Submitted by Village Books
September is about back to school. Education is in the air and for post-grade school adults, discovering new things is as close as picking up a book or attending an author talk at Village Books in Fairhaven. Add these upcoming events to your calendar and enjoy adding some new titles to your reading list.
Tuesday, September 1, 7:00 p.m.
Sara Donati, “The Gilded Hour” – Fiction, Local Author
In “The Gilded Hour,” Sara Donati delves into the lives of two descendants of her famous characters Nathaniel and Elizabeth Bonner from the Wilderness series: their granddaughters Liliane (Anna) and Sophie Savard who, orphaned as young children, are raised by their Aunt Quinlan in Manhattan. The year is 1883 and New York City is aflutter with extraordinary change. As the Brooklyn Bridge nears completion in the background, the gap between severe poverty and extreme wealth and splendor is visible on every corner. Anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock is determined to purge the city of anything indecent, and will stop at nothing to make sure his agenda is pursued. Anna Savard and her cousin Sophie Savard have become successful physicians, graduates from the Woman’s Medical School, and they treat the city’s most vulnerable occupants. Fans of the Wilderness series will see some glimmers of the characters they have grown to love, but new readers will enjoy “The Gilded Hour” as a standalone novel set in one of the most exciting times in America’s — and New York City’s — history.
Sara Donati is the international bestselling author of the Wilderness series, which includes “Into the Wilderness,” “The Endless Forest,” “Queen of Swords,” “Fire Along the Sky,” “Lake in the Clouds,” and “Dawn on a Distant Shore.”
Wednesday, September 2, 7:00 p.m.
Marian Exall, “A Dangerous Descent” — Mystery, Local Author
Sarah McKinney: competent professional, damaged child. Her sophisticated exterior – love those Jimmy Choos! – hides a painful history. In the second of this series, Sarah’s search for her mentor’s estranged daughter takes her to the Dordogne region of rural France, where she uncovers a troubled past that parallels her own.
After a legal career, Marian Exall now writes what she loves to read: mysteries! She has lived in Bellingham since 2006 and is married with a son, a daughter and two granddaughters. Like her heroine, Sarah McKinney, Exall was born and raised in England. She lived in France and Belgium before moving to Atlanta, where she practiced employment law with leading firms and as in-house counsel.
Thursday, September 3, 7:00 p.m.
Robert Lopresti, “Greenfellas” — Local Author
“Greenfellas” is a comic crime novel, with issues. On the day New Jersey mobster Sal Caetano becomes a grandfather, he hears that climate change will ruin the world for his granddaughter. So Sal decides to save the environment, by any means necessary…
Robert Lopresti is the environmental sciences librarian at Western Washington University. He is the author of more than fifty published short stories and two novels. He has won the Derringer Award twice and the Black Orchid Novella Award once.
Friday, September 4, 7:00 p.m.
Allan Ament, “Learning to Float” — Memoir
Allan and Deloris Ament’s lives take a dramatic turn when Deloris suffers a debilitating stroke. No longer equal partners in marriage, Allan becomes Deloris’s primary caregiver, responsible for maintaining their household and her well-being. Learning to Float describes Allan’s transformation from a criminal defense attorney to a compassionate, emotionally vulnerable caregiver. Drawing on contemporaneously written emails and private journal entries, Ament unflinchingly exposes his emotional, mental, and physical ups and downs, consistently focusing on the love, humor, and opportunities for personal and spiritual growth he experiences on this journey. Anyone with the possibility of becoming a caregiver for a loved one, now or in the future, will benefit from the insights Ament shares. Everyone will be buoyed by the love Allan and Deloris share as they face their new normal.
After successful careers as a criminal defense attorney, higher education administrator and instructor, and day spa manager, Allan Ament now enjoys retirement with his wife, an award-winning journalist and author, and a semi-neurotic cat. They live on an island in Puget Sound, where in addition to writing and being his wife’s primary caregiver, Ament serves as board chair for the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. His work has previously appeared in academic, professional, and literary journals and is included in an upcoming anthology, “Being: What Makes a Man.” This is his first book-length work.
Tuesday, September 8, 11:00 a.m.
Audrey and Don Wood, “The Full Moon at the Napping House” — Kids Event
In the wide-awake bed in the full-moon house, everyone is restless! The moonlight is pouring in and no one can get to sleep: not Granny, her grandchild, the dog, the cat, or even a mouse. It’s not until a tiny musical visitor offers up a soothing song does the menagerie settle down, and finally everyone is off to dreamland. With a perfectly crafted text and stunning paintings, Audrey and Don Wood reveal once again why they are picture book creators of the highest order. “The Full Moon at the Napping House,” the highly anticipated follow-up to their beloved classic “The Napping House,” is the ideal book to share at bedtime or anytime!
