Current Events at Misty Valley Books

How Old Glory has been used throughout American history by the Right, the Left, and everyone in between unfolds in a fascinating series of stories in the upcoming Capture the Flag: A Political History of American Patriotism. Here Harvard-trained author Woden Teachout traces a complete history of the American flag and its uses and appropriations by groups as varied as radical Revolutionary sailors and Gilded Age businessmen, including stories of traumas it has suffered over the years as it has been burned, shot, spattered with tobacco juice, and stomped by muddy boats in protest at various turns. .

At the bookstore.

In an imposing house in the Colorado Rockies, Jericho Ainsley, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency and a Wall Street titan, lies dying. He summons to his beside Beck DeForde, the younger woman for whom he threw away his career years ago, miring them both in scandal. Beck believes she is visiting to say farewell. Instead, she is drawn into a battle over an explosive secret that foreign governments and powerful corporations alike want to wrest from Jericho before he dies. An intricate and timely thriller that plumbs the emotional depths of a failed love affair and a family torn apart by mistrust, Jericho’s Fall takes us on a fast-moving journey through the secretive world of intelligence operations and the meltdown of the financial markets.

At the bookstore.

David Bonta New Green Home Solutions June 14 at 7:00 PM


David Bonta is the owner/developer of USASolar Store, a licensing program that helped launch 15 successful entrepreneurial-based solar stores and is an expert on renewable energy. His book tells you how green living begins at home. He will discuss how we can create change with renewable energy design, better insulation, and more efficient appliances, winning our energy independence. Bonta has both a business and a home completely powered by solar energy. He drives biodiesel-powered vehicles. A reception and book signing will follow.

Free. At the bookstore.

Michael Palma returns with Four Wednesdays of New England Poets:
May 13 at 7:00 PM


Palma enthralled attendees with his "Frost in July" and Dante's Inferno series. He returns for four Wednesdays to discuss Longfellow, Dickinson, Robinson, and others. One each week. 1 ½ hour sessions.

Free. At the bookstore.

As the snow melts and spring approaches, the animal kingdom awakens. In Summer World, Heinrich, professor emeritus of Biology at the University of Vermont, brings us the same sense of wonder and reverence for animal life that we saw in Winter World, the Ingenuity of Animal Survival. In Summer World, he focuses on the animal kingdom in the extremes of warmer months. From frogs to wasps and caterpillars to hummingbirds and woodpeckers, Heinrich explores these animals' adaptations for surviving and procreating during the short window of summer and delights in the seemingly infinite feats of animal inventiveness he discovers there. Reception and book signing.

At the First Universalist Church, Route 103 North.

Friday, April 3 at 7:00 PM Celebrate Poetry Month with two celebrated poets: Wendy Mnookin and Baron Wormser

In her book, The Moon Makes its Own Plea , Mnookin explores the idea of self and how that self is strengthened and abraded by relationships. Anchored in everyday life, the narrative is fluid and the poems coalesce around the condition of mortality. Her poems probe this question with bravado, defiance, fear, anger, humor and hope. Mnookin graduated from Radcliffe College and the Vermont College MFA Program. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts.

Baron Wormser, author of Scattered Chapters, believes in the power of poetry. He grew up in Baltimore, moved to Maine in 1970, worked as a librarian for twenty-five years, teaching poetry along the way while he and his family lived off the grid on forty-eight acres. His memoir, The Road Washes Out in Spring tells that story. In 2000 he was appointed Poet Laureate of Maine and served in that capacity for six years, visiting schols and libraries throughout Maine. He currently resides in Cabot, Vermont and teaches at the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine.

Sunday, March 1 at 2:00 PM SPECIAL EVENT : Join The Boston Globe's Washington Bureau Chief, Peter Canellos, who will be in Chester to talk about The Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy.

The youngest of the Kennedy children, Edward Kennedy has witnessed greater tragedy and suffered greater pressure than any of his siblings and yet, once dismissed as a symbol of youthful folly and nepotism, and a spent force in politics after Chappaquiddick Island, has finally liberated himself from the expectations of others and has transformed himself into a symbol of wisdom and perseverance. At the bookstore.

Sunday, March 15 at 2:00 PM Bill Schubart , author of The Lamoille Stories, brings to life the friends and characters of his native Lamoille County where, in the late 1950's and early 1960's, life was lived close to the earth and often against the grain.

His collection of twenty-two stories captures Vermont in its transition from an enclave of hill farms and small towns where everyone knew your grandfather to a place where vehicles bearing license plates from "away" mix with hippie vans filled with born-again Vermonters getting back to the land.. that is.. until the snow falls. A poignant, funny and full-hearted evocation of a Vermont mostly forgotten. Sure to please, no matter what county you're from. At the bookstore.

