Burlington

Meet New York Times bestselling author B.A. Shapiro: Don’t miss this golden opportunity for a fantastic reading and conversation! “She is terrific, and the book is a charmer,” says Phoenix Books co-owner Mike DeSanto.

About the book: On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art worth today over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist with her own scandalous past, is about to discover that that there's more to this crime than meets the eye.

"The Art Forger is clever and gripping story. Just like a fine painting, this is a many layered literary thriller about love, betrayal and authenticity. Shapiro builds the story with pitch perfect suspense and twists in plot you don't see coming. The Art Forger is a masterpiece." —IndieNext

Barbara Shapiro is the author of six novels (The Art Forger, The Safe Room, Blind Spot, See No Evil, Blameless and Shattered Echoes), four screenplays (Blind Spot, The Lost Coven, Borderline and Shattered Echoes) and the non-fiction book, The Big Squeeze. In her previous career incarnations, she has directed research projects for a residential substance abuse facility, worked as a systems analyst/statistician, headed the Boston office of a software development firm, and served as an adjunct professor teaching sociology at Tufts University and creative writing at Northeastern University. She likes being a novelist the best.

Find out how "swarm intelligence" is creating smarter phone systems inspired by creativity and collective wisdom of the common ant. Discover what happens when a visionary artist travels to Africa to bury the portraits of 23 primates who died in a Philadelphia zoo. Ponder how cultures as diverse as the Cherokee, Chinese, Egyptians, and ancient Hindus identified the night's brightest star with a canine spirit guide. Explore how meditation helps a Buddhist beekeeper fend off a disease that threatens most of the world's honeybees. These true stories and many more will make you laugh, weep, and marvel at the amazing creatures who share our planet.

Reverend Gary Kowalski is the minister emeritus of Burlington's First Unitarian Universalist Society, a graduate of Harvard College (B.A. 1977) and the Harvard Divinity School (M.Div. 1982) and the author of eight books on animals, history, science and spirituality. His work has appeared in periodicals like Tikkun and Yoga Journal, been translated into German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Czech, and been voted as a "Readers' Favorite" by the Quality Paperback Book Club. An Oklahoma native, he has made Burlington his home since 1989, where he has been active in Vermont's campaign for marriage equality, served on the State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and worked on behalf of animals with the Green Mountain Animal Defenders. He is married to former Chittenden County Public Defender Dori Jones.

Writing can be a solitary activity - but it doesn't have to be!  Join other writers for a NaNoWriMo write-in at Phoenix Books Burlington.

National Novel Writing Month is a fun,
seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing
on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175
page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in
NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. This
approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on
the fly. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving
yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and
editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

Browse for gifts while you enjoy live holiday music from many countries and many times.  Full Circle is a group of five women who play a mixture of medieval, Renaissance, Celtic, folk, and holiday music on recorders, tin whistle, harp, guitar, hammered dulcimer, percussion and voices. Their recordings will be offered for sale at the store.

Join us for a meet and greet and book signing with Vermont Wild author Megan Price! Meet the author behind two of Phoenix’s bestselling books of 2010 and 2011, Vermont Wild Volume 1 and Vermont Wild Volume 2. Megan will join us for the afternoon to talk about and sign her latest collection of Fish & Game Warden stories, Vermont Wild Volume 3. Come in and have Megan personalize a copy of Vermont Wild for the hunter or wildlife-watcher in your life.

What will you find in Vermont Wild Volume 3?  Wacky, true warden encounters with a cagey cougar, battlin’ beavers, wily woodchuck, monkeys with guns and a jinxed snowmobile; Bonus: memories of legendary warden, Red Hooper, and his dog, Smokey.
304 pages, illustrated by Bob Lutz, paperback.

Megan Price was born and raised in Vermont, worked as an award-winning journalist for many years and was elected to serve three terms in the Vermont House of Representatives. Her "Vermont Wild" book series, chronicling game warden' zany encounters with lovesick moose, hungry bears, rioting raccoons, wily poachers and stubborn hunting dogs are Vermont best-sellers.

Journey into the land of the Vikings to discover the history of Norse mythology - and much of our own mythology - with Nancy Marie Brown.

Famous storytellers such as JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman have drawn their inspiration from the long-haired, mead-drinking, marauding and pillaging Vikings. The author who gave us Nordic mythology is a twelfth-century Icelandic chieftain by the name of Snorri Sturluson. Like Homer, Snorri was a bard, writing down and embellishing the folklore and pagan legends of medieval Scandinavia. While his stories make great reading for children, the amazing world of medieval Scandinavia has been omitted from narrative history. In Song of the Vikings, award-winning author Nancy Marie Brown brings to life the intrigue and power struggles at the court of medieval Reykjav’k that Snorri inhabited. Drawing on new and original research, her deep knowledge of Icelandic history, and first-hand reading of the original medieval sources, Brown produces a richly textured narrative of a world that continues to fascinate. 

"For readers who've long sensed that older winds blow through the works of their beloved Tolkien, Song of the Vikings is a fitting refresher on Norse mythology. Without stripping these dark tales of their magic, Nancy Marie Brown shows how mere humans shape myths that resonate for centuries--and how one brilliant scoundrel became, for all time, the 'Homer of the North.' "--Jeff Sypeck, author of Becoming Charlemagne

"Nancy Marie Brown concludes her Song of the Vikings in truly constructive fashion with an absorbing essay on the reception of medieval Icelandic literature in the modern world, confirming the indelible signature of this sophisticated people on the texts of our global civilization, from Wagner and Tolkien to Thor (from Marvel Comics) and A.S. Byatt. Like her earlier The Far Traveler, on the expansive journeys of the Norse, Nancy Marie Brown's Song of the Vikings belongs in the hands of every discerning student of Western civilization."--Patrick J. Stevens, Curator, the Fiske Icelandic Collection, Cornell University Library

Nancy Marie Brown is the author of highly-praised books of nonfiction, including The Abacus and the Cross and The Far Traveler. Her work has also appeared in Loquitor, News from Iceland, The Penn Stater, Spektur, and Vermont Magazine. She is fluent in Icelandic and has deep ties to the Scandinavian cultural institutions in the US. Formerly the editor of award-winning magazine Research/Penn State, Brown lives in Vermont.

