An Evening with New York Times Bestselling Author Ally Condie
Click here to reserve your seats for this free event!
Tuesday, May 9 – 7:00pm
Free Library of Northhampton
25 Upper Holland Rd
Richboro, PA 18954
The Newtown Bookshop and the Free Library of Northampton Township are excited to host New York Times and internationally bestselling author Ally Condie on May 9th at 7pm for a free event at the library! Ally will be featuring her newly released middle grade paperback, Summerlost. Reserve your seat for this free event here!
About the book:
The novel tells the story of twelve-year-old Cedar. Last year, her family was whole, and then her father and youngest brother, Ben, were killed in a devastating accident. It’s their first summer as just three, and Cedar, her mother, and her brother Miles have moved to the small town of Iron Creek. They’re just settling into their new house when a boy named Leo, dressed in costume, rides by on his bike. Intrigued, Cedar follows him to the renowned Summerlost theatre festival. Soon, she not only has a new friend in Leo and a job working concessions at the festival, she finds herself surrounded by mystery. The mystery of the tragic, too-short life of the Hollywood actress who haunts the halls of Summerlost. And the mystery of the strange gifts that keep appearing on Cedar’s windowsill.
Ally wrote a beautiful essay about friendship and the inspiration for Summerlost for The Nerdy Book Club last year. You can read it here.
About the author:
Ally Condie is the author of the MATCHED Trilogy, a #1 New York Times and international bestseller. MATCHED was chosen as one of YALSA’s 2011 Teens’ Top Ten and named as one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Best Children’s Books of 2010. The sequels, CROSSED and REACHED, were also critically acclaimed and received starred reviews, and all three books are available in 30+ languages.
She is the founder of the non-profit WriteOut Foundation, which runs writeoutcamp.org–a writing camp for teens that allows students to work with published authors, experience the outdoors, and enjoy other activities (plays, costume balls, rock climbing, and more).
Ally lives with her husband and four children outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. She loves reading, writing, running, and listening to her husband play guitar.
Cookbook Club “Literate Epicures”
Tuesday, May 9 – 7:00pm
Please join us on April 11th at 7pm for our April Cookbook Club! Choose a recipe out of Food, Health, and Happiness: 115 On-Point Recipes for Great Meals and a Better Life by Oprah Winfrey and please let us know what recipe you will be bringing. All are invited! Please email kathy@newtownbookshop.com to get on our cookbook club contact list if you do not already receive the e-vite for the cookbook club.
Monthly Poetry Club
Thursday, May 11 – 6:30
Welcome Poetry Lovers! All are Invited!!
The first half of the monthly meeting is devoted to a reading by a featured poet from the group or by a published poet. The second half hour allows open mike time for group members to share a few poems they’ve written, or they may choose to read poems written by their favorite poets. In the future, we may include poetry workshops to the group’s activities. If you are interested in sharing a collection of poems, please email Lynn at lynn.fanok@gmail.com .
The meeting will be facilitated by Lynn Fanok, who has written a collection of poems about her experiences as a survivor’s daughter examining her family, memory, and history. Her poetry has appeared in Burnt Bridge and other journals. Lynn holds degrees in English from The Pennsylvania State University and Arcadia University. You’ll find some of her poetry at lynnfanok.weebly.com.
All are invited and welcome to join us!
Launch Party for Jenni Walsh!
Saturday, May 13 – 1:00pm
Please join the Newtown Bookshop as we celebrate the publication of “Becoming Bonnie” by Jenni L. Walsh on Saturday, May 13th at 1pm! All are Invited! Pre-order your copy of Becoming Bonnie now!
The untold story of how wholesome Bonnelyn Parker became half of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde duo.
Travel back to the height of the Roaring Twenties and meet Bonnelyn Parker before she takes to a life of crime in Jenni L. Walsh’s debut novel BECOMING BONNIE (Forge Hardcover; $25.99; On-sale: May 9, 2017). Find out how a young woman who was promised the American dream and given the Great Depression fell so hard for a convicted felon—and turned to crime herself.
Bonnie and Clyde are two of the most famous outlaws in American history. They have captured people’s imaginations for decades, and now BECOMING BONNIE will continue their story on the small screen: it has been optioned for television by Edyson Entertainment, headed by Ed Gernon, a veteran producer whose credits include Nuremberg, Joan of Arc, and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister among many historical TV specials.
Jenni L. Walsh has spent the past decade enticing readers as an award-winning advertising copywriter. BECOMING BONNIE marks her turn to the lives of heroic women: Walsh also has a new middle grade series with Scholastic, Brave Like Me, that tells true stories of young women who accomplished great feats of perseverance and bravery.
Pick up BECOMING BONNIE and step back to the summer of 1927 to meet Bonnelyn Parker, a sharp girl with plans to overcome her family’s poverty, provide for herself, and maybe someday marry her boyfriend, Roy Thornton.