New Voices 2009 January 31, 2009 at 2:00 at the First Universalist Church in Chester’s Stone Village, Route 103 North.

Join Misty Valley Books for its 15th year of featuring outstanding new authors in Chester, Vermont,
a quintessential New England town nestled in the Okemo Valley.

Hillary Jordan, Mudbound Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) writes that Hillary Jordan’s “characters walked straight out of the 1940s Mississippi and into the part of my brain where sympathy and anger and love reside, leaving my heart racing. They are still with me.” Jordan’s book tells the story of two families caught up in the blind hatred of a small Southern town and won the prestigious Bellwether Prize for Fiction. Jordan grew up in Texas and Oklahoma and received her MFA from Columbia. She lives in Tivoli, NY.	Michael Dahlie, A Gentleman’s Guide to Graceful Living Michael’s Dahlie’s book has been praised by Julia Glass, National Book Award-winning author of Three Junes: “I could so easily praise Michael Dahlie’s debut as a shrewdly cast comedy of manners or a mesmerizing tale of how the idle rich spend their money and time, but neither description would do it justice. What kept me avidly turning the pages was a far deeper, surprisingly affecting story.” It is the darkly hilarious and moving story of an upper-crust, self-doubting Manhattan everyman who must rebuild his life after his marriage and business fail.
Lewis Robinson, Water Dogs Robinson, whom Curtis Sittenfeld (American Wife) calls “a terrific writer” and whose book she terms “a smart, suspenseful, absorbing first novel”, is a graduate of Middlebury and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of Southern Maine and coaches middle-school basketball in Portland, where he lives with his wife and daughter. His prose is spare, sometimes very funny, and rolls along flawlessly, capturing the delicate patchwork of a Maine family.	Angela Von der Lippe, The Truth About Lou Angela von der Lippe has a doctorate in German literature from Brown and is a senior editor at W.W. Norton in New York City, where she lives. Colum McCann (This Side of Brightness and Dancer), himself a New Voice at Misty Valley Books in 1996, says of von der Lippe’s book: “The truth is often best told from the undusted corners. Angela von der Lippe manages to dignify the process of fiction, while also bringing forth a cast of history’s best characters. This is an alternative history, told with style, bravura, grace, depth and power.” It is the story of Lou Andreas-Salomé and her relationships with Nietzsche, Rilke and Freud.

Sunday, February 8 at 3:00 PM Remember spelling bees? Join the Weston Playhouse Theater Company at Misty Valley Books for an afternoon of fun and phonetics with a preview of the musical comedy The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Test your spelling against other adults and learn more about this hilarious tale of the over-achievers’ angst of six outsiders vying for the spelling championship of a lifetime. In the actual musical, four audience volunteers are recruited to participate on stage as guest spellers. Refreshments and fun.

Tuesday, February 10 at 7:00 PM Join SOVERA (Southern Vermont Astronomy Group) at Misty Valley Books to hear author Andrew Chaikin presenting a discussion and slide showoff his book, A Passion for Mars.


Chaikin is already famous for his history of the United States Apollo program, A Man on the Moon which was the basis for Tom Hank’s documentary series, From the Earth to the Moon. In a single volume, Chaikin has done more to incite interest in Mars than NASA has done in more than fifty years of trying to convince the public that Mars could become our next home. Andrew Chaikin knows Mars having served as an intern at he Jet propulsion Laboratory during the Mars Viking Lander program and has since become one of the world’s finest space exploration writers.

Sunday, December 14 @ 2:00 PM Come meet
author/illustrator Will Moses

Meet author/illustrator Will Moses who will sign his new book, Raining Cats and Dogs: A Collection of Irresistible Idioms and Illustrations to Tickle the Funny Bones of Young People. as well as his Night Before Christmas, Silent Night, and Hansel & Gretel.

Moses continues to carry on the rich tradition of folk art passed down from his grandfather Forrest K. Moses and his great- grandmother, Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as Grandma Moses. He works out of his studio at the Mount Nebo Gallery in Eagle Bridge, New York, next to the same white farmhouse where his legendary great- grandmother began her career. At the bookstore. Holiday refreshments!

Vermont Voices: Four Sundays in November
2:00 pm at the Stone Church
Chester, Vermont

Sunday, November 2
2 pm
Archer Mayor
The Catch

Archer Mayor reads from his 19th Joe Gunther mystery entitled The Catch. Set primarily in Maine, it focuses on the activities of Alan Budney, the disaffected son of an old-time lobsterman. The book begins in Vermont when a deputy sheriff is shot to death. Joe and the VBI get involved in the investigation and end up in Maine and a rendez-vous with Budney and his plans to usurp and replace Maine's biggest drug lord.