Join us for an evening of Anglo-Saxon poetry in translation when an all-star cast of local and regional poets comes together to read from The Word Exchange.  Don't miss David Barber, David Cavanagh, Michael Collier, Greg Delanty, Major Jackson, Jay Parini and Elizabeth Powell at Phoenix Books Burlington. Featuring 123 all-new translations by seventy-four of our most celebrated poets, The Word Exchange is as fascinating and multivocal as the original literature it translates.

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David Barber’s first book, The Spirit Level, won the Terence des Pres prize. His poetry and criticism have appeared in The Paris Review, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, and Poetry, and he has taught at MIT and Emerson College. He lives in the Boston area, and is The Atlantic's poetry editor.

 

 

 

David Cavanagh's poetry collections include The Middleman and Falling Body, both published by Salmon Poetry of Ireland. His poems have also appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the U.S. and abroad. He lives in Burlington, Vermont, and is an associate dean at Johnson State College.

 

 

Michael Collier's sixth book of poems, An Individual History, was published recently by W.W. Norton. He teaches in the creative writing program and the University of Maryland and is director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

 

 

Greg Delanty's latest book of poems is The Greek Anthology, Book XVII (Carcanet Press). Other recent books are Loosestrife (Fomite Press), The Word Exchange, Anglo-Saxon Poems in Translation (WW Norton), and his Collected Poems 1986-2006 (Carcanet Press). He has received many awards, most recently a Guggenheim for poetry. He teaches at Saint Michael’s College, Vermont. He is a Past President of The Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writer.

 

 

Major Jackson is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Holding Company (Norton: 2012). He serves as the poetry editor of the Harvard Review.

 

 

 

 

Jay Parini is a poet, novelist, biographer, and critic. He is the author of over 20 books, ranging from poetry and non-fiction to biographies as well as collections of essays. He has edited numerous books, including The Columbia Anthology, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature, and the Norton Book of American Autobiography. He lives in Weybridge, Vermont, where he has been on the faculty at Middlebury College since 1982.

 

 

Elizabeth Powell is the author of The Republic of Self and winner of the New Issues Prize in Poetry. She is the Co-Editor of the Green Mountains Review and is a professor at Johnson State College.

 

 

 

 

Join Dr. Lyn Carew to sift the wheat from the chaff of nutritional facts, fads, and fiction and take a well-informed and sensible approach to healthy foods and vitamins.

University of Vermont Professor Lyn Carew has compiled his informative, humorous, and engaging newspaper columns into a new book, Musings of a Vermont Nutritionist, A to Z: Antioxidants to Zinc. Carew has been touted by students and colleagues as “one of the very best nutrition educators in the country” and during his 42 years at the University of Vermont “he earned the teaching award so many times that a rule was made that a faculty member could only receive the recognition once.” Additionally, Carew has received the prestigious Kidder award and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s Vermont Professor of the Year award.

Lyndon B. Carew, Jr., PhD. received his education in nutrition, biochemistry, and endocrinology at Cornell University. Carew has held positions at the University of Vermont as Professor of Nutrition and Food Sciences and Professor of Animal Science since 1969. During his 42 years of teaching, Carew has received every teaching award possible including the most prestigious Kidder Award. He has also received two national teaching awards from the USDA and from the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture. In 1999, he was named Vermont Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Carew lives in Shelburne, Vermont and has two grown daughters, Leslie and Audre.

This is part of a series of events with Wind Ridge Publishing authors taking place at Phoenix Books Burlington this fall. WRP authors are all local residents; however, their books reflect a broad range of issues, experience, and global interests—from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters’ Rick Peyser and Bill Mares’ in Brewing Change, Peyser’s personal account of social responsibility and the lives of coffee farmers, to Vermont wildlife rehabilitator Helena Nicolay’s Squirrel Diaries and Shelburne veterinarian Dr. Steven Metz’s book, Exotic Tails. Other featured WRP releases include VPR commentaries from the Executive Director of the Vermont Humanities Council, Peter Gilbert’s I Was Thinking and Paul Boisvert’s photo essays in his coffee table book, Burlington ~ A Sense of Place.

 

It’s the long-awaited return of James Kochalka’s massively influential and deceptively ambitious autobiography, American Elf. Every day of his life is captured in a single comic strip, sometimes profound and sometimes silly, but always full of the earnest Kochalka passion that led Hi-Fructose to call him “an unrelenting force, sure to solve the oncoming energy crisis,” and earned him the title of Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont.

In Kochalka's latest collection, spanning the years 2008-2011, James becomes Laureate, celebrates American Elf’s 10th year, pitches a TV show to Hollywood, releases a GameBoy album, travels to France, creates his own video game, considers quitting the strip, plays everything from Lego Star Wars to Skyrim, digs deeper into his psyche, and kind of causes himself to have a nervous breakdown. Meanwhile Eli starts elementary school and starts a band, Oliver learns to walk and talk (and sing), James & Amy celebrate 15 years of marriage, and the family adopts a new cat, Nooko!