of readers in his beloved bestsellers Nobody’s Fool and Everybody’s Fool.

As always, both novels brim with the two authors’ trademark heartrending observations and—especially in Russo’s case—wry humor. These are two masters in peak form.

Russo and Dubus have read to rapt audiences at Graves Library over the years, but this very special evening marks the first time the longtime friends will be appearing together in Kennebunkport.

Moderating the conversation will be former Graves Library board member Joshua Bodwell, editorial director of Godine and Black Sparrow Press.

This event is being sponsored by our friends at Vinegar Hill Music Theater.

Print: A Bookstore will be selling a variety of the authors’ works during the first hour of the event.  Both Russo and Dubus, III will stay after their talk to personalize any purchases.

Stage Design is being sponsored by our friends at Hurlbutt Designs.

Richard Russo is the author of ten acclaimed novels, including Everybody’s Fool and That Old Cape Magic; two collections of stories; and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which, like Nobody’s Fool, was adapted into a multiple-award-winning miniseries; in 2017, he received France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine. His novel, Somebody’s Fool, was released in July 2023.

Andre Dubus III’s books include the New York Times’ bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie. His recent novel, Gone So Long, was named to many “Best Books” lists, including The Boston Globe’s “Twenty Best Books of 2018.” In April 2023, Dubus served as editor of Reaching Inside: 50 Acclaimed Authors on 100 Unforgettable Short Stories. His novel, Such Kindness, was released in June 2023. A collection of personal essays, Ghost Dogs: On Killers and Kin, is due in winter 2024.

 

Vinegar Hill Music Theatre is located at: 53 Old Post Road, Arundel, Maine 04046, Tel: 207-985-5552.  The proceeds of all tickets sold benefit the Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library.

PURCHASE TICKETS

LIVING WITH HEARING LOSS

Living With Hearing Loss

Please join us on Tuesday, May 16 at 1:30 in the Community Room for a very important program on Hearing Loss.

Margaret Myatt, Vice President of the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) of the DownEast chapter, will be here to talk about her experience with hearing aids starting at the age of 30. She became certified in hearing assistive technology and is an advocate for people with hearing loss. The mission of HLAA DownEast chapter is to educate Mainers with hearing loss (as well as their families and friends) about the causes, nature, and complications of hearing loss and what can be done to better cope with that loss.

 

 

This program is hosted by the Kennebunkport Public Health Department and Graves Library. Light refreshments will be served. www.graveslibrary.org

LABOR DAY WEEKEND – CLOSED

The Library will be closed Saturday, September 4 through Monday September 6 in honor of Labor Day!  Please have a safe and relaxing weekend everyone!

PASCO LECTURE SERIES – NYT BEST-SELLING AUTHOR – ANN HOOD

We are over the moon about having Author Ann Hood join us for a Pasco Lecture on Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 2:00 pm.  Ms. Hood will be here to read from her new book Kitchen Yarns : Notes on Life, Love and Food.

If you don’t know anything about Ann Hood, here is a snipit from her biography:

A Rhode Island native, I was born in West Warwick and spent high school working as a Marsha Jordan Girl, modeling for the Jordan Marsh department store at the Warwick Mall. I majored in English at the University of Rhode Island, and that’s where I fell in love with Shakespeare, Willa Cather, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.  When I was in seventh grade, I read a book called How To Become An Airline Stewardess that fueled my desire to see the world. And that’s just what I did when I graduated from URI–I went to work for TWA as a flight attendant. Back then, I thought you needed adventures in order to be a writer. Of course, I know now that all you need, as Eudora Welty said, is to sit on your own front porch.  But I did see a lot of the world with TWA, and I moved from Boston to St. Louis and finally to NYC, a place I’d dreamed of living ever since I watched Doris Day movies as a little girl. I wrote my first novel, Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine, on international flights and on the Train to the Plane, which was the subway out to JFK. It was published in 1987. Since then, I’ve published in The New York Times, The Paris Review, O, Bon Appetit, Tin House, The Atlantic Monthly, Real Simple, and other wonderful places; and I’ve won two Pushcart Prizes, two Best American Food Writing Awards, Best American Spiritual Writing and Travel Writing Awards, and a Boston Public Library Literary Light Award. 

The Pasco Lecture Series is sponsored by the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, Kennebunk Savings Bank, and the Graves Library Snack Team.  Sales and signing of Kitchen Yarns will follow the talk.  Please give us a call at 967-2778 with questions about this event or to find out what else is going on at Graves Library.  Doors open at 1:30 pm