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

Join us for the first theatrical communal screening of Why Are You You? . A feature documentary that explores the history of the Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU) community where adolescents discovered their true selves and were empowered to inspire positive change in the world. Forty years after the program's inception, those former participants reflect on how being a part of the program shaped them and still informs their lives. YRUU, established in 1983, grew out of the Unitarian Universalists’ rich tradition of religious youth education. It was disbanded in 2008. Get your photo taken on the red carpet. Grab some popcorn and a drink and head over to the accessible Moviehouse 2 at the Coolidge Corner Theater. After the screening of the film enjoy a discussion with the filmmakers: Lindsay Caddle LaPointe, Dawn MacKechnie, and Naomi Kooker. www.whyareyouyou.org Want to hear more? The filmmakers will continue the conversation at First Church Boston (66 Marlborough Street Boston, MA 02116) on Saturday, June 14th. Hosted by the Minn's Lecture Series . More info to come. Information Source: Linden Tree Productions | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of The Red House with author Mary Morris, in conversation with Alex George. 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 Red House Award-winning novelist Mary Morris weaves together an unsolved family mystery, a poignant coming-of-age story, and a little-known corner of World War II history in this lyrical novel of family, loss and, ultimately, love. Thirty years ago, Laura’s mother, Viola, went missing. She left behind her purse, her keys and her mysterious paintings of a red house. Viola was never found, and her family never recovered. Laura, an artist herself, held on to the paintings. On the back of each work, her mother scrawled in Italian, “I will not be here forever.” The family never understood what Viola meant. Decades later, at a crossroads in her marriage and her life, Laura returns to Italy, where her parents met after World War II. Laura spent the earliest years of her childhood there before the family moved to New Jersey and settled into an American dream that eventually became a nightmare. Viola, who claimed to be an orphan, staunchly refused to speak of her life before marriage. In Italy, Laura finds herself on a strange scavenger hunt to solve the puzzle of her mother’s lost years. She is certain that the paintings of the red house hold the answer to her mother’s past and her search takes her from her hometown of Brindisi, deep into Puglia where she encounters a man who knew her mother and who illuminates little-known secrets of Italy’s Second World War. Blending elements of true crime with settings that evoke Elena Ferrante, Laura follows her mother’s trajectory as she ventures north to Naples, Turin and finally home. Along the way, she confronts the dark truth of her mother's story and at last makes sense of her own. Mary Morris is the author of numerous works of fiction, including the novels Gateway to the Moon , The Jazz Palace , A Mother's Love , and House Arrest , and of nonfiction, including the travel classic Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone . Morris is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature and the 2016 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. Alex George is a writer, bookseller, lawyer, and founder of the Unbound Book Festival. His novels include A Good American , Setting Free The Kites , and The Paris Hours . 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 Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation with author Sarah Yahm, 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. Livestream! When possible, events are livestreamed. Check out our store YouTube channel for livestream updates. No registration is required for the livestream. Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation Following a tight-knit, eccentric Jewish family, the Rosenbergs, over four decades, Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation combines the madness of motherhood with the manic absurdity of grief in a stunning tale for fans of Allegra Goodman and Rebecca Makkai. The night after fleeing her mother's funeral, cellist Louise Rackoff meets aspiring therapist Leon Rosenberg at a Rosh Hashanah dinner in 1974. Over the next two decades, they build a marriage and a family based on honesty, argument, and a shared appreciation of the absurd. But that rock-solid foundation crumbles when Louise is diagnosed with a rare degenerative disease—the same one responsible for her mother's slow, agonizing passing. Determined to spare Leon and their daughter Lydia from her messy decline, Louise makes the simultaneously selfish and altruistic decision to leave her family and die on her own terms. Her disappearance forces the Rosenbergs to grapple with how to find meaning in the face of mortality—a manic and mystical quest that sends them careening across the globe, colliding into tattoo artists, Chasidic Jews, playworkers, and witches. And finally, back into each other. Bursting with humor and heartbreak, and inspired by Yahm's own experience as a disabled author facing the existential terror of parenting while ill, Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation leaps into the trials of motherhood, the impossibility of adolescence, the hopelessness of grief, and all the wild beauty and hilarity that makes life worth living anyway. Sarah Yahm has worked as an educator, oral historian, documentarian, and writer. She has a Master’s degree in Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz and in Public Humanities from Brown University. She taught at UC Santa Cruz and Brown University. She has published in Slate, The Bellevue Literary Review , and placed pieces on NPR and affiliates, among others. In her work as a writer and an academic, she’s focused on the lived experience and social meaning of illness and disability. She lives in Montpelier, VT. 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