Audrey and Don Wood are the creators of “The Napping House,” “King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub,” and many other beloved children’s books. Audrey is the author, and Don is the illustrator. They divide their time between California and Hawaii.
Wednesday, September 9, 7:00 p.m.
David R. Gross, Travels With Charlize — Memoir
After the death of Seattle author David Gross’ wife of over fifty-two years, he knows he must go forward and face a new future, but memories and old friends keep reminding him of Rosalie, his only true love. Both travel and home provide painful memories, but his rescue dog Charlize always senses his mood and keeps him willing to seek the future.
David R. Gross practiced veterinary medicine for ten years. He returned to school and earned his PhD in cardiovascular physiology, and he taught and did research in that field for more than three decades.
Sunday, September 13, 4:00 p.m.
Kristin Noreen, “On Silver Wings” — Memoir, Local Author
In an instant, Kristin Noreen’s life was forever changed: she set out on a leisurely bike ride and woke up on life support. Reduced to a dependent child at age 46, she fought her way back to claim her life: different, but still her own. This is her story.
Kristin Noreen lives in Bellingham with her two cats. She works as an environmental permitting technician, as a placement coordinator for a foreign exchange student program, and she makes and sells handmade jewelry. She’s an avid bicycle tourist, an animal rescue volunteer, and she’s building a Tiny House on wheels.
Wednesday, September 16, 7:00 p.m.
David Williams, “Too High and Too Steep”
Residents and visitors in today’s Seattle would barely recognize the landscape that its founding settlers first encountered. As the city grew, its leaders and inhabitants dramatically altered its topography to accommodate their changing visions. In “Too High and Too Steep,” David B. Williams uses his deep knowledge of Seattle, scientific background, and extensive research and interviews to illuminate the physical challenges and sometimes startling hubris of these large-scale transformations, from the filling in of the Duwamish tide flats to the massive regrading project that pared down Denny Hill.
David B. Williams is the author of several books, including “Cairns: Messengers in Stone” and “The Seattle Street-Smart Naturalist: Field Notes from the City.” He lives in Seattle.
Friday, September 18, 7:00 p.m.
A Tribute to Ivan Doing and his final novel, “Last Bus to Wisdom” — featuring David Laskin and Carol Doig
This year, we lost Ivan Doig, the great novelist of the American West. Ivan once wrote that “if I have any creed that I wish you as readers…it’d be this belief of mine that writers…can ground their work in a specific land and lingo and yet be writing of that larger country: life.”
Donal Cameron is being raised by his grandmother, the cook at the legendary Double W ranch in Ivan Doig’s beloved Two Medicine Country of the Montana Rockies, a landscape that gives full rein to an 11-year-old’s imagination. But when Gram has to have surgery for female trouble in the summer of 1951, all she can think to do is to ship Donal off to her sister in faraway Manitowoc, Wisconsin. There Donal is in for a rude surprise: Aunt Kate – bossy, opinionated, argumentative, and tyrannical – is nothing like her sister. She henpecks her good-natured husband, Herman the German, and Donal can’t seem to get on her good side either. After one contretemps too many, Kate packs him back to the authorities in Montana on the next Greyhound. But as it turns out, Donal isn’t traveling solo: Herman the German has decided to fly the coop with him. In the immortal American tradition, the pair light out for the territory together, meeting a classic Doigian ensemble of characters and having rollicking misadventures along the way. Charming, wise, and slyly funny, “Last Bus to Wisdom” is a last sweet gift from a writer whose books have bestowed untold pleasure on countless readers.
Join us as we celebrate the life and work of Ivan Doig with a reading from “Last Bus to Wisdom” featuring David Laskin (bestselling author of “The Family” and “The Children’s Blizzard”) and Carol Doig.
Saturday, September 19, 7:00 p.m.
Amy Stewart, “Girl Waits with Gun” — Fiction
Presented in Partnership with The Bureau of Historical Investigation!
