Fri., Sept. 9 — Sarah J. Maas, Empire of Storms (PURE Theatre, 5 pm)
Sun., Oct. 9 — Helen Stine, The Truthful Story
Tue., Oct. 18 — Vivian Howard, Deep Run Roots
Tues., Oct. 25 — Mary Alice Monroe, A Lowcountry Christmas
Fri. and Sat., Nov. 11 & 12 — YALLFest
Tue., Oct. 18, 5 – 8 pm, Blue Bicycle Books welcomes the star chef and creator of PBS’s A Chef’s Life and now author of Deep Run Roots (Little, Brown, 576 pp., hb.).
Join us at Whole Foods (923 Houston Northcutt Blvd., Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464) for Vivian’s Food Truck Tour. Tickets include a signed copy of Deep Run Roots as well as food from Vivian’s food truck. Buy tickets here.
Deep Run Roots is Vivian Howard’s comprehensive record of modern Southern cooking, filled with stories and more than 200 recipes that celebrate the flavors of her eastern North Carolina home.
Vivian Howard is the chef and owner of the acclaimed Chef and the Farmer restaurant in Kinston, NC, fifteen miles from her home of Deep Run. She trained under Wylie Dufresne and Sam Mason at WD-50 and was a member of the opening team at Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Spice Market in New York. The first woman since Julia Child to win a Peabody Award for a cooking program, she co-created and stars in the PBS series A Chef’s Life.
Join us Tues., Oct. 25, 12 pm for lunch with Mary Alice Monroe at High Cotton (199 East Bay St.). Mary Alice will talk and sign copies of her new book A Lowcountry Christmas (Gallery Books, hb., 384 pp., $20).
Tickets are $61 for a three-course meal and a signed copy of the book. A portion of ticket sales will benefit Pets for Vets, a program dedicated to rescuing shelter pets and pairing them with military veterans who could benefit from a companion animal.
About the book: In this poignant continuation of the Lowcountry Summer series, a wounded warrior and his younger brother discover the true meaning of Christmas.
About the author: Mary Alice Monroe is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels. She has received numerous awards, including the 2008 South Carolina Center Book Award for Writing, the 2014 South Carolina Award for Literary Excellence, the RT Lifetime Achievement Award, and the International Book Award for Green Fiction. An active conservationist, she lives in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.
Join us Sun., Oct. 9, 5 pm as Helen Stine discusses and signs copies of her new novel The Truthful Story (Cardinal Press, hb., 220 pp., $24).
About the book: When ten-year-old Genevieve Donovan’s Nannie dies mysteriously in the Lowcountry river she’s loved and lived near all her life, Genny and her family are heartbroken. In 1960s South Carolina, new industry is encroaching on old country, and Genny fears her grandmother may have gotten in the way of so-called progress. What’s more, ever since Nannie passed, Genny has been hearing and seeing things she’s not sure she can share with anyone except her mother, whose own grief is making it harder and harder to get through to her. As Genny struggles to understand justice, healing, and a world in which Nannie is gone but still present, The Truthful Story traces a family’s journey through the pain of loss and the survival of love.
About the author: Helen grew up near Charleston, in the heart of South Carolina’s Lowcountry. After receiving an English degree from the College of Charleston, she raised a family, traveled extensively, and pursued a career in education, but she never lost touch with the powerful sense of place and family her childhood home imbued in her.
Fri., Sept. 9, 5 pm, PURE Theatre, 477 King St. Sarah J. Maas will discuss and sign copies of Empire of Storms (Bloomsbury, 704 pp., hb.), the fifth installment in the Throne of Glass series. Aelin’s journey from assassin to queen has entranced millions across the globe, and this fifth novel will leave readers breathless.
Tickets are required and include a signed hardback copy of Empire of Storms and admission to the talk and signing. (Sarah will be in conversation with Charleston’s own Ryan Graudin author of Wolf by Wolf, followed by a Q&A.)
Purchase tickets here to reserve your space.
Questions? Please call the bookstore, 843.722.2666.
The talk will be at PURE Theatre, 477 King St. at 5 pm. Afterwards, Sarah will sign at Blue Bicycle Books, 420 King St..
Event Policies:
1) Sarah will sign one book per person. Please note this is a change in policy due to a hand injury. Sarah will have a special stamp for this tour and we can stamp 2 other books per person.
2) There will be no posed photos, but photos taken of the author during the event and from the line are fine.
3) We ask that no video be taken of the event.
About the book: The long path to the throne has only just begun for Aelin Galathynius. Loyalties have been broken and bought, friendships lost and garnered, and those who possess magic find themselves at odds with those who don’t.
As the kingdoms of Erilea fracture around her, enemies must become allies if Aelin is going to keep those she loves from falling to the dark forces. With war looming, the only chance for salvation lies in a desperate quest that may mark the end of everything Aelin holds dear. Will Aelin succeed in keeping her world from splintering, or will it all come crashing down?