What she doesn’t know is that her life—like her country—is headed for a crash.
She’s about to meet Clyde Barrow.
“A compelling account of a nation and a life in disarray—readers will feel for Bonnelyn as she finds herself scrabbling for survival in a world turned upside down. How do you get from good girl to gangster’s moll? Jenni Walsh takes you along for the ride with Bonnelyn Parker in an account so vivid you would think you were there with her.”
—New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig
“In BECOMING BONNIE Jenni Walsh delivers an intriguing insight into the life of one half of the infamous duo, Bonnie and Clyde. I look forward to reading more from this new author.”
—New York Times bestselling author Hazel Gaynor
“A dazzling and compulsively-readable adventure of self-discovery, with a voice both singular and irresistible. I dare you not to fall in love with Bonnie, and her intoxicating, wholly immersive world.”
—Lee Kelly, author of City of Savages
Daytime Book Club
Thursday, April 18 – 11:15am
The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan
Read the book and then join us on May 23rd at 6:30pm at Grey Nun Academy for a discussion, Q&A, and signing with the author! Click here to reserve your spot at this free event.
Evelyn has been married to her husband for forty years, but their son’s messy divorce has put them at rare odds; James, a beleaguered paramedic, has spent most of his marriage haunted by his wife’s family’s expectations; Delphine has thrown caution to the wind and left a peaceful French life for an exciting but rocky romance in America; and Kate, partnered with Dan for a decade, has seen every kind of wedding and has vowed never, ever, to have one of her own. As the stories connect to each other and to Frances’s legacy in surprising ways, The Engagements explores the complicated ins and outs of relationships, then, now, and forever.
Main Street Voices Poetry Contest Awards Ceremony
Saturday, May 20 – 3:00pm
The James Lorah House
132 N Main St
Doylestown, PA 18901
The Main Street Voices Poetry Contest is open to all residents of Bucks County, with monetary awards given to winners in the adult and student categories. Four award-winning poets will judge the contest, including two former Bucks County Poets Laureate and a professor at Bucks County Community College.
Reception and reading will be held Saturday, May 20th at 3:00pm at the The James Lorah House, 132 N Main St, Doylestown, PA 18901.
An Evening with New York Times Bestselling Author J. Courtney Sullivan
Click here to reserve your seat to this free event!
Tuesday, May 23 – 6:30pm
McKenna Center at Grey Nun Academy
1750 Quarry Hill Rd
Yardley, PA 19067
Please join us as we welcome New York Times Bestselling Author, J. Courtney Sullivan on May 23rd at 6:30pm at the McKenna Center at Grey Nun Academy. She will be discussing her new novel “Saints for All Occassions” along with a Q&A and signing. Click here reserve your seat to this free event.
About the book:
A sweeping, unforgettable novel from The New York Times best-selling author of Maine, about the hope, sacrifice, and love between two sisters and the secret that drives them apart.
Nora and Theresa Flynn are twenty-one and seventeen when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she’s shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn’t sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan–a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand. Fifty years later, Nora is the matriarch of a big Catholic family with four grown children: John, a successful, if opportunistic, political consultant; Bridget, quietly preparing to have a baby with her girlfriend; Brian, at loose ends after a failed baseball career; and Patrick, Nora’s favorite, the beautiful boy who gives her no end of heartache. Estranged from her sister, Theresa is a cloistered nun, living in an abbey in rural Vermont. Until, after decades of silence, a sudden death forces Nora and Theresa to confront the choices they made so long ago. A graceful, supremely moving novel from one of our most beloved writers, Saints for All Occasions explores the fascinating, funny, and sometimes achingly sad ways a secret at the heart of one family both breaks them and binds them together.
About the author:
J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN is the New York Times best-selling author of the novels The Engagements, Maine, and Commencement. Maine was named a 2011 Time magazine Best Book of the Year and a Washington Post Notable Book. The Engagements was one of People Magazine’s Top Ten Books of 2013 and an Irish Times Best Book of the Year, and has been translated into seventeen languages. She has contributed to The New York Times Book Review, the Chicago Tribune, New York magazine, Elle, Glamour, Allure, Real Simple, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among many other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Evening Book Club
Tuesday, May 30 – 7:00pm
The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan
Read the book and then join us on May 23rd at 6:30pm at Grey Nun Academy for a discussion, Q&A, and signing with the author! Click here to reserve your spot at this free event.
Evelyn has been married to her husband for forty years, but their son’s messy divorce has put them at rare odds; James, a beleaguered paramedic, has spent most of his marriage haunted by his wife’s family’s expectations; Delphine has thrown caution to the wind and left a peaceful French life for an exciting but rocky romance in America; and Kate, partnered with Dan for a decade, has seen every kind of wedding and has vowed never, ever, to have one of her own. As the stories connect to each other and to Frances’s legacy in surprising ways,The Engagements explores the complicated ins and outs of relationships, then, now, and forever.
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