Thursday, January 18, 2018
Join us Fri., Feb. 23, 12 pm for lunch at 5 Faber, as Peter Zheutlin discusses his new book Rescued (Penguin Books, pb., 256 pp., $16). Tickets are $31 for the three-course luncheon and talk, or $47 including a signed copy of the book.
Get tickets here.
In the follow-up to his New York Times bestseller Rescue Road, acclaimed journalist Peter Zheutlin offers a heartwarming and often humorous new look into the world of rescue dogs. Sharing lessons from his own experiences, Zheutlin reveals the surprising and inspiring life lessons rescue dogs can teach us, such as:
– How to “walk a mile in a dog’s paws” to get a brand-new perspective
– Living with a dog is not one continuous Hallmark moment—but it’s never dull!
– Why having a dog helps you see your faults and quirks in a new light, even if you can’t “shed” them completely
– How to set the world right, one dog at a time
Peter Zheutlin is a freelance journalist and author whose work has appeared regularly in The Boston Globe and The Christian Science Monitor. Mr. Zheutlin has also written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, AARP Magazine and numerous other publications in the U.S. and abroad. He is the author of the bestseller Rescue Road: One Man, Thirty Thousand Dogs and a Million Miles on the Lost Hope Highway (Sourcebooks, 2015). Peter is a graduate of Amherst College and Boston College Law School and resides in Massachusetts with his wife, author Judy Gelman.
Thursday, January 11, 2018
Our good friend Mayor Riley asked us to pass this information along. Edward Ball has been invited to give a guest lecture at The Citadel next Tues., Jan. 23, at 3:30 pm. Afterwards there will be time to meet and talk with Mr. Ball about his books.
Join us Fri., Feb. 2, 12 pm for lunch at High Cotton (199 East Bay St.), as Christina Baker Kline discusses her newest novel A Piece of the World (William Morrow, hb., 320 pp., $28).
Tickets ($31) are available here.
An instant New York Times bestseller, A Piece of the World delves into the relationship between the artist Andrew Wyeth and the subject of his best-known painting, Christina’s World. As she did in Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline interweaves fact and fiction in a powerful novel that illuminates a little-known part of America’s history. Bringing into focus the flesh-and-blood woman behind the portrait, Kline vividly imagines the life of a woman with a complicated relationship to her family and her past, and a special bond with one of our greatest modern artists.
Christina Baker Kline has written six other novels–Orphan Train, Orphan Train Girl, The Way Life Should Be, Sweet Water, Bird in Hand, and Desire Lines–and written or edited five works of nonfiction. Orphan Train spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, including five weeks at # 1, and was published in 40 countries.
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Join us Sat., Jan. 20, 1 pm as National Book Award winner Neal Shusterman discusses and signs the newest installment in his Arc of a Scythe series, titled Thunderhead (Simon and Schuster, hb., 512 pp., $19).
The Thunderhead cannot interfere in the affairs of the Scythedom. All it can do is observe—it does not like what it sees.
A year has passed since Rowan had gone off grid. Since then, he has become an urban legend, a vigilante snuffing out corrupt scythes in a trial by fire. His story is told in whispers across the continent. As Scythe Anastasia, Citra gleans with compassion and openly challenges the ideals of the “new order.” But when her life is threatened and her methods questioned, it becomes clear that not everyone is open to the change.
Will the Thunderhead intervene? Or will it simply watch as this perfect world begins to unravel?
Neal Shusterman is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty award-winning books for children, teens, and adults, including The Unwind Dystology, The Skinjacker trilogy, Downsiders, and Challenger Deep, which won the National Book Award. Scythe, the first book in his newest series Arc of a Scythe, is a Michael L. Printz Honor Book. The father of four children, Neal lives in California. 
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Join us Fri., Jan. 26, 12 pm for lunch at High Cotton (199 East Bay St.), as South Carolina native Michel Stone discusses her newest novel Border Child (Nan A. Talese, hb., 272 pp., $27).
Tickets ($31) are available here.
About the book: For Héctor and Lilia, pursuit of the American Dream became every parent’s worst fear when they were separated from their infant daughter as they crossed from Mexico to the United States. Now they must try to get her back. Border Child drops readers into the whirlwind of the contemporary immigrant experience, where a marriage is strained to the breaking point by the consequences of wanting more for the next generation. With great empathy and a keen awareness of current events, Michel Stone delivers a novel of surpassing sensitivity and heart.