About the author: Sarah J. Maas is the author of the New York Times bestselling Throne of Glass series: Throne of Glass, Crown of Midnight, Heir of Fire, Queen of Shadows, and the series’ prequel, The Assassin’s Blade; as well as the New York Times bestselling A Court of Thorns and Roses and A Court of Mist and Fury. A New York native, Sarah currently lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and dog.
Join us Mon., Aug. 22, 7:30 pm for a book-signing party with authors and presenters from this year’s BevCon, a multi-day event that brings national and international beverage and culinary professionals together here in Charleston.
Bartender Olin Cramer, from Cannon Green, will serve cocktails featuring spirits from Striped Pig Distillery in North Charleston. Aaron Hoskins and Sarah Simmons, from Birds & Bubbles in Manhattan, will also be making their own specialty called the “Dawg Gonet.” Food will be provided by Bohemian Bull Tavern & Beer Garden.
This event is free and open to the public, so everyone will have the chance to talk shop with some highly celebrated chefs and food writers, and even take home a signed copy of one of their books.
Join us Tue., Sept. 6, 12 pm for lunch with Holly Herrick at High Cotton (199 East Bay St.). Holly will talk and sign copies of her new book Mashed: Beyond the Potato (Gibbs Smith, hb., 184 pp., $25).
Tickets are $31 for three-course lunch and talk or $56 for lunch and book. Click here for tickets.
About the book: This fresh take on classic comfort foods includes not only delicious variants on mashed potato dishes, but also gratins, soups, dips, sauces, guacamoles, pâtés, casseroles, panna cottas, and sorbets made with a plethora of vegetables, fruits, beans, grains, nuts, eggs, and even meats. Hot or cold, savory or sweet, classic or innovative, rustic or elegant, Mashed shows that mashing doesn’t need to stop at just traditional mashed potatoes.
About the author: Holly Herrick is a bona fide lover of delicious food and life in general. Born in Alabama and raised in New England, Herrick’s roots hail back to rural life. She then attended Boston College as a journalism major, and began her food-writing career with a Grande Diplome in pastry and cuisine from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. She has written features and columns for many magazines, including Southern Living, Lowcountry Living, Bon Appetit, and more.
Join us Tues., Sept. 13, 5 pm as W. Scott Poole discusses and signs copies of his new book In the Mountains of Madness (Soft Skull Press, pb., 320 pp., $18).
About the book: More than a traditional biography, In the Mountains of Madness places Lovecraft and his work in a cultural context, as an artist more in tune with our time than his own. Poole offers his reading of Lovecraft in relation to the comics of Joe Lansdale, the novels of Stephen King, and some of the biggest blockbuster films in contemporary America, proving the undying influence of this rare and significant figure.
About the author: W. Scott Poole, who teaches at the College of Charleston, has written widely about American history, horror, and pop culture. His books include Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror and his award-winning history Monsters in America, which received the John G. Cawelti Prize from the Popular Culture Association and was named among the “Best of the Best” by the AAUP for 2011. Poole is a regular contributor to Popmatters and his work has appeared in the Huffington Post, Religions Dispatches, and Killing the Buddha.
Join us Fri., Aug. 26, 12 pm for lunch with Harry Farthing at High Cotton (199 East Bay St.). Harry will talk and sign copies of his new book Summit (Hawkridge, hb., 494 pp., $30).
Tickets are $31 for three-course lunch and talk or $61 for lunch and book. Click here for tickets.
Summit is an action-packed mountaineering adventure in which a mysterious discovery leads to breathtaking revelations about the world’s highest peak. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, Summit follows two climbers across two continents as their stories intertwine, culminating in one final push for the top of the world.
An Englishman born in Lynton, North Devon, Harry Farthing has had a lifelong interest in exploration, archaeology, and world history. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and has travelled widely to extreme environments such as the Sahara Desert, the Himalaya, the Amazon, and the Arctic North. He is an experienced mountaineer who has climbed Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn in the Alps, Mount McKinley in Alaska, Shishapangma (the highest mountain in Tibet), and even Mount Everest itself.
Join us Fri., Aug 12, 12 pm for lunch with John Lane at High Cotton (199 East Bay St.). John will talk and sign copies of his new book, Coyote Settles the South (UGA Press, hb., 200 pp., $30).
Tickets are $31 for three-course lunch and talk or $61 for lunch and book.
Coyote Settles the South is the story of Lane’s journey as he visits coyote territories: swamps, nature preserves, old farm fields, suburbs, a tannery, and even city streets. Along the way, he gains insight concerning the migration into the Southeast of the American coyote, an animal that, in the end, surprises him with its intelligence, resilience, and amazing adaptability.
John Lane teaches environmental studies at Wofford College, where he also directs the Goodall Center for Environmental Studies. In 1995 he co-founded a community press and literary arts organization in Spartanburg called The Hub City Writers Project. His poems have been published in magazines such as The Virginia Quarterly Review, Harvard Magazine, Ironwood, Ploughshares, and Nimrod, among many others.