Sunday, November 9
2 pm
Gordon Hayward,
Art and the Gardener

Gordon Hayward presents a slide show and discussion on his new book, Art and the Gardener: Fine Painting as Inspiration for Garden Design. Hayward first presented his slide-illustrated lecture at The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1995. He has since refined and presented it at art museums and garden organizations across the country. Now he has turned it into a beautiful book about the visual language shared between painters and garden designers.

Chuck Wooster, associate editor at Northern Woodlands magazine, will introduce his book, Living With Pigs: Everything You Need to Know to Raise Your Own Porkers. Pigs are adorable, clean, friendly, and the fourth most intelligent creatures on the planet, just below humans, primates, and dolphins. They also make great bacon. Wooster's comprehensive guide to all things pig tells readers with a reassuring voice and plenty of entertaining anecdotes how easy it is to take care of a pig. Beautifully illustrated with full color photographs by Geoff Hansen.

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Sunday, November 23
2 pm
Peter Galbraith,
Unintended Consequences

Peter Galbraith, called by New York Times columnist David Brooks "the smartest and most devastating critic of President Bush's Iraq policies", returns to Chester to talk about his second book entitled Unintended Consequences: How the War in Iraq Strengthened America's Enemies. Former Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrook calls the book "angry and passionate" and adds that he hopes that "the next president absorbs the lessons of Galbraith's work and acts on them".

Wednesdays, September 17-October 15 7-8PM Join Michael Palma for A Guided Tour of Hell: Dante's Inferno.

For 700 years, Dante's Inferno has been acknowledged as a literary classic and regarded by the Italians as a national treasure. Readers all over the world respond to its direct and vivid style, its brilliant and often harrowing descriptions, and its gallery of unforgettable characters.

Michael Palma's translation, acclaimed by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Richard Wilbur, X.J. Kennedy, and other leading scholars, is the first American version in more than eighty years that preserves the terza rima format of the original. Participants will be expected to read a certain number of cantos each week in preparation for discussion.

Free. Reservations recommended. 875-3400
At the bookstore

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Sunday, October 19, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Peter Gould, Write Naked

Join Brattleboro author, theater performer, teacher, director, and clown Peter Gould (who is half of Gould & Stearns, Vermont's legendary and enduring theater duo) as he discusses his new book, Write Naked. It is the story of sixteen year old Victor, a thoughtful loner who tries to live his life "under the radar" and wants to test out the saying "You have to be naked to write". When he sneaks off with an old Royal typewriter to his uncle's cabin deep in the Vermont woods and strips off his clothes, he discovers a face in the window watching him-Rose Anna, a spectacular, home-schooled free spirit with an antique fountain pen and a passion to save the planet. Of course they fall in love, and this beautiful story challenges the conventional, stripping down the barriers and fears that shield us from vulnerability, reminding us of how very important it is to be thoughtful and brave. For adults and teenagers alike. A book signing and reception will be held after the reading.
At the bookstore

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Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 4:00 PM Physician Janet Horn, co-author with Robin H. Miller, M.D, of The Smart Woman's Guide to Midlife and Beyond, will present her new book.

Written by two practicing doctors who have been close girlfriends since they met during medical training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, The Smart Woman's Guide to Midlife and Beyond includes the doctors' own personal experiences, patient stories from their medical practices, and all the information you need to age with good health, grace and humor.
At the bookstore

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Sunday, July 20 at 4:00 PM Journalist & Vermont Public Radio personality Steve Delaney will read from his new book, Vermont Seasonings: Reflections on the Rhythms of a Vermont Year.
AT THE BOOKSTORE

Delaney, a former NBC correspondent in Tel Aviv who has covered wars on three continents, has turned to Vermont years and ways, opening with the March traditions of Town Meeting and ruminating on terms such as” flatlander”, “downcountry”, and “from away” with delightful, humorous twists, often from his own life. You’ll recognize his voice at once! Reception and book signing to follow. At the bookstore

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Friday, July 25 at 6:30 PM Cornelia Read returns to Misty Valley Books to read and discuss her second book, The Crazy School.
AT THE BOOKSTORE

Loosely based on her own experiences in a school for troubled teenagers in western Massachusetts, Read has created a chilling novel about a school controlled by a headmaster with a hidden agenda. Madeline Dare, who has signed on as a teacher at Santangelo Academy, must join forces with a small group of the school's most violently rebellious students who may prove to be her only chance of survival. Dinner afterwards at The Fullerton Inn. Reservations please. 875-2444
At the bookstore

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Saturday, July 26 and Sunday, July 27 Meet John Dau, President of the John Dau Foundation and several others of the Lost Boys of Sudan.

Join us in Brattleboro on Saturday and at the home of gardeners Gordon & Mary Hayward in Westminster West on Sunday for a fundraiser which will feature screenings of the documentary God Grew Tired of Us (Friday) and an afternoon of African music, food, and African concessions with the opportunity to talk to Mr. Dau and other Lost Boys (Sunday). Misty Valley Books will be there with books on Africa. More information to come..