Constance Kopp doesn’t quite fit the mold. She towers over most men, has no interest in marriage or domestic affairs, and has been isolated from the world since a family secret sent her and her sisters into hiding fifteen years ago. One day a belligerent and powerful silk factory owner runs down their buggy, and a dispute over damages turns into a war of bricks, bullets, and threats as he unleashes his gang on their family farm. When the sheriff enlists her help in convicting the men, Constance is forced to confront her past and defend her family — and she does it in a way that few women of 1914 would have dared.
Amy Stewart is the award-winning author of six books, including the bestsellers “The Drunken Botanist” and “Wicked Plants.” She and her husband live in Eureka, California, where they own a bookstore called Eureka Books.
Sunday, September 20, 4:00 p.m.
Daniella Chace, “Turning Off Breast Cancer and Healing Smoothies”
Join us as Daniella Chace presents her two new books, “Turning Off Breast Cancer” and “Healing Smoothies.”
Daniella Chace, MSN, CN, is a nationally-recognized clinical practitioner, author and educator. Her vision is to empower people to improve their health with informed food choices. She is regarded as a leader in the field of medical nutrition therapy, has written books, columns and patient-care materials, appeared on radio and television, and is the creator and host of the Nutrition Minute. Ms Chace received both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Nutrition from Bastyr University in Seattle, WA, an institution considered to be one of the world’s leading academic centers for advancing knowledge in the natural health sciences. Her postgraduate training is in Environmental Medicine, completed at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and Health Sciences in Tempe, AZ. She is a Certified Nutritionist by the Washington State Department of Health, and is a member of the Society of Nutrition Education.
Monday, September 21, 7:00 p.m.
Jennifer Worick, “Things I Want to Punch in the Face”
Jennifer Worick had a bad day. And then a bad week. She channeled her aggravation into creating the blog “Things I Want to Punch in the Face,” which became a sensation. Although her bad week passed, she has continued to take note of the little irritations that torment us all daily. Family car stickers. Food in jars. Bizspeak. Yoga pants. Celebrity baby names. The Giving Tree. Airline boarding. It’s astounding how the little things can drive a person insane. And now the popular book is returning in a new, updated edition with a host of new aggravations, from #blessed and Paypal to cold-pressed coffee and special-occasion fleece. Jennifer takes aim and lets loose, so you don’t have to. #haveaniceday!
Jennifer Worick is a nice person…really. She is the New York Times–bestselling author of more than twenty-five books, including “The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating and Sex” and “Nancy Drew’s Guide to Life.” Named one of the four funniest bloggers in the US by Reader’s Digest, she’s written on everything under the sun for national magazines and websites like The Huffington Post, Allure, and Salon. A former publishing executive, Jennifer offers talks and workshops to help aspiring authors get published through The Business of Books (bizofbooks.com), and she regales college audiences with side-splitting but informative slide-show presentations based on her popular books. She lives in Seattle.
Wednesday, September 23, 7:00 p.m.
Franklin Veaux, “The Game Changer: A Memoir of Disruptive Love”
To make an open marriage work, Franklin and Celeste knew they needed to make sure no one else ever came between them. That meant there had to be rules. No overnights, no falling in love, and either one of them could ask the other to end an outside relationship if it became too much to deal with. It worked for nearly two decades—and their relentless focus on their own relationship let them turn a blind eye to the emotional wreckage they were leaving behind them. But the rules did not prepare them for Amber. This book is the true story of a game-changing relationship that changed not only Franklin and Celeste’s lives, but the face of the modern polyamory movement. A game-changing relationship can happen to anyone. How will you handle it when it happens to you?
Franklin Veaux is the co-author of “More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory,” and the author of the top-ranked polyamory website morethantwo.com. He has five partners and lives in Portland, Oregon, where he writes erotica and blogs about polyamory, BDSM, transhumanism, science and pseudoscience, and anything else that catches his attention.
Thursday, September 24, 7:00 p.m.
William Jolley, “Almost There: Stories and Musings Along the Pacific Crest Trail” — Memoir
In 2012, at the age of 70, G. William Jolley hiked the Washington State section of the Pacific Crest Trail solo. Beginning at the trailhead just yards north of the Columbia River Gorge, his journey covered hundreds of miles, crossing pristine creeks and rivers, trudging up switchbacks to high mountain passes and meandering through lush meadows. Along the way, he encountered a wide range of characters, and was inspired to reflect on the relationships, influences and meaningful moments of his life. “Almost There” will inspire readers to rethink whether a person is ever too old to go into the wilderness. Indeed, “old men and women ought to be explorers.”