About the author: Michel Stone has previously published a novel called The Iguana Tree, as well as more than a dozen stories and essays in various journals and magazines. She is a 2011 recipient of the South Carolina Fiction Project Award. She is a graduate of Clemson University with a Master’s Degree from Converse College, and she is an alumna of the Sewanee Writers Conference. Raised on Johns Island, Michel now lives in Spartanburg.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
We’re closing a little early tonight (7 pm) for our staff party. Thanks for all your support this year!
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Join us Tues., Nov. 21, 7 pm as John Lane and Scott Gould discuss their new books. John will be reading from a new poetry collection called Anthropocene Blues (Mercer University Press, pb., 72 pp., $17). Earlier this year, Scott released his debut short-story collection, titled Strangers to Temptation (Hub City Press, pb., 216 pp., $17).
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.
Scott Gould’s work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Carolina Quarterly, Black Warrior Review, New Madrid Journal, New Stories from the South, and New Southern Harmonies, among others. He is a past winner of the Literature Fellowship from the South Carolina Arts Commission and the Fiction Fellowship from the South Carolina Academy of Authors.
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Join us Tues., Nov. 21, 7 pm as Scott Gould discusses and signs his debut short-story collection Strangers to Temptation (Hub City Press, pb., 216 pp., $17). Scott will be in conversation with John Lane.
The debut collection from award-winning short-story writer Scott Gould, Strangers to Temptation takes us to the white sand banks of the Black River in South Carolina during the early 1970s, a place in time where religion and race provide the backdrop for an often uneasy coming-of-age. Linked by a common voice, these thirteen stories introduce us to a cast of uniquely Southern characters: a Vietnam vet father with half a stomach who plays a skinny Jesus in the annual Easter play; a mother/nurse attempting to heal the world, all the while sneaking sips of Smirnoff and Tang; a best friend whose reckless dive off a bridge earns him a fake eyeball and a new girlfriend; and our narrator, a baseball-playing, paper-delivering boy just hoping to navigate the crooked path out of adolescence. With the narrator’s eventual baptism into adulthood beneath the dark surface of the Black River, Strangers to Temptation reminds all of us what it felt like to be young, confused, and ultimately redeemed.
Scott Gould’s work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Carolina Quarterly, Black Warrior Review, New Madrid Journal, New Stories from the South, and New Southern Harmonies, among others. He is a past winner of the Literature Fellowship from the South Carolina Arts Commission and the Fiction Fellowship from the South Carolina Academy of Authors.
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Most Americans are familiar with Charleston’s historic homes, nearby beaches and scenic attractions, diverse annual events, and great restaurants. Many are also familiar with the
Charleston Library Society and its grand building located in the heart of the Historic District. The society is the oldest cultural organization in the South and the second-oldest circulation library in the United States. It is dedicated to supporting a culture of lifelong learning and is home to some of the most important historical documents in the South.
.
Too few Americans are familiar with another
Charleston, in Sussex, England, now a unique museum which attracts worldwide visitors. There, another event has gained worldwide fame: the annual
Charleston Festival at
Charleston Farmhouse. In the rolling South Downs of Sussex, the farmhouse of cultural icons Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant became the rural sanctuary of the famed Bloomsbury Group of writers, artists, and intellectuals, including Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, and E.M. Forster, among many, many others. The event has grown over its 28-year history and is noted as the top small literary festival in Europe.
.
This November, Charleston (England) will join creative forces with Charleston (South Carolina) in the first annual Charleston to Charleston Literary Festival. The festival will bring acclaimed U.S. and international authors to South Carolina for a series of events over several days to share ideas, books, and to meet readers and book lovers from the Lowcountry and across the nation.
.
In total, the festival will host nineteen diverse speakers, nine lectures, three private receptions in exclusive venues, and one premier film screening!
.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Blue Bicycle Books is the hub of YALLFest, the world’s largest Young Adult Book Festival, which will take over Upper King Street on Fri., Nov. 10 and Sat., Nov. 11.
More than 70 authors will sign books, participate in seminars and talks, and generally revel in the written word at YALLFest 2017. Keynote talks require tickets (click here). All other events are free and open to the public.
Find each author’s complete panel and signing schedule right here – just click on the name.
For more information about YALLFest in general, click here.