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Saturday & Sunday, July 26 & 27 The Lost Boys of Sudan- A Benefit with John Dau

Join one of the Lost Boys, John Dau, of the John Dau Foundation for an African weekend:





Saturday, July 26 at 4:00 PM Latchis Theater, Brattleboro, VT
$10 at the door
Kora Master Youssoupha Sidibe
Screening of the film "God Grew Tired of Us"

Q & A with John Dau and other Lost Boys of Sudan 6:30-8:30 PM
$30
Reservations Only Buffet
Reception at The Riverview Café and cash bar by Windham Wines for John Dau & the Lost Boys

Sunday, July 27 1:00-5:00 PM Hayward Garden, Westminster West, VT
(call for directions)
Concert & Conversation Concert with Kora Master Youssoupha Sidibe African Drumming Malian Food Booth Group Discussions with Lost Boys Books on Africa will be available for sale courtesy of Misty Valley Books.

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Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 7:00 PM Professor of Law at Yale University and author Stephen L. Carter will present his third book, Palace Council

In the summer of 1952, twenty prominent men gather at a secret meeting on Martha’s Vineyard and devise a plot to manipulate the President of the United States. Soon after, the body of one of these men is found by Eddie Wesley, Harlem’s rising literary star. When Eddie’s younger sister, a Harvard Law graduate, mysteriously disappears, Eddie and the woman he loves, Aurelia Treene, are pulled into what becomes a twenty year search for the truth. Carter’s novel is as complex as it is suspenseful and his ability to turn stereotypes inside out make Palace Council an enthralling read. Book signing and reception to follow.

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Sunday, May 18 at 4:00 PM, Former Vermont Life editor Tom Slayton will discuss his book, Searching for Thoreau: On the Trails & Shores of Wild New England.
AT THE BOOKSTORE

Slayton has written ten vivid essays that transport the reader to places in New England which were important to Thoreau. He retraces Thoreau’s steps from Cape Cod to the deep Maine Woods while attempting to encounter and understand Henry David Thoreau through place. “An unfailingly entertaining literary memoir’, says Howard Frank Mosher.








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Friday, June 13 @ 7:00 PM Simon Winchester reading from his new books, The Man Who Loved China: Joseph Needham & The Making of a Masterpiece
AT THE FIRST UNIVERSALIST CHURCH

Winchester has written the true account of the life of an Oxford don- and socialist- who set out to show the extraordinary advances of Chinese technology and science that produced discoveries pre-dating those of the west. Fascinated by China, Joseph Needham bravely set out to China during the Japanese occupation, World War II, and the take-over by the Communists to do his research, having amazing adventures and creating an admirable multi-volume history of science in China.

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Friday, April 25, 2008 at 7:00 PM An Evening of Poetry with Pat Fargnoli (Duties of the Spirit), Tim Mayo (The Loneliness of Dogs), and Leland Kinsey (The Immigrant’s Contract). Join us as these three New England poets read from their latest works.
AT THE BOOKSTORE

Tim Mayo

Leland Kinsey

Pat Fargnoli

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Friday, May 2 at 7:00 Reeve Lindbergh talks about her newest book, Forward From Here- Leaving Middle Age.. and Other Unexpected Adventures.
AT THE BOOKSTORE

In her funny and wistful new book, Reeve Lindbergh contemplates entering a new stage of life, turning sixty. As a true Lindbergh she says,”Time flies, but if I am willing to fly with it, then I can be airborne, too.” Age is but one of the many subjects that she writes about with perception and insight. Living in northern Vermont, nature is a big part of her life as is family, including her new family, having found, thirty years after his death, that her father had three secret families in Europe.

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Sunday, May 4 at 4:00 PM Nicholas Daniloff, author of The Kremlin and the Cosmos and Two Lives, One Russia, will talk about his newest book, Of Spies & Spokesmen. AT THE BOOKSTORE


Daniloff tells the riveting story of his life as a foreign correspondent during the Cold War, including his imprisonment there and the forces that led to the presidency of Mikhail Gorbachev. A professor of Journalism at Northeastern University, Daniloff lives in
Andover, Vermont & Cambridge with his wife, Ruth.

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Sunday, May 11 @ 4:00 Randall Balmer, author of God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush. AT THE BOOKSTORE

Balmer, professor of religious history at Barnard College, Columbia University has published widely. He is a senior editor for Christianity Today and his commentaries on religion have appeared in newspapers across the country. His book, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America was made into a PBS documentary for which he was nominated for an Emmy. He also wrote a second documentary for PBS on Billy Graham: Crusade, The Life of Billy Graham. Balmer is an Episcopal priest and visiting professor at Yale University and Dartmouth College

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Sunday, April 6 at 4:00 PM Chester author Michael Caduto will present his book Everyday Herbs in Spiritual Life: A Guide to Many Practices.