William Jolley took to the mountains early in life, never ceasing to find time and place to return, sharing wilderness backpacking with his four children and day hiking with his wife. After nearly sixty years of strapping on a pack, he continues to hike in the Olympics and Cascades. He lives with his wife, Carla, and their two cats, Pork Chop and Petal, on an island in the Puget Sound. His next adventure will be the 100-mile Wonderland Trail that encircles Mount Rainier.
Friday, September 25, 7:00 p.m.
AC Fuller, “The Anonymous Source” — Fiction
One year after the 9/11 attacks, Alex Vane – a brilliant, carb-obsessed reporter for The New York Standard – wants nothing more than to break into the flashy world of TV news. But when he uncovers the scoop of a lifetime, his tightly controlled world is rocked: his editor buries his story, a source turns up dead, and Alex finds himself at the center of a violent media conspiracy. As he receives tips from a mysterious source, Alex enlists the help of a captivating professor, Camila Gray. Aided by an Internet genius, a billionaire’s sexy widow, and a washed-up sports reporter, Alex and Camila discover a $500-million secret that leads back to the morning of 9/11. It’s a secret that unearths dark memories from Alex’s past. And it’s a secret that could get them both killed.
A.C. Fuller is the creator and host of the WRITER 2.0 Podcast and an English teacher at Northwest Indian College. He previously taught journalism at New York University and worked as a freelance reporter. He now lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two children and is hard at work on the sequel to “The Anonymous Source.”
Saturday, September 26, 4:00 p.m.
Jay Jacobs, “The Widow Wave: A True Courtroom Drama of Tragedy at Sea” — Memoir
Will anyone ever know what happened to the Aloha, a sport fishing boat that vanished with all onboard in the Pacific Ocean off San Francisco’s coast? ‘Knowing’ is a complex, inexact business. There’s real truth and then there’s courtroom truth; a jury’s verdict may or may not approach what actually happened. Nor can someone reading about such an event—one that had no witnesses or hard evidence to explain it—be sure where the truth lies. But trials, judges, and juries are what we have in our legal system for finding truth. “The Widow Wave” centers on the passion-driven trial, pitting widow against widow, that resulted from the worst recreational fishing boat accident ever to happen in San Francisco’s long maritime history. Francis Dowd, his son, and three other men left San Francisco Bay on Dowd’s 34-foot boat for a day of salmon fishing out on the Pacific Ocean. The boat vanished under mysterious circumstances. There were no survivors or witnesses to whatever happened. Jay Jacobs was a relatively inexperienced lawyer when he was tasked with defending Dowd’s widow in the lawsuit that followed. What he learned about truth and the fragility of human life would stay with him for the rest of his career.
Jay Jacobs has been a member of the bar for 35 years, specializing in maritime law. Prior to law school, he was a sailor and then an officer in the merchant marine. He sailed on cargo ships, ore-carriers and tankers on voyages to Europe, Africa, India, the Far East, South America, the Persian Gulf and Japan. His experiences at sea provided him with unique qualifications to try this case, as the book reveals in its unfolding true-life drama.
Saturday, September 26, 7:00 p.m.
Christopher J. Jarmick, “Not Aloud” — Poetry
Christopher J. Jarmick’s “Not Aloud” delivers witty, refreshingly honest, personal, thought provoking poetry. Forget any pre-conceived notions of poetry you may have and get ready to be surprised!
Christopher J. Jarmick is well known throughout Western Washington as a tireless organizer and host of poetry readings, events, and festivals. Since 2000 he has encouraged scores of up and coming writers and poets and curated poetry readings for Nick Licata’s Wordsworth series before Seattle city council meetings, created a series of readings at Pike Place Market with Seattle’s Park and Recreation, and has, in collaboration, created performances blending acrobatics, dance, music and poetry. His poetry has been published by newspapers, magazines, literary journals, in anthologies, and on the internet, appearing in publications including Poetry Quarterly, Pedestal, Cambridge Book Review, Seattle Weekly, Pontoon and Real Change.
Wednesday, September 30, 7:00 p.m.
Thom Speidel, “Catastrophe Or Democracy: Who Decides?”
The life-sustaining systems of the earth are blinking red. A majority of US citizens want remedial action, but the will of the majority is being obstructed by a wealthy minority bent on greed and power. In short, our hijacked democracy cannot respond to the ecological emergency. This book proposes a solution.
Thom Speidel earned Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from the University of Washington, and was a business manager for 20 years. In the 1990s, his expanding societal and ecological concerns prompted a life transition that evolved into this book.