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Join us for an evening of poetry with LOVE IS FOR ALL OF US co-editors James Crews & Brad Peacock, with contributors Eben Bein & Lisa Breger. 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: Love is For All of Us James Crews is the author of the essay collection, Kindness Will Save the World, and editor of several bestselling poetry anthologies, including The Wonder of Small Things (winner of the New England Book Award) , Healing the Divide, The Path to Kindness (winner of the Nautilus Award), and How to Love the World. He has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition , and in People Magazine, The Boston Globe , The New York Times Magazine, The Sun Magazine, and The Washington Post. James lives with his husband Brad Peacock in the woods of Southern Vermont. To sign up for free weekly poems & writing prompts, visit: jamescrews.net . Brad Peacock is a veteran, writer, and long-time organic farmer from Shaftsbury, Vermont, whose passion is to bring people closer to one another and the natural world. His poems have been published in several anthologies, and his op-ed pieces have appeared in newspapers across the United States. He lives with his husband on forty rocky acres that they are restoring to a habitat for pollinators and native species. Eben E. B. Bein is a biology-teacher-turned-climate-justice-educator, activist, and multi-disciplinary artist. They were a 2022 Writing By Writers Fellow and winner of the 2022 Writers Rising Up “Winter Variations” poetry contest. Their poems can be found in the likes of PINCH , Nimrod Journal , New Ohio Review , or in their chapbook Character Flaws (Fauxmoir lit 2023). They currently live on Pawtucket land (Arlington, MA) in a house they co-bought with their husband and poet friends where they are completing their first full-length collection about parent-child conflict, healing, and love. Find them online at ebenbein.com or @ebenbein. Lisa Breger was the Director of the Undergraduate Writing Program at Pine Manor College for many years. Currently, she leads workshops in poetry as a spiritual practice. In 2020, she received the Thomas Merton Award for Poetry of the Sacred and was a runner up for the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize in 2015. She lives by Lake Cochituate with her wife Anne Parker and their beloved English Setter Macy Mae. 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 us for a memorable evening as we celebrate 50 years since our graduation! ~ ~ Saturday, June 7, 2025 from 4:00 - 7:00 pm at Brookline High School - STEM Commons,115 Greenough St. Guided tours of the new wing will be available from 3:15 - 4:00 pm. Enjoy delicious hors d'oeuvres, cash bar, great 1970s music and more! ~ ~ Sunday June 8, 2025 at 12:00 PM - It's a school tradition for the 50th reunion class to lead the procession of the current graduating class. If you'd like to take part, RSVP by May 20 to Kelli McDermott: kelli_mcdermott@psbma.org / 617.713.5003 S ee the BHS invite below for complete details. REUNION TICKETS ~ $75 per person For your convenience, tickets can be purchased here on Eventbrite (service fee applies) OR make a check payable to "BHS Class of 1975" and mail to: Jamesie (Bunker) Gifford 50 Coppersmith Way #306 Canton, MA 02021 ~ When purchasing ticket(s), please consider making a DONATION to "BHS Class of 1975" . Contributions to help defray event costs are greatly appreciated. No amount is too small! Use the donation option on Eventbrite or simply add an additional amount if paying by check. PAYMENTS BY CHECK MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN MAY 15, 2025. If you can't attend, we will certainly miss you! We hope you'll consider making a donation. ________________________________________________________________________________________ ~ We have arranged room blocks at two local hotels. Discounted rates available if booked by May 5. Hilton Garden Inn Boston Brookline https://www.hilton.com/en/attend-my-event/2025brooklinehighschoolreunion/ Homewood Suites Boston Brookline Longwood Medical https://www.hilton.com/en/book/reservation/deeplink/?ctyhocn=BOSBRHW&groupCode=CHW908&arrivaldate=2025-06-06&departuredate=2025-06-08&cid=OM,WW,HILTONLINK,EN,DirectLink&fromId=HILTONLINKDIRECT _____________________________________________________________________________________________ ~ Please help spread the word ... We are hoping for a BIG turnout! There are many classmates we haven't located and we could use your help. If you know of classmates who are not on social media, have moved or changed their contact info, or have just gone incognito, PLEASE email to brooklinehighclassof75@gmail.com and let us know how to get in touch. Likewise, if you know of classmates who have passed away, we would like to know that as well. We can't wait to see you! _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Browse the yearbook at https://archive.org/details/murivian1975broo/mode/2up Information Source: Michele (Grusby) Friedler, Michael Akashian and Jamesie (Bunker) Gifford | eventbrite