Caduto has written an interesting book which integrates herbs into everyday spiritual life. He discusses meditations and prayer ceremonies throughout history, shows how to create a spiritual herb garden, recommends birth and end-of-life rituals, blessing ceremonies for garden and worship space, and recommends herbs for healing the troubled spirit.

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Sunday, February 10 at 4:00 Castle Freeman, Jr.
reading from his newest book, Go With Me

Newfane , Vermont author Freeman has written a gripping tale of determination set in the Vermont hill country. The local villain, Blackway, is making life hellish for Lillian, a woman from away. She finds unlikely allies- Lester, a crafty old-timer, and Nate, a powerful, naïve young man. A fascinating fable-like story of a community and the nature of choices. At the bookstore.



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New Voices 2008  - January 26, 2008 at 2:00 and 7:30 at the First Universalist Church
in Chester’s Stone Village

Confirmed authors:

James Collins, Beginner’s Greek	Aoibheann Sweeney, Among Other Things, I’ve Taken Up Smoking
Pamela Thompson, Every Past Thing	James Canon, Tales From the Town of Widows
Nora Pierce The Insufficiency of Maps	Emily Mitchell The Last Summer of the World
New Voices 2008 Schedule Saturday, January 26. 2008 9:30-11:30 at Grafton Ponds Cross country ski or snowshoe with the authors (check with Grafton Ponds for rental and trail cost) www. graftonponds.com 2:00 PM Afternoon Reading at First Universalist Church, Route 103 North, Chester, VT Free 5:00 PM Wine & Cheese with the authors in front of the fire (cash bar) at The Fullerton Inn, On the Green, Chester, VT 5:30 PM Dinner with the authors at The Fullerton Inn (Reservations please 802 875-2444) 7:30 PM Evening Reading at First Universalist Church, Route 103 North, Chester, VT Free There will be a reception and book signing after each reading at The Stone Church. Many inns and B & B’s will be offering special New Voices packages. Go to www.chesterlodging.com
Tales from the Town of Widows by James Canon The men of a fictional Columbian mountain town have been marched off to fight in a decades-long guerilla war. The women left behind resign themselves to littered streets, no electricity or water, and starvation until one day, Rosalba, the widow of the police sergeant, declares herself magistrate and promises to restore law and order. The utopia that emerges is ironically the ideal society the guerilla group claims to promote. Magical.
The Insufficiency of Maps by Nora Pierce Pierce, the daughter of a Lebanese mother and American Indian father, tracks the odyssey of a young girl trying to find her home and her identity without a reliable guide. Five-year-old Alice lives nomadically with her schizophrenic mother who makes life enchanting for her daughter, enthralling her with stories of their Quechan history and legends. Returning to their Arizona reservation after a long absence to live with Alice’s father who is still deeply in love with his wife, Alice finds a sense of community, tradition and heritage that ends when her mother becomes ill and she is placed with a white foster family in the suburbs. Pierce asks probing questions about identity and culture.
Among Other Things, I’ve Taken Up Smoking by Aoibheann Sweeney Part sexual awakening, part family mystery, Sweeney’s book is animated by the hungry perceptions of a young woman who leaves her widowed father behind on a remote island in Maine to find her place in teeming New York City. When Miranda graduates from high school, her brilliant father, who had moved from Manhattan to Maine to work on a translation of Ovid, sends her to live with friends from his old life and she embarks on a journey from one island to another- a journey that will finally reveal the truth about her father’s past.
Beginner’s Greek by James Collins Collins has written a modern Victorian novel- farcical, poised, astringent, generous. It’s the story of Peter Russell, an everyman filled with longing, lust, and good sense. His story of love in modern times with all its missed opportunities is so engaging and real that it is impossible to put down. Collins is a skeptic, a realist and a fervent romantic all in one.
The Last Summer of the World by Emily Mitchell Mitchell has written an enchanting story of photographer Edward Steichen and his life in France just before and during World War I. Steichen lived a magical life in eastern France with his wife and two children until the war, then did aerial reconnaissance and photography of the French/German lines for the U.S. Army, developed friendships with the sculptor Rodin and Isadora Duncan and saw his personal life fall apart. Like Steichen’s photographs, Mitchell’s prose shimmers with incandescent light and intriguing shadows and evokes the spell of creativity and the pain of rupture. This is historical fiction at its finest.
Every Past Thing by Pamela Thompson In 1899, the streets of New York were as unsettled as the heart and mind of Mary Jane Elmer. Transcendentalist ideas were still in the air, Emma Goldman spoke to the disenfranchised in Union Square, and women were redefining their roles for the coming century, Mary, still grieving the death of her daughter ten years earlier and solitary in her marriage to an intractable and distant artist, struggles to shape a future she can endure. An intimate and moving family portrait during the late nineteenth century. ............................................................................................

