Featured Events in Brookline in May, 2025 (May Updated)

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of Sons and Daughters by Chaim Grade with translator Rose Waldman and editor Todd Portnowitz, in conversation with Lisa Newman. Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. In the event that we reach capacity and have to close RSVPs, there will not be a waiting list. Get your copy! Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Livestream! When possible, events are livestreamed. Check out our store YouTube channel for livestream updates. No registration is required for the livestream. Sons and Daughters From “one of the great—if not the greatest—contemporary Yiddish novelists” (Elie Wiesel), the long-awaited English translation of a work, Tolstoyan in scope, that chronicles the last, tumultuous decade of a world succumbing to the march of modernity “A great beard novel . . . Also a great food novel . . . A melancholy book that also happens to be hopelessly, miraculously, unremittingly funny . . . [Grade’s] fretful characters vibrate as if they were drawn by Roz Chast [and] Rose Waldman's translation seems miraculous to me.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times “It is me the prophet laments when he cries out, ‘My enemies are the people in my own home.’” The Rabbi ignored his borscht and instead chewed on a crust of bread dipped in salt. “My greatest enemies are my own family.” Rabbi Sholem Shachne Katzenellenbogen’s world, the world of his forefathers, is crumbling before his eyes. And in his own home! His eldest, Bentzion, is off in Bialystok, studying to be a businessman; his daughter Bluma Rivtcha is in Vilna, at nursing school. For her older sister, Tilza, he at least managed to find a suitable young rabbi, but he can tell things are off between them. Naftali Hertz? Forget it; he’s been lost to a philosophy degree in Switzerland (and maybe even a goyish wife?). And now the rabbi’s youngest, Refael’ke, wants to run off to the Holy Land with the Zionists. Originally serialized in the 1960s and 1970s in New York–based Yiddish newspapers, Chaim Grade’s Sons and Daughters is a precious glimpse of a way of life that is no longer—the rich Yiddish culture of Poland and Lithuania that the Holocaust would eradicate. We meet the Katzenellenbogens in the tiny village of Morehdalye, in the 1930s, when gangs of Poles are beginning to boycott Jewish merchants and the modern, secular world is pressing in on the shtetl from all sides. It’s this clash, between the freethinking secular life and a life bound by religious duty—and the comforts offered by each—that stands at the center of Sons and Daughters . With characters that rival the homespun philosophers and lovable rouges of Sholem Aleichem and I. B. Singer—from the brooding Zalia Ziskind, paralyzed by the suffering of others, to the Dostoyevskian demon Shabse Shepsel—Grade’s masterful novel brims with humanity and heartbreaking affection for a world, once full of life in all its glorious complexity, that would in just a few years vanish forever. Rose Waldman is the translator of S. An-sky’s Pioneers: The First Breach and I. L. Peretz’s Married . She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Yiddish Book Center. Todd Portnowitz is a senior editor at Alfred A. Knopf and a translator of Italian literature. His prose translations include Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri (co-translated with the author), In Search of Amrit Kaur by Livia Manera Sambuy, The Greatest Invention by Silvia Ferrara, and Long Live Latin by Nicola Gardini; his poetry translations include the forthcoming Methods by Lorenzo Carlucci and Go Tell It to the Emperor by Pierluigi Cappello, for which he received a Raiziss/de Palchi Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. He is a co-host of the writer-translator reading series Us&Them , and lives in Brooklyn, NY. Lisa Newman is the director of publishing and public programs and Director of White Goat Press, the Yiddish Book Center’s imprint. Prior to joining the Yiddish Book Center, Lisa managed public relations and publishing projects for a variety of nonprofit and corporate clients. After moving to western Massachusetts to work for New England Monthly , she went on to work with numerous national magazine and book publishers. She has been an instructor at the Radcliffe Publishing Course and the Columbia Publishing Course and a panelist at industry events. She is a graduate of New York University. About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Join us for an evening of poetry with Barrow Street Press Poets Carrie Bennett, Ruben Quesada, & Kevin McLellan. This event is part of Third Thursdays Poetry, a monthly reading series at Brookline Booksmith. Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. Livestream! Barring technical difficulty, this event will be livestreamed on our store YouTube channel . An Evening of Poetry: Barrow Street Press Poets Ruben Quesada is a poet, translator, and editor. He edited the award-winning anthology Latinx Poetics. His writing appears in the Best American Poetry series, the New York Times Magazine , Orion Magazine , Harvard Review , The Believer, Essential Queer Voices of U.S. Poetry , and elsewhere. His new poetry collection, Brutal Companion , won the Barrow Street Editors Prize, and was recognized as A Notable Book of 2024 by the University of California. Carrie Bennett is the author of four poetry collections, most recently The Mouth Is Also a Compass , winner of the Barrow Street Poetry Prize. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and currently teaches writing at Boston University. She is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellow and lives in Somerville, MA with her family. Kevin McLellan is the author of: Sky. Pond. Mouth. (winner of the 2024 Granite State Poetry Prize selected by Alexandria Peary and a finalist for the Thom Gunn Award in Poetry); in other words you/ (winner of the 2022 Hilary Tham Capital Collection selected by Timothy Liu); Ornitheology ; Tributary ; Round Trip and the book objects, Hemispheres and [box] which reside in several special collections including the Blue Star Collection at Harvard University. Kevin’s poems have won award including the Third Coast Poetry Prize and the Oscar Wild Award. Kevin also makes videos which have appeared in numerous film festivals including: Berlin Short Film Festival; Flickers’ Rhode Island Film Festival; the Vancouver Queer Film Festival; and the LGBTQ+ Los Angeles Film Festival in which "Dick" won Best Short Form Short. Kevin lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. https://kevmclellan.com/ About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of Run for the Hills with author Kevin Wilson, in conversation with Joanna Rakoff. Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. In the event that we reach capacity and have to close RSVPs, there will not be a waiting list. Get your copy! Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Run for the Hills NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK BY: Time , People , LitHub, and BookRiot An unexpected road trip across America brings a family together, in this raucous and moving new novel from the bestselling author of Nothing to See Here. Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it’s been just Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While it’s a bit lonely, she sometimes admits, and a less exciting life than what she imagined for herself, it’s mostly okay. Mostly. Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half sister. Reuben—left behind by their dad thirty years ago—has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half siblings. And he wants Mad to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all. As Mad and Rube—and eventually the others—share stories of their father, who behaved so differently in each life he created, they begin to question what he was looking for with every new incarnation. Who are they to one another? What kind of man will they find? And how will these new relationships change Mad’s previously solitary life on the farm? Infused with deadpan wit, zany hijinks, and enormous heart, Run for the Hills is a sibling story like no other—a novel about a family forged under the most unlikely circumstances and united by hope in an unknown future. Kevin Wilson is the New York Times bestselling author of five novels, including Now Is Not the Time to Panic , Nothing to See Here, and The Family Fang , as well as two story collections. His work has received the Shirley Jackson Award and been selected as a Read with Jenna book club pick. He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, with his wife and two sons. Joanna Rakoff is the author of the international bestselling memoir My Salinger Year and the bestselling novel A Fortunate Age. Rakoff’s books have been translated into twenty languages, and the film adaptation of My Salinger Year opened in theaters worldwide in 2021 and is now streaming. She has been the recipient of fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Sewanee, Bread Loaf, Authors’ Guild, PEN and more and has taught at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, and Aspen Words. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times , The Guardian , O: The Oprah Magazine , Vogue , Elle , and elsewhere, and her new memoir, The Fifth Passenger , is forthcoming. About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

Internationally acclaimed comedian Manjeet Sarkar has captivated audiences for seven years with his bold humour. Known for his solo show Untouchable, he has completed six national tours across India, performed at the United Nations, and is now on a world tour. As the first comedian from the Dalit community to achieve widespread recognition, Manjeet has broken through centuries of caste oppression with his work. Filmed and edited by Mike Noone, Untouchable: Laughing Out Caste follows Sarkar's journey across India and beyond, capturing his unique perspective on caste, class, & the contrasts between rural and urban life in India. The film sheds light on the shared struggles of marginalized communities worldwide and the transformative power of art. Following the screening, a moderated discussion and Q&A session with Manjeet Sarkar and Mike Noone will offer further insights into the film’s themes. So far, the film has been test screened across 3 continents in cities like Oslo, Vancouver, Toronto, Austin, Bengaluru, and Chennai. Information Source: Mike Noone | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of Feeders with author Matt Serafini. Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. In the event that we reach capacity and have to close RSVPs, there will not be a waiting list. Get your copy! Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Livestream! When possible, events are livestreamed. Check out our store YouTube channel for livestream updates. No registration is required for the livestream. Feeders From “ one of the best new voices in horror fiction” (Brian Keene, Bram Stoker Award–winning author), this darkly satirical supernatural thriller follows a would-be influencer whose dreams of online fame spiral into nightmare territory when she encounters a mysterious and dangerous social media platform—p erfect for fans of Grady Hendrix and Joe Hill. When a video depicting the brutal murder of a former classmate leaks online, Kylie Bennington’s—whose dreams of becoming a successful influencer remain frustratingly elusive—curiosity gets the better of her, leading to the discovery of an off-the-grid social media app called MonoLife. As it turns out, there are certain cryptic rules in the user agreement that must be adhered to, such as interacting with other users at least twice daily or risk losing it all…and never, ever speaking of MonoLife’s existence to non-users or risk dire consequences. For this is a platform that primarily rewards the worst in human behavior, and which begins chipping away at Kylie’s sanity across post after post for an ever-increasing audience of immoral fans. Now Kylie’s going to find out just how far she’s willing to go on her unyielding rise to the top—even if that means coming face-to-face with the frightening and ruthless forces behind MonoLife, who see all from deep within the shadows… Matt Serafini is the author of ten novels, including Rites of Extinction and Under the Blade . His nonfiction has appeared in the pages of Fangoria and Horror Hound . He lives with his family in New Hampshire. About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of I See You've Called in Dead with author John Kenney, in conversation with Nicole Graev Lipson. Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. In the event that we reach capacity and have to close RSVPs, there will not be a waiting list. Get your copy! Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Livestream! When possible, events are livestreamed. Check out our store YouTube channel for livestream updates. No registration is required for the livestream. I See You've Called in Dead The Office meets Six Feet Under meets About a Boy in this coming-of-middle-age tale about having a second chance to write your life's story. Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who is afraid to live. Yes, his wife recently left him for a "far more interesting" man. Yes, he goes on a particularly awful blind date with a woman who brings her ex. And yes, he has too many glasses of Scotch one night and proceeds to pen and publish his own obituary. The newspaper wants to fire him. But now the company's system has him listed as dead. And the company can't fire a dead person. The ensuing fallout forces him to realize that life may be actually worth living. As Bud awaits his fate at work, his life hangs in the balance. Given another shot by his boss and encouraged by his best friend, Tim, a worldly and wise former art dealer, Bud starts to attend the wakes and funerals of strangers to learn how to live. Thurber Prize-winner and NYTimes bestselling author John Kenney tells a funny, touching story about life and death, about the search for meaning, about finding and never letting go of the preciousness of life. John Kenney is the author of two novels and four books of poetry. His first novel, Truth In Advertising , won the Thurber Prize for American humor. He is also the author of Talk to Me , which received a starred Kirkus review, and the New York Times bestseller Love Poems for Married People . He is a long-time contributor to The New Yorker . Nicole Graev Lipson 's writing has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, selected for The Best American Essays anthology, and nominated for a National Magazine Award. Her essays, journalism, and criticism have appeared in The Sun, Virginia Quarterly Review , The Gettysburg Review, LA Review of Books, The Millions, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe , among other publications. Nicole holds a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Emerson College. Originally from New York City, she lives in Brookline with her husband and children. About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

Join the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith for an in-store event with translator Haleh Liza Gafori to discuss and celebrate the release of Water by Rumi. A follow-up to her ground-breaking translations of Rumi in Gold , poet and musician Haleh Liza Gafori translates a new selection of work by the great Persian mystic that will muster the soul and stir the spirit. Water expands on Gold , Haleh Liza Gafori's inspired and widely praised translation of the lyric poetry of the Persian mystic Rumi. As in Gold , Gafori renders with fluid grace and moving immediacy these indisputable masterworks of world literature, drawing on the deep well of Rumi’s work to bring out the worldly wit and wisdom that accompany his otherworldly summons. Behold the divine within and without, he tells us. Question the gnawing hunger for material possessions, fame, and fortune, and the fear of emptiness that drives it. Muster the soul, and experience a more compassionate and liberated state of mind. An eco-poet before his time, Rumi celebrates the immensity and wonder of the natural world while warning us of the havoc that greed and the pursuit of power wreak upon us and our world. His flights of dazzling imagery open up heart-stopping glimpses of the divine, challenging readers to wake from oblivion, and above all, to surrender to the transformative power of Love. Gafori is an acclaimed vocalist and musician as well as a gifted linguist and poet, and in her translations Rumi's poetry sings and beckons as nowhere else. Hers is the work, as the poet Marilyn Hacker has said, "of someone who is at once an acute and enamored reader of the original Farsi text, a dedicated miner of context and backstory, and, best of all, a marvelous poet in English.” Rumi, Molana, Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Balkhy (1207–1273), was born in or near the city of Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan. Widely considered the greatest poet of the Persian language, Rumi’s major works are the Masnavi , a six-volume collection of mystical teachings, and the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi , a collection of lyric poetry. He died and was buried in Konya, Turkey. Haleh Liza Gafori is an Iranian American translator, performance artist, poet, and musician born in New York City. Her work has been published by Harvard Review , The Brooklyn Rail , Columbia University Press, and others. A recipient of a MacDowell fellowship and an NYSCA grant, she presents the poetry of Rumi at universities and institutions, including Stanford University, Lincoln Center, and the Academy of American Poets. Her first collection of Rumi translations, Gold , is also published by NYRB Classics. The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith The Transnational Series focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation and is supported by the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith. Subscribe to the Transnational Series newsletter for information on upcoming events, book recommendations, and more. What You Need to Know to Attend RSVP to let us know you're coming! RSVPs don't guarantee a seat, but you'll be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. Reserve a Book Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Livestream! Barring technical difficulty, this event will be livestreamed to our store YouTube channel. Event Accesibility This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations . We will do our best to serve your needs! IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING COVID & IN-PERSON EVENTS: Please note that any Brookline Booksmith in-person event may be canceled by the bookstore, publisher, or author based on concerns about health and safety around the time of the event. Wherever possible, any in-person appearance canceled due to COVID will be moved to the Brookline Booksmith Zoom as a Webinar at the same date and time, and all tickets & registrations will be transferred to the online event. Book signing details may change. Refunds may be requested in the case of a virtual pivot or event cancelation. Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Join us for an evening of poetry as Martín Espada reads from his latest collection of poetry, followed by a conversation with Luke Salisbury. This event is a collaboration with the Puerto Rican Festival of Massachusetts. Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. Livestream! Barring technical difficulty, this event will be livestreamed on our store YouTube channel . Jailbreak of Sparrows In this brilliant new collection of poems, National Book Award winner Martín Espada offers narratives of the forgotten and the unforgettable. The poems in Jailbreak of Sparrows reveal the ways in which the ordinary becomes monumental: family portraits, politically charged reports, and tributes to the unsung. Espada’s focus ranges from the bombardment of his family’s hometown in Puerto Rico amid an anti-colonial uprising to the murder of a Mexican man by police in California, from the poet’s adolescent brawl on a basketball court over martyred baseball hero Roberto Clemente to his unorthodox methods of representing undocumented migrants as a tenant lawyer. We also encounter “love songs” to the poet’s wife from a series of unexpected voices: a bat with vertigo, the polar bear mascot for a minor league ballclub, a disembodied head in a jar. Jailbreak of Sparrows is a collection of arresting poems that roots itself in the image, the musicality of language, and the depth of human experience. “ Look at this was all he said, and all he had to say,” the poet says about his father, a photographer who documented his Puerto Rican community in Brooklyn and beyond. The poems of Martín Espada tell us: Look. Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist, and translator. His new book of poems, Jailbreak of Sparrows , was published by Knopf in 2025. His previous book, Floaters , won the National Book Award for Poetry and a Massachusetts Book Award. His poetry collections from Norton include Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016), The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006), Alabanza (2003) and Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996). He is the editor of What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump (2019). Espada has received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Creeley Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the PEN/Revson Fellowship, a Letras Boricuas Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The title poem of his collection Alabanza , about 9/11, has been widely anthologized and performed. His book of essays and poems, Zapata’s Disciple (1998), was banned in Tucson as part of the Mexican-American Studies Program outlawed by the state of Arizona. A former tenant lawyer with Su Clínica Legal in Greater Boston, Espada is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Luke Salisbury is the author of the cult classic The Answer Is Baseball , and four works of fiction, The Cleveland Indian , nominated for a Casey Award, Blue Eden , Hollywood & Sunset , and No Common War called “one of the best war novels in years” by Foreword Reviews. About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of Teacher By Teacher with author John B. King, Jr., in conversation with Jennifer De Leon. This event is cosponsored by the Puerto Rican Festival of Massachusetts (PRFMA). Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. In the event that we reach capacity and have to close RSVPs, there will not be a waiting list. Get your copy! Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Livestream! When possible, events are livestreamed. Check out our store YouTube channel for livestream updates. No registration is required for the livestream. Teacher By Teacher: The People Who Change Our Lives Teacher By Teacher traces the remarkable journey of the 10th U.S. Secretary of Education and is a deeply personal love letter to all the teachers in our lives. ​The story of John B. King Jr.’s inspiring path to President Obama’s Cabinet begins the day that his mother died. He insisted on going to school that day, knowing he would find comfort in his classroom. As he navigated living alone with a father dying from undiagnosed Alzheimer’s, it was public school teachers who saved his life. King’s teachers believed in him and saw his potential. They made school a safe, supportive, and engaging place where King could be a kid despite the challenges at home. While some might have dismissed a rebellious young Black and Puerto Rican teen whose life was in crisis, King’s teachers and counselors gave him a second chance. King went on to earn degrees from Harvard, Columbia, and Yale and committed his career to trying to do for other young people what educators did for him. Teacher By Teacher is an inspiring account of how dedicated educators—both King’s own teachers and the phenomenal teachers who he has encountered throughout his career as a teacher, principal, and education policymaker—can profoundly shape the lives of their students. King’s experiences constantly reinforce the role of schools as places of survival, healing, and hope. This book is about overcoming challenges and the mentors who help us make it through them. Teacher By Teacher should inspire students, parents, teachers, and everyone who believes in the transformative power of education. But more than that, this book examines the life-changing impact of mentorship, especially for those who are underserved by public institutions and social systems in America. John B. King, Jr. served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet as the tenth U.S. Secretary of Education. Over the course of his extensive and influential career in public education, he has been a high school social studies teacher, a middle school principal, the first African American and Puerto Rican to serve as New York State Education Commissioner, a college professor, and the president and CEO of the Education Trust, a national education civil rights organization. King is currently the chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), the nation’s largest comprehensive system of public higher education. Both of King’s parents were career New York City public school educators. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, an education researcher and former teacher, and his two daughters. Jennifer De Leon is a former Boston Public Schools teacher and the author of YA novels Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From (Simon & Schuster, 2020) and Borderless (Simon & Schuster, 2023) and the essay collection White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, & Writing (UMass Press, 2021). She has taught at Harvard University, Boston College, and UMass Boston. Currently, she is a tenured associate professor at Framingham State University. About PRFMA The Puerto Rican Festival of Massachusetts is a cultural organization that amplifies and celebrates the Puerto Rican community of the Commonwealth. We build community through artistic and cultural celebration, youth and community engagement, education, and service. About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of Eat the Ones You Love with author Sarah Maria Griffin, in conversation with Paul Tremblay. Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. In the event that we reach capacity and have to close RSVPs, there will not be a waiting list. Get your copy! Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Livestream! When possible, events are livestreamed. Check out our store YouTube channel for livestream updates. No registration is required for the livestream. Eat the Ones You Love “Do you mind me asking—what kind of help do you need?” After losing her job and her fiancé and moving back from the city to live with her parents, Shell Pine needs some help. And according to the sign in the window, the florist shop in the mall does too. Shell gets the gig, and the flowers she works with there are just the thing she needs to cheer up. Or maybe it’s Neve, the beautiful shop manager, who is making her days so rosy? But you have to get your hands dirty if you want your garden to grow—and Neve’s secrets are as dark and dangerous as they come. In the back room of the flower shop, a young sentient orchid actually runs the show, and he is hungry . . . and he has a plan for them all. When the choices are to either bury yourself in the warmth of someone else’s fertile soil, or face the cold and disappointing world outside—which would you choose? And what if putting down roots came at a cost far higher than just your freedom? This is a story about desire, dreams, decay—and working retail at the end of the world. Sarah Maria Griffin is from Dublin, Ireland. She is the author of the novels Spare & Found Parts and Other Words For Smoke , which won an Irish Book Award in 2019. She writes about video games for The Guardian , and her nonfiction has appeared in The Irish Times , The Winter Papers , and The Stinging Fly , amongst other places. She also makes zines. She posts on Instagram under @sarahgriffski. Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, Sheridan Le Fanu, and Massachusetts Book Awards and is the New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie: A Novel , The Beast You Are , The Pallbearers Club , Survivor Song , Growing Things and Other Stories , Disappearance at Devil's Rock , A Head Full of Ghosts , and the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland . His novel The Cabin at the End of the World was adapted into the Universal Pictures film Knock at the Cabin . His essays and short fiction have appeared in the New York Times , Boston Globe , Los Angeles Times , and numerous "year's best" anthologies. He lives outside of Boston, Massachusetts, with his family and has a master's degree in mathematics. About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of The Wanderer's Curse with author Jennifer Hope Choi with Tiana Clark. Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. In the event that we reach capacity and have to close RSVPs, there will not be a waiting list. Get your copy! Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Livestream! When possible, events are livestreamed. Check out our store YouTube channel for livestream updates. No registration is required for the livestream. The Wanderer's Curse: A Memoir A Korean mother runs off to Alaska, sparking a greater season of wandering. Could her daughter be destined for the same? When Jennifer Hope Choi first stumbled upon the “curse” known as yeokmasal—an allegedly inheritable affliction causing one to roam farther and farther from home—she immediately consulted her mother. “Oh yeah,” Umma quipped. “I have that.” Technically this wasn’t a revelation. Since 2007, the no-nonsense open-heart surgery nurse had moved suddenly from the Golden State to the Last Frontier, shuttling over the next decade through seven states. For much of her adulthood, Choi had fancied herself nothing like her immigrant mother, late-blooming vagabond spirit and all—until life in Brooklyn imploded, spurring her to relocate to South Carolina and reckon with startling truths. Artmaking had left her in debt, single, and jobless. Questions hovered, gathering ragged like fractus clouds: Was it time to give up writing? Would she ever have a place of her own to call home? Or was she doomed to bunk up with Umma in the Deep South indefinitely? This probing memoir follows Choi through her many former homes, from a crumbling Chinatown tenement to a haunted museum in Georgia. Connections emerge, between her curious trajectory and idiosyncratic Korean identity narratives: a mystical Korean dog breed, pro golfers, modern Korean cults, the four pillars of destiny, and Korean American art. One question lingers throughout her search: What might be gained from living in residence with uncertainty? Told with whip-smart sensibility, The Wanderer’s Curse is an electric mother-daughter story, exploring ideas of belonging, self-determination, and possibility, leaving readers to wonder what we take with us generation to generation, what we wish we could leave behind, and how we move on. Jennifer Hope Choi is a National Magazine Award–nominated editor at Bon Appétit . Her writing has been anthologized in The Best American Travel Writing and appeared in the New York Times , Guernica , Lucky Peach , VQR , and BuzzFeed . Her debut, THE WANDERER’S CURSE, will be published by W. W. Norton & Company. Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collections Scorched Earth (2025) and I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (2018), which won the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. Clark is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and a 2019 Pushcart Prize. She has received scholarships and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Clark’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Atlantic, Virginia Quarterly Review , and other notable publications. She is currently the Grace Hazard Conkling Writer-in-Residence at Smith College. Clark is at work on a memoir-in-essays, Begging to Be Saved, which explores Black burnout, millennial divorce, faith, art-making, and historical methods of Black survival. About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Join us for an evening of poetry with Derek JG Williams. This event is part of Third Thursdays Poetry, a monthly reading series at Brookline Booksmith. Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. Livestream! Barring technical difficulty, this event will be livestreamed on our store YouTube channel . Third Thursdays Poetry: May Derek JG Williams is an American writer and the author of Reading Water, selected by Eduardo Corral as the winner of the 2023 Lightscatter Press Prize, and Poetry Is a Disease (Greying Ghost, 2022). His poems and prose are published in Pleiades, The Writer’s Chronicle, Plume, Banshee, Salamander, Best New Poets, and Prairie Schooner, among others. He earned a doctorate in English and Creative Writing from Ohio University, and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He lives in Zurich with his family. John Hodgen is Writer-in-Residence at Assumption University in Worcester, MA, and Advisory Editor at New Letters at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. He is author of five previous poetry collections: In My Father’s House , winner of the Bluestem Award; Bread Without Sorrow , Winner of the Balcones Poetry Prize; Bread Without Sorrow , winner of the Balcones Prize, Grace , winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry; Heaven and Earth Holding Company , winner of the Massachusetts Book Award, and The Lord of Everywhere from Lynx House Press. Hodgen is also recipient of numerous other honors and awards, including the Grolier Prize, the Foley Poetry Prize, the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize, an Arvon Foundation Award, the Chad Walsh Prize, the Collins Prize, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Award in Poetry, and inclusion in the 2017 Scribner’s Best American Poetry . Thera Webb (she/her) is a poet, archivist, and anarchist. She is the author of one full length collection— The Witch, A Play (White Stag)—and two chapbooks— On the Shoulders of the Bear (Fractious Press) and Reality Asylum (h_ngm_n). She has an MFA in Poetry from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, an MLIS in Cultural Heritage and Archives from Simmons University, and a BA in Gender Studies from The New School for Social Research. She lives in the cemetery district of Watertown, MA with one human, two cats, and a lot of books and records. Thera is queerspawn. She enjoys amateur taxidermy, amateur Victorian hair art, feminist fairytales, and giving longform opinions on the differences between oogles and crusties. The ‘h’ is silent. Anna V. Q. Ross is the author of four collections of poems, most recently, Flutter, Kick , which won the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, the Julia Ward Howe Award in Poetry, and was named a Best New Poetry Book by the NY Public Library. Her work has garnered fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation & the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and has appeared in journals including Harvard Review , The Kenyon Review , The Nation , and on The Slowdown podcast. She teaches creative writing at Tufts University and lives with her family in Dorchester, where she raises chickens. About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

Join the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith for an in-store event with writer Iman Mersal to discuss and celebrate the release of Motherhood and Its Ghosts and Traces of Enayat . From one of the preeminent poets of the Arabic-speaking world, come two brilliant and personal works of creative nonfiction retracing and exploring the lives of women. Iman Mersal has only one photograph of her mother, who died giving birth at age twenty-seven. But the woman portrayed in it strikes her as very unlike the one in her fleeting childhood memories, in mood, expression, dress. When Mersal has a child of her own decades later, she begins to wonder whether it’s possible to depict a mother with any degree of fidelity. How to represent—in photography, dream, memory, or writing—an individual whose complex inner landscape has suddenly come under threat of looming archetypes? What is hidden in traditional representations of moth­erhood? What lies outside the narrative in which motherhood “means giving, the melding of two distinct selves, a love unlimited and unconditional”? Sifting through the archives of motherhood, including journal entries, photo­graphs, and the writings that have informed her own poetic practice, Mersal privileg­es questions over answers, drifting over arriving, allowing a form of motherhood to exist in these pages unbounded. And in Traces of Enayat , winner of the prestigious Sheikh Zayed Book Award, Mersal retraces the mysterious life and erasure of Egyptian literature's tragic heroine, Enayat al-Zayyat. Cairo, 1963: four years before her lone novel is finally published, the writer Enayat al-Zayyat takes her own life at age twenty-seven. For the next three decades, it's as if Enayat never existed at all. Years later, when celebrated Egyptian poet Iman Mersal stumbles upon Enayat's long-forgotten Love and Silence in a Cairo book stall, she embarks on a journey of reflection and rediscovery that leads her ever closer to the world and work of Enayat. In this luminous biographical detective story, Mersal retraces Enayat's life and afterlife though interviews with family members and friend, even tracking down the apartments, schools, and sanatoriums where Enayat spent her days. As Mersal maps two simultaneous psychogeographies—from the glamor of golden-age Egyptian cinema to the Cairo of Mersal's own past—a remarkable portrait emerges of two women striving to live on their own terms. With Traces of Enayat , Iman Mersal embraces the reciprocal relationship between a text and its reader, between past and present, between author and subject. Iman Mersal is an Egyptian writer, translator, and literary scholar. A professor of Arabic language and literature at the University of Alberta, she is the author of five books of Arabic poetry. In English translation, her poems have appeared in The New Republic , The New York Review of Books , Parnassus , The Paris Review , and The Nation , among others. The Threshold , translated by Robyn Creswell and published in 2022, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and won the 2023 National Translation Award. Mersal received the 2021 Sheikh Zayed Book Award in Literature for her creative nonfiction book Traces of Enayat , published by Transit