In person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of Lab Dog with author Brad Bolman, in conversation with Robin Wolfe Scheffler. 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 5:30PM 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. Lab Dog; What Global Science Owes American Beagles Tracing over a century of transformation in the relationship between humans and our “best friend,” from hunting companion to laboratory commodity to modern pet. Intrepid, docile, and cloaked in coats of white, black, and tan, beagles were one of the most popular breeds in the United States in the twentieth century. From Snoopy to dog shows, many Americans loved and identified with beagles. But during the same period, as scientists searched for a standard research dog, beagles emerged as something else: an ideal animal for laboratory experimentation. In Lab Dog, historian Brad Bolman explains how the laboratory dog became a subject of intense focus for twentieth-century scientists and charts the beagle’s surprising trajectory through global science. Following beagles as they moved from eugenics to radiobiology, pharmaceutical testing to Alzheimer’s studies, Lab Dog sheds new light on pivotal stories of twentieth-century science, including the Manhattan Project, tobacco controversies, contraceptive testing, and behavioral genetics research. Bolman shows how these experiments shaped our understanding of dogs as intelligent companions who deserve moral protection and socialization—and in some cases, daily medication. Compelling and accessible, Lab Dog tells the thorny story of the participation of beagles in science, including both their sacrifices and their contributions, and offers a glimpse into the future of animal experimentation. Brad Bolman is a historian in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He is an incoming assistant professor in History and Environmental Studies at Tulane University. He received a PhD in the History of Science from Harvard University. Robin Wolfe Scheffler is an associate professor at the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. He studies the intersection of the biological and biomedical sciences with American society, politics, and economics. His first book, A Contagious Cause: The Hunt for Cancer Viruses and the Rise of Molecular Medicine examined the history of cancer research from laboratory to legislature and back again, his current book in progress, Genetown , is the first urban history of the biotechnology industry, centered in the Greater Boston Area. He has served as a commentator on matters relating to biotechnology, bioethics, and society for NPR’s Morning Edition, The Washington Post , and WBUR’s Radio Boston. 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

Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

BHS Alumni, friends, Brookline supporters...all are welcome to this important scholarship fundraiser for deserving BHS students. Come with a foursome or we'll add you to a group. Cost is just $125 per person, which includes continental breakfast (served 7:30 am to 8:15 am), buffet lunch, greens fees, cart and special gifts. Shotgun start at 8:30 am. You can register here online, or send a check made payable to the BHS Alumni Association. Not a golfer or can't attend? Please consider being a hole sponsor ($100, which includes three lines on a sign). Or you can donate a raffle prize! Please note that the Brookline High School Alumni Association is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization .Our nonprofit ID number is 04-3073276. Information Source: BHS Alumni Association | eventbrite