Sunday, December 30 at 4:00 (re-scheduled) - Singer, harpist & composer Carol Wood and poet John Wood will delight us with a holiday concert/reading

Carol Wood, who draws her inspiration from great poets like William Blake & W.B.Yeats and from ancient Celtic music, will play & sing pieces from The Beasts of Bethlehem and other holiday songs.




John Wood, an award-winning poet, art critic, and photographic historian will read some of his poems related to Christmas and the winter season.

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Vermont Voices: Four Sundays in November at 2:00 at the First Universalist
Church in Chester:

November 4, 2007 - Archer Mayor reading & discussing his 18th Joe Gunther mystery: Chat dealing with internet crime

November 11, 2007 - Howard Frank Mosher discussing (and showing slides) his new book, On Kingdom Mountain, the story of Miss Jane Kinneson, an endearing as she is odd librarian, bird carver, and avid hunter & fisherman and her heroic efforts to save her ancestral mountain from development

November 18, 2007 - Jeffrey Lent presenting his new book, A Peculiar Grace. Set in the art scene of postwar New York, a commune in the early seventies, and contemporary small town New England, it is the story of Hewitt Pearce who must confront his own dark history and rediscover human connection as he faces the heartbreaking losses that nearly destroyed his father and himself.

November 25, 2007 - Ron Powers & John Baldwin discussing their book, Last Flag Down, The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship

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Sunday, October 28 at 4:00: Marlboro College professor Joseph Mazur presents his new book, The Motion Paradox: The 2500 Year-old Puzzle Behind All the Mysteries of Time & Space

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The Savior by Eugene Drucker

Saturday, November 3 at 12:00: Luncheon & Reading with Emerson String Quartet founding member Eugene Drucker who will discuss his book, The Savior

World renowned violinist Drucker has written a haunting novel of a non-Jewish German musician forced to play for concentration camp inmates in the waning days of World War II. Offering a startling juxtaposition of the intense beauty of the European classical music tradition with the indescribable horrors of the Final Solution, The Savior offers a perceptive character study that ponders ageless questions of the Holocaust- its inhuman impulses and its origins in the same highly humanistic culture that produced Bach, Beethoven and other peerless geniuses of the German music tradition.

Book discussion and lunch at The Fullerton Inn next door to Misty Valley Books. Lunch & book $35. Lunch only $15. Reservations please: 802 875-2444

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Friday, October 12 at 7:00 PM Kate Braestrup discussing her book, Here if You Need Me.

When Braestrup’s trooper husband was killed in a car crash, she took up his dream of going to seminary and became a chaplain for the Maine Warden Service. Her book is powerful, poignant, and inspirational. At the First Universalist Church in Chester’s Stone Village.

Kate Braestrup speaking at the First Universalist Church in Chester’s Stone Village.

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Sunday, October 21 at 4:00 PM Todd McLeish discussing his book, Golden Wings & Hairy Toes: Encounters with New England’s Most Imperiled Species

Co-sponsored with the Ascutney Mountain Audubon Society. At the First Universalist Church in Chester’s Stone Village.



McLeish profiles fourteen of New England’s most rare and endangered flora & fauna- mammals, birds, insects, plants, and fish- followingbiologists who are researching and protecting them. McLeish traps bats in Vermont and lynx in Maine, gets attacked by marauding birds in Massachusetts, and observes the metamorphosis of dragonflies in Rhode Island. His goal is to make an emotional connection to a variety of fascinating animals and plants and to show us how we can meet the immense challenges to species preservation. He works at the University of Rhode Island and has published more than 100 articles on wildlife topics for such publications as Bird Watcher’s Digest, Wild Bird, and Northern Woodlands.




Todd McLeish at the First Universalist Church in Chester’s Stone Village.

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Sunday, May 27 at 4:00 - Syndicated columnist Henri de Marne, whose column First Aid for the Ailing House has been a lifesaver for homeowners throughout the US & Canada for 32 years, will talk about his book, About The House with Henri de Marne and will maybe answer a few questions about your house that you have been dying to ask. Homeowners & contractors alike will find this a fascinating afternoon. -- At the bookstore

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Thursday, May 31 at 7:00 PM - Mt. Ascutney Audubon & Misty Valley Books welcome environmentalist, Middlebury professor, and author Bill McKibben to talk about his newest book, Deep Economy, The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future.
-- At the First Universalist Church.