Books in 2024. Translator Robin Moger is a translator of Arabic to English who lives in Barcelona. His translations of prose and poetry have appeared in Blackbox Manifold , The White Review , Asymptote , Words Without Borders , Washington Square Review , Michigan Review , and elsewhere. The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith The Transnational Series focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation and is supported by the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith. Subscribe to the Transnational Series newsletter for information on upcoming events, book recommendations, and more. What You Need to Know to Attend RSVP to let us know you're coming! RSVPs don't guarantee a seat, but you'll be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. Reserve a Book Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Livestream! Barring technical difficulty, this event will be livestreamed to our store YouTube channel. Event Accesibility This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations . We will do our best to serve your needs! IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING COVID & IN-PERSON EVENTS: Please note that any Brookline Booksmith in-person event may be canceled by the bookstore, publisher, or author based on concerns about health and safety around the time of the event. Wherever possible, any in-person appearance canceled due to COVID will be moved to the Brookline Booksmith Zoom as a Webinar at the same date and time, and all tickets & registrations will be transferred to the online event. Book signing details may change. Refunds may be requested in the case of a virtual pivot or event cancelation. Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

Join the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith for an in-store event with Daniel Tam-Claiborne to discuss and celebrate the release of Transplants . He will be in conversation with writer Aube Rey Lescure. A harrowing and poignant novel following two young women in pursuit of kinship and self-discovery who yearn to survive in a world that doesn’t know where either of them belong. On a university campus in rural Qixian, Lin and Liz make an improbable pair: Lin, a Chinese student closer to her menagerie of pets than to her peers, and Liz, a Chinese American teacher grieving her mother’s sudden death. They’re each met with hostility—Lin by her classmates, who mock her for dating a white foreigner; Liz by her fellow English teachers, who exploit their privilege—and forge an unlikely friendship. After a startling betrayal that results in Lin’s expulsion, they swap places. Lin becomes convinced to pursue her degree at a community college near Liz’s Ohio hometown, while Liz searches for answers as to what drove her parents to leave China before she was born. But when a global catastrophe deepens the fissures between modern-day China and an increasingly fractured United States, Lin and Liz—far from home and estranged from themselves—are forced to confront both the familiar and the strange in each other. Unspooling over the course of a single extraordinary year in our not-yet-distant past and in small towns from Dandong to Deadwood, Transplants is a piercing story of migration, belonging, and the parts of ourselves that get lost in translation. Alternating between Liz and Lin’s perspectives, it is a lyrical and moving exploration of race, love, power, and freedom that illuminates the limits and possibilities of what can happen when we open ourselves to the unknown and reveals how even our fiercest differences may bring us closer than we might ever imagine. Daniel Tam-Claiborne is a multiracial writer, multimedia producer, and nonprofit director. He is the author of the short story collection What Never Leaves , and his writing has appeared in Catapult , Literary Hub , Off Assignment , The Rumpus , HuffPost , and elsewhere. A 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, he has also received support from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Kundiman, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the New York State Summer Writers Institute, and others. Daniel holds degrees from Oberlin College, Yale University, and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he lives with his wife and daughter in Seattle. Moderator Aube Rey Lescure is a French-Chinese-American writer. She grew up between Provence, northern China, and Shanghai, and graduated from Yale University in 2015. She is the co-author and translator of two books on Chinese politics and economics. Aube’s debut novel, River East, River West , was published in 2024. It has been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Maya Angelou Book Award, and the Stanfords' Fiction with a Sense of Place Award. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Granta , Guernica , LitHub , Electric Literature , The Millions , Litro , and more. Her essay “At the Bend of the Road” was selected for Best American Essays 2022 . The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith The Transnational Series focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation and is supported by the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith. Subscribe to the Transnational Series newsletter for information on upcoming events, book recommendations, and more. What You Need to Know to Attend RSVP to let us know you're coming! RSVPs don't guarantee a seat, but you'll be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. Reserve a Book Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Livestream! Barring technical difficulty, this event will be livestreamed to our store YouTube channel. Event Accesibility This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations . We will do our best to serve your needs! IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING COVID & IN-PERSON EVENTS: Please note that any Brookline Booksmith in-person event may be canceled by the bookstore, publisher, or author based on concerns about health and safety around the time of the event. Wherever possible, any in-person appearance canceled due to COVID will be moved to the Brookline Booksmith Zoom as a Webinar at the same date and time, and all tickets & registrations will be transferred to the online event. Book signing details may change. Refunds may be requested in the case of a virtual pivot or event cancelation. Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of The Barking Puppy with author Lori Lobenstine and Sophie Canon. Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. In the event that we reach capacity and have to close RSVPs, there will not be a waiting list. Get your copy! Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 4:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Livestream! When possible, events are livestreamed. Check out our store YouTube channel for livestream updates. No registration is required for the livestream. The Barking Puppy When Sophie and her two Jack Russell terriers move to Boston, she's excited not to be the only brown kid in the neighborhood anymore. She instantly likes the quirky teenager named Juno next door and her pug, Bonney. But not everything's easy. Her classmates make fun of her Vermont overalls. The upstairs neighbor hates barking. And Bonney needs surgery that Juno's family can't afford. So Sophie and Juno invent the Barking Puppy, the first ever newspaper written “by dogs” and “for dogs.” Will anyone else get how funny it is? And more importantly, can they sell it to raise enough money in time to save Bonney? Will the landlord kick Sophie and her mom out before they even get started? Don't miss this first edition of a doggone great series and find out for yourself! Lori Lobenstine and her goddaughter, Sophie Canon, have been collaborating on the original Barking Puppy newspaper since Sophie was ten years old. The Barking Puppy (Levine Querido, 2025; Il Sung Na, illustrator) is Lori’s first children’s book, and Sophie was her creative consultant, contributing her lived experiences, as well as her keen ear for youth dialogue and uncanny blend of human and dog humor. Lobenstine’s other passions include being a co-founder of the Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI), member of the Hot Flashes basketball team, and founder of the website femalesneakerfiend. Her previous nonfiction books include Girls Got Kicks (Levellers Press, 2011; Amanda Lopez, photographer) and Ideas, Arrangements, Effects: Systems Change and Social Justice (Minor Compositions, 2020; Kenneth Bailey and Ayako Maruyama, co-authors). She lives in Boston, MA and has her BA in American Studies from Wesleyan University. About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of The Mother Code with author Ruthie Ackerman, in conversation with Cloe Axelson. Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. You will also be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates. In the event that we reach capacity and have to close RSVPs, there will not be a waiting list. Get your copy! Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event. Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed. Livestream! When possible, events are livestreamed. Check out our store YouTube channel for livestream updates. No registration is required for the livestream. The Mother Code: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Myths that Shape Us In this propulsive memoir, an award-winning journalist blends history, science, and cultural criticism to uncover whether motherhood outside of society’s rigid rules and expectations is possible—and whether she fits the mold for what a mother should be. “This tender, generous book does the hard work of redefining ‘motherhood’ and ‘family’ so that they honor all aspects of a woman’s life.”—Christie Tate, author of the New York Times bestseller Group Ruthie Ackerman had long believed that the decision to not have children was a radical act. She’d grown up being told that she came from a long line of women who had abandoned their kids and feared she would pass on her half-brother’s rare genetic disorder. So when she marries a man who doesn’t want children, she hopes she can be happy without any. But a voice in her head keeps returning to the question: What if mothering can be a radical act too? When her marriage veers off course, she goes searching through the twists and turns of her DNA to decide once and for all whether she should become a mother. By the time Ruthie finally determines that she desperately wants a child, she learns that motherhood won’t happen the way she thought it would. Now she must enter the hall of mirrors where biology, genetics, and philosophy collide as she wonders what it means to both create and nurture a life. What does inheritance really entail? What does it mean to be a “good” mother? When it comes down to it, how important is nature versus nurture? And where are the models for what a “good life” can look like for women, both with and without children? Synthesizing reportage and memoir, The Mother Code unravels how we’ve come to understand the institution of motherhood. What emerges is a groundbreaking new vision for what it means to parent: a mother code that goes beyond our bloodlines and genetics and instead urges us to embrace inheritance as the legacy we want to leave behind for those we love. Ruthie Ackerman’s writing has been published in Vogue, Glamour, O Magazine, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Salon, Slate, and Newsweek . She launched the Ignite Writers Collective in 2019 and has since worked with hundreds of writers to publish their own stories. Her client wins include a USA Today bestseller, book deals with Big 5 publishers, representation by buzzy book agents, and essays in prestigious outlets. Ruthie Ackerman has a master's degree in journalism from New York University and lives in Brooklyn with her family. Cloe Axelson is the senior editor of WBUR’s opinion page, Cognoscenti . Cloe first came to WBUR in 2015, as a contributor . Two years later, in 2017, she joined Cog’s staff as an editor. Prior to WBUR, she worked as a grassroots organizer on political campaigns in Missouri, as the assistant to a best-selling author in New York City, in the public affairs office at MassDEP (where she wrote speeches and learned an unusual amount about stormwater management) and on the communications team at the Democratic National Committee. She also worked as a consultant for Partners In Health, for several national nonprofit organizations, including the state PIRGs and City Year, and taught college-level writing at Boston University, where she earned her masters degree. Cloe and her husband have three daughters and a dog, Fern. She lives with her family in the Boston suburbs. About Brookline Booksmith We are one of New England’s premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com ! EVENT ACCESSIBILITY This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs! Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite