Harvard Book Store
News from Harvard Book Store
March 23, 2013

All anyone can talk about this week is how un-springy the beginning of spring has been, but it's starting to feel like spring in the store.  Next time you're in, throw your change in our donation box for the American Cancer Society and take home one of these lovely harbingers of sun and better weather.


















This weekend marks the thirteenth annual Vericon, a science fiction, fantasy, gaming, and anime convention held at Harvard. Find schedule and registration here. We're glad to be participating once again as the host of the speaker signings. View the complete signing schedule for Saturday afternoon here.

Writers, if you're planning your summer, consider attending the Chuckanut Writers Conference in Bellingham, WA. Put on by a local community college and our friends at Village Books, it's a growing conference seeking to inspire an active writing life. Find schedule and registration information here.

Our Publisher Focus window is featuring Princeton University Press titles this week.





















Store Hours Note:
On Monday, March 25 the store will close early, at 9pm, so we can do our annual inventory. Try not to be jealous.

I'd like to end this week with a personal request. The movie theater where I had my first high school job, the Peterborough Community Theater in Peterborough, NH, is raising money to convert to a digital projector. If they're not successful, they will be forced to close, just shy of their 100th birthday. It's an important part of the culture of a small town (writers, you may know Peterborough as the home of the MacDowell Colony), so please consider donating a few dollars to help with their efforts.

'Til Next Week,
Rachel 

The Weekly Bestsellers already Discounted 20%

New on Our Shelves: The Latest in Fiction, Nonfiction, Scholarly Books & In Store Book Printing
Fiction
 
The Tragedy of Mr. Morn
by Vladimir Nabokov

$26

Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover



This is the first English publication of Vladimir Nabokov's earliest major work, written when he was only twenty-four: his only full-length play, introduced by Thomas Karshan and translated by Karshan and Anastasia Tolstoy. The Tragedy of Mister Morn was written in the winter of 1923��-1924, when Nabokov was completely unknown. The five-act play--the story of an incognito king whose love for the wife of a banished revolutionary brings on the chaos the king has fought to prevent--was never published in Nabokov's lifetime and lay in manuscript until it appeared in a Russian literary journal in 1997.

Nonfiction
 
Farther & Wilder:
The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson
by Blake Bailey   
 
$30
Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover
Order
Charles Jackson's novel The Lost Weekend--the story of five disastrous days in the life of an alcoholic--was published in 1944 to massive success. The Lost Weekend was all but entirely based on Jackson's own experiences, and his valiant struggles fill those pages. Within five years it had sold nearly half a million copies, and was added to the prestigious Modern Library. From the biographer of Richard Yates and John Cheever, here is the biography of Jackson--a writer whose life and work encapsulated what it meant to be an addict and a closeted gay man in mid-century America, and what one had to do with the other.
Learn More
Scholarly
 Doing the Best I Can:
Fatherhood in the Inner City 
by Kathryn Edin and Timothy J. Nelson

$29.95
University of California Press, hardcover
Order

Across the political spectrum, unwed fatherhood is denounced as one of the leading social problems of today. Doing the Best I Can is a paradigm-shifting look at fatherhood among inner-city men often dismissed as "deadbeat dads." Drawing on years of fieldwork, Doing the Best I Can shows how mammoth economic and cultural changes have transformed the meaning of fatherhood among the urban poor. Intimate interviews with more than one hundred fathers make real the significant obstacles faced by low-income men at every step in the familial process.  

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Printed on Paige
Each week, we'll feature a book printed in Harvard Book Store on Paige, our book-making machine. Featured books will range from fresh works from local authors to near-forgotten titles discovered in our extensive print-on-demand database.  
 
Geek to Guitar Hero    
by Alex Skolnick

$22.99

Print on Demand, paperback
Order

An awkward, introverted child growing up in 1970s Berkeley, Alex is misunderstood by his family and taunted mercilessly by classmates. Suffering from a paralyzing lack of confidence, his existence is made tolerable when he discovers the rock band KISS, which inspires him to learn guitar. Eventually events make him realize that the metal scene in which he sought freedom is fraught with perils, while the education he'd fiercely resisted can be invaluable when sought on one's own terms.

Learn More
Bargain Books -- Vericon Edition
Bargain Books are new books at used-book prices. We have a limited number of copies of these titles, so if you see something that you're interested in, come in and check it out soon. To see more of our Bargain Books section, visit our Bargain Books page.
Best Served Cold 
by Joe Abercrombie  
$4.99, hardcover (originally $24.99)

There have been nineteen years of blood. Ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the League of Eight. Armies march and cities burn while older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.
The Word for World Is Forest     
by Ursula K. Le Guin
$4.99, hardcover (originally $18.99)
When the inhabitants of a peaceful world are conquered by the bloodthirsty yumens, they find themselves at the mercy of their brutal masters. They retaliate, abandoning their strictures against violence. But in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society.
Surface Detail  
by Iain M. Banks  
$4.99 hardcover (originally $25.99)
   
In a world where the dead live on as digital entities in online heavens and hells, a murdered woman seeks revenge on her killer, a man that holds the key to moving the battles between the heavens and hells into the real world.
The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson   
edited by Jonathan Strahan 
$5.99 paperback (originally $16.99)
   
In settings ranging from the sunken ruins of Venice to the surface of Mars, and through themes of environmental sustainability, social justice, and personal responsibility, Robinson's stories present worlds in which Utopia rests within our grasp.
Recent Finds Downstairs in the Used Book Department

 

Featured used books go fast, so if any titles interest you, stop in to check them out soon. We will hold the book if you are the first caller to reserve it. To reserve a book, call (617) 661-1515 and ask for our Used Department. We're also always looking for books to buy. Learn about selling your used books, including textbooks, here.
A Theory of Adaptation, Second Edition
by Linda Hutcheon with Siobhan O'Flynn
Originally published by Routledge in 2012
$20 (paperback) in Very Good Condition
A Theory of Adaptation explores the continuous development of creative adaptation, and argues that the practice of adapting is central to the story-telling imagination. Linda Hutcheon develops a theory of adaptation through a range of media, from film and opera to video games, pop music, and theme parks, analyzing the breadth, scope, and creative possibilities within each.
The Erotic Life of Racism
by Sharon Patricia Holland
Originally published by Duke University Press in 2012
$18.50 (paperback) in Very Good Condition
Sharon Holland argues that only by bringing critical race theory, queer theory, and black feminist theory into conversation with each other can we fully envision the relationship between racism and the personal and political dimensions of our desire. The Erotic Life of Racism provocatively redirects our attention to a desire no longer independent of racism but rather embedded within it.
Mission to Tibet:
The Extraordinary Eighteenth Century Account of Father Ippolito Desideri, S.J.
by Ippolito Desideri
translated by Michael J. Sweet
edited by Leonard Zwilling 
Originally published by Wisdom Publications in 2010
$18 (paperback) in Very Good Condition 
Mission to Tibet recounts the journey of the Jesuit priest Ippolito Desideri to the Tibetan plateau. The Italian missionary was most notably the first European to learn about Buddhism directly with Tibetan scholars and monks. While there, Desideri was an eyewitness to some of the most tumultuous events in Tibet's history.

Author Events

   

On sale now:

Elizabeth Strout (4/4)
Mary Roach (4/5)

 

 

Subscribe to the Harvard Book Store Google Event Calendar here.

All Upcoming Events 


Vericon Book Signings
Sat, Mar. 23, 2:30PM 

Harvard Book Store partners with the Radcliffe-Harvard Science Fiction Association to host book signings with this year's Vericon speakers: Shira Lipkin, Jennifer Pelland, Greer Gilman, Tamora Pierce, Jo Walton, N.K. Jemisin, and Seanan McGuire. Full signing schedule can be found here.
At Harvard Book Store
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Louisa Hall
Tues, March 26, 7PM    

Poet, Harvard grad, and former professional squash player Louisa Hall reads from her debut novel, The Carriage House.
At Harvard Book Store
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Gish Jen
Wed, March 27, 7PM    

Award-winning author Gish Jen discusses Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self, a book based on her Massey Lectures, delivered at Harvard University in the spring of 2012.
At Harvard Book Store
Learn More

Maria Konnikova
Thurs, March 28, 7PM 

Maria Konnikova, who writes the "Literally Psyched" column for Scientific American, discusses Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes.
Rescheduled from Feb. 8.
At Harvard Book Store
Learn More

Jeanne Theoharis
Fri, March 29, 3PM     

Political science professor and civil rights scholar Jeanne Theoharis discusses The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. Co-sponsored with the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute.
At Harvard Book Store
Learn More

Andrea Pitzer
Fri, March 29, 7PM     

Andrea Pitzer, founder of the Nieman Storyboard, discusses her debut biography, The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov.
At Harvard Book Store
Learn More

Things to know about our $5 tickets...

 

$5 tickets are also coupons good for $5 off a purchase at events or at Harvard Book Store. Coupons expire 30 days after the event, and cannot be used for online purchases, event tickets, or gift certificates. Please note that your ticket only guarantees you a seat until 5 minutes before an event begins.


Find it here. Buy it here. Keep us here.

We appreciate the feedback we get from readers of this e-newsletter.

 

Please send your comments and suggestions to Rachel at rcass@harvard.com. Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you in the store!

 

Rachel Cass
Marketing Manager
rcass@harvard.com 

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