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Sunday, May 20 at 4:00 - Author/gardener/designer Gordon Hayward will present his two newest books, Tending Your Garden and Small Buildings Small Gardens with a slide show and discussion on creating gardens around structures and tending your garden year round. -- At the bookstore

    





February 15 at 7:00 - SOVERA (Southern Vermont Astronomy Group) will meet at Misty Valley Books to hear a presentation by astrophysicist John Thorstensen of Dartmouth College. He will discuss how our very existence is the product of a series of critical stellar events.

March 4 at 3:00 - Misty Valley Books & Whiting Library welcome Weston Playhouse director Steve Stettler who will lead a discussion on the upcoming production (July 25-August 19, 2007) of Caryl Churchill’s play, A Number. What would happen if you discovered you had a clone -or more than one? Three sons of “a number” of possible clones confront their father about identity, the responsibilities of science, and the depths of filial ties. A fascinating look at the human consequences of genetic engineering. Scripts available at Misty Valley Books & Whiting Library.

Sunday, March 11 at 4:00 - Chris Graff, former Vermont Bureau Chief for the Associated Press, will discuss his newest book, Dateline Vermont: The inside story of how Vermont transformed itself from a rural, Republican outpost into the state of Howard Dean, Jim Jeffords, Pat Leahy, and Bernie Sanders. At the bookstore.






Sunday, March 18 at 4:00 - Stephen Kiernan, Last Rights:
Rescuing the End of Life From the Medical System.









  New Voices 2007 Saturday, January 27, 2007 at 2:00 PM & 7:30 PM First Universalist Church in Chester

Join Misty Valley Books for its 13th year of featuring outstanding new authors in Chester, Vermont, a quintessential New England town nestled in the Okemo Valley. The readings will take place on Saturday, January 27, 2007 at 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM at the First Universalist Church in Chester’s Stone Village, Route 103 North.

Charles Davis, Angel’s Rest	Alex Berenson, The Faithful Spy	Bruce Bauman, And the Word Was
Kris Holloway, Monique & The Mango Rains	Carolyn Turgeon	Layne Maheu, The Song of the Crow

 Sunday, February 4, 2007 - (4:00 PM) - Marc Estrin Golem’s Song

Who but Marc Estrin could imagine the line of descent from the Frankenstein Golem of Rabbi Loew to the outrageous false messiah of the Bronx, Nurse Alan Krieger. Like each of Estrin’s novels, Golem Song is an allusive, insightful, and wildly comic approach to the most serious and difficult cultural questions of our time. Estrin has been a New Voice, a Vermont Voice, and is a cellist and activist living in Burlington, Vermont.

 Sunday, February 11, 2007 - (4:00 PM) - Storyteller Annie Hawkins

Join us at Misty Valley as storyteller Annie Hawkins returns, this time to tell love stories in honor of Valentine’s Day. Anyone who has heard Annie knows that her stories are about the unexpected and are poignant, funny, and incredibly moving. Take your Valentine afterwards for a light supper at The Moon Dog Café.

Sunday, December 17 from 1:00-2:00 Vermont artist & sculptor Stephen Huneck will be at Misty Valley Books with his black lab, Sally, to sign books and to talk about his life with dogs.

Huneck has written and illustrated a series of children’s books including The Dog Chapel, Sally Goes to the Mountains, Sally Goes to the Farm, Sally Goes to the Beach, Sally Goes to the Vet, and his newest, Sally’s Snow Adventure. Holiday refreshments for dogs and people will be served!

Sally and Betty Boyd

Sunday, October 29, 2006 Annie Hawkins, The Witching Hour: Women on the Edge

In honor of Halloween, Annie Hawkins will tell her original stories and traditional tales of healers and seers. Destiny compels these extraordinary women to live on the edge of society working in consort with nature for the benefit of people who both use them and abuse them. Not to be missed (*not for children).

November 5, 2006 Archer Mayor, The Second Mouse

His newest and best Joe Gunther mystery set in Bennington, Vermont.

November 12, 2006 Jeff Danziger, Blood, Debt, and Fears

Political cartoonist Danziger will present a slide show with commentary of his best cartoons including his newest book of political cartoons on the Bush Administration.





November 19, 2006 Ron Powers, Mark Twain

Middlebury professor Powers will present his exceptional biography of one of America’s greatest writers.

P. Galbraith left and S. Ritter right

Saturday, October 7, 2006 7:00 PM First Universalist Church


Scott Ritter & Peter Galbraith,
Iraq & the Middle East

Scott Ritter was the top UN weapons inspector to Iraq. In his book Iraq Confidential, Ritter reveals in detail how the CIA manipulated and sabotaged the work of UN departments to achieve the U.S.'s hidden foreign policy agenda in the Middle East. His newest book, Target Iran, tells the truth about the White House’s plans for regime change in Iran

Peter Galbraith, former (and first) U.S. Ambassador to Croatia is the Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control & Non Proliferation. His book The End of Iraq is a tough-minded, clear-eyed description of America’s failed strategy in Iraq and what needs to be done to avoid a spreading, dangerous and deadly civil war.

The authors will have an open conversation with the audience about Iraq and the Middle East after their presentations.

Reception and book signing to follow.

Saturday, August 19, 2006 at 5:00 PM Cornelia Read, author of A Field of Darkness Dinner at The Fullerton Inn

Read, who has ties to nearby Weston, Vermont, has written a smart stylish mystery about the fascinating, little-understood, and deeply American theme of old money. Author Lee Child (who invited her to do a joint book tour) says that her book is” completely captivating- wry, knowing, hip, intelligent, exciting- one of the best debuts I’ve seen.” Need we say more?

  Summer Gourmet Mystery Series

John Hilferty	Archer Mayor	Cornelia Read

Join us three Saturday evenings this summer to listen to and dine with three great mystery writers. Each month we will host a mystery writer who will read from and discuss his/her book. Afterwards, we will have dinner at The Fullerton Inn on the Green in Chester -just steps from Misty Valley Books- (except June when we will have a light dinner at the Moon Dog Café) with the author. A great opportunity to learn how mysteries are written and meet the people who write them.

Friday, May 5, 2006 at 7:00 PM at the bookstore

Local author Amanda Clark will read from her newest book of poems, Flying Fall. A book signing and reception will follow.

  Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 4:00 PM at the bookstore

Gary Margolis, Fire in the Orchard: Poems

Margolis, a professor at of English at Middlebury College speaks in a deceptively quiet but urgent voice of what often goes unspoken between people, the distance we keep, and the mortality we bear. He will read from his poems in celebration of National Poetry Month. A book signing and reception will follow.

Tim Gallagher, The Grail Bird, The Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

Misty Valley Books and the Ascutney Mountain Audubon Society are co-sponsoring this remarkable author who will give a unique and personal perspective on what could be one of the most significant ornithological events of the past hundred years.

Picnic before the event on the church grounds. Call for details 875-3400.

March 12, 2006 @ 2:00 PM at the First Universalist Church

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III, My Year in Iraq

Ambassador Bremer spent fourteen danger-filled months as America’s proconsul in Iraq following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Facing daunting problems working with Iraq’s traumatized and divided population, he worked tirelessly to find a path to help the Iraqis form a responsible, representative government. This is a riveting memoir that carries the reader behind closed doors in Baghdad during the most intense months of the occupation.

Friday, November 18, 2005 at 7:00 PM
Charles Mann, 1491, New Revelations about the Americas Before Columbus

In conjunction with the Ascutney Mountain Audubon Society, Misty Valley Books presents Charles Mann, author of the best-seller, 1491: New revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. In a book that startles and persuades, Mann reveals that in 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than Europe, that certain cities, such as Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, had running water and immaculate streets, that pre-Colombian Indians were masters at genetic engineering of corn, just to name a few. A fascinating study.

Sunday, October 16, 2005 @4:00 PM
David Bates Russell, Verses From a Vermont Hilltop

Springfield poet & nonagenarian Dave Russell reads from his book of poetry chronicling the machine tool industry in Springfield and his more than 50 years in Vermont.

Sunday, August 21, 2005 @ 4:00
Frances Winfield Bremer, Running to Paradise

Frances Bremer has written the true story of a Catholic priest, Father Frank, who is training for the NYC marathon. Bremer was moved to write about this former television sportscaster who looked like Tom Cruise to understand why he decided to devote his life to the priesthood. Reception and book signing to follow at the bookstore.

Lynne Reed and Frances Bremer

October 24, 2004 at 4:00 PM

Misty Valley Books welcomes back former New Voice Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Mirror, Mirror, and now Leaping Beauty and Other Animal Fairy Tales. He will read from Leaping Beauty, an adaptation for younger children (grades 8-12) of well-known fairy tales. Children and adults as well will enjoy “Little Red Robin Hood”, “Goldifox”, “Cinderelephant”, and more. At the bookstore.

November 21, 2004     David Moats, Civil Wars, A Battle for Gay Marriage
-More than an essay on gay marriage, Civil Wars is a remarkable  account of democracy (in this case, Vermont's) in action and a revealing story of individual lives swept up in the whirlwind of social change. Moats won the Pulitzer Prize for this series of editorials written for the Rutland Herald.

November 28, 2004     Marjorie Pivar & Quang Van Nguyen, Fourth Uncle in the Mountain -Thau Van Nguyen, who lived in South Vietnam during the French and American wars, was one of the highest ranking Vietnamese monks in that country. At the age of 64 he adopted an orphaned infant, Quang, co-author with Marjorie Pivar, who now practices traditional Asian medicine in Vermont.  A magical, mesmerizing story of Vietnam's anguished history, of healing, faith and a young boy's coming of age.

Slide show and presentation.  

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