Boston Flora

Category: Author Book Signing

  • Saturday, March 28, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Making a Garden for the Birds – Postponed

    “I always say the birds taught me to garden. And I thank them.” – Margaret Roach
    What started out decades ago as merely a semi-conscious wish to see more birds as she started a garden on a former blank canvas, ended up bringing about 68 avian species into Margaret’s garden each year, each in its own time, with a smaller but substantial number nesting in it or at its periphery. Margaret will share all her “if I knew then what I know now” aha’s about setting realistic aims (no, not every site is going to attract bluebirds, no matter how many boxes you buy!) and accomplishing them-all within the context of a visually pleasing home landscape. She’ll cover her top tips for making a garden that makes birds right at home, must-have resources, and much more.

    Margaret will be signing copies of her all-new version of A Way to Garden after the talk, which takes place at Tower Hill Botanic Garden on March 28 from 2 – 3:30. The book is available in Tower Hill’s Garden Shop. Margaret Roach, after 15 years at Martha Stewart Living and a decade each at Newsday and The New York Times, now writes the nationally acclaimed blog “A Way to Garden” and is author of the 2011 corporate-dropout memoir, And I Shall Have Some Peace There, about walking away from “success” for a quieter life lived closer to nature. The Backyard Parables (2013) blends garden memoir and how-to advice. An all-new version of her first award-winning book A Way to Garden was published in spring 2019, on its 21st anniversary. She has worked for more than 25 years to make her garden in the Hudson Valley-Berkshires area a visual treat every day of the year. It has been open for Garden Conservancy Open Days for more than 20 years.

    The lecture is $15 for Tower Hill Members, $18 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Tuesday, March 17, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm – The Herbal History of World War II – POSTPONED

    Based on research completed for her recent book, Plants Go to War: A Botanical History of World War II, Judith Sumner will discuss the importance of herbs and medicinal plants in the war effort. From the County Herb Committees in England to South American cinchona (quinine) missions, plants played essential roles in treating wartime illnesses and conditions. We’ll examine the botanical origins of treatments for ailments ranging from bacterial infections and tropical parasites to vitamin deficiencies and bombing-induced stress. The Tower Hill Botanic Garden talk on March 17 from 11 – 12:30 will also include historical perspective on the cultural and medicinal role of herbs in the Third Reich, including the cultivation of extensive herbal gardens at concentration camps.

    Judith Sumner is a botanist who specializes in ethnobotany, flowering plants, plant adaptations, and garden history. She has taught extensively both at the college level and at botanical gardens, including the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and Garden in the Woods. Judith graduated from Vassar College and completed graduate studies in botany at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She studied at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and at the British Museum (Natural History) and did extensive field work in the Pacific region on the genus Pittosporum. She has published monographic studies in the American Journal of Botany, Pollen et Spores, and Allertonia, as well as monographing two families for Flora Vitiensis Nova.

    The session is $15 for THBG members, $20 for nonmembers. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Saturday, March 21, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – What Linnaeus Saw

    Join Karen Beil, author of What Linnaeus Saw, through a true adventure story about an intriguing, world-renowned scientist who revolutionized the way we study plants and animals. The globetrotting naturalists of the 18th century were the plant geeks of their day. Foremost among them was Carl Linnaeus, a radical thinker who transformed biology. A medical doctor, botanist and enthusiastic professor in Sweden, he encouraged his devoted students to search the world for species. Now, more than ever, we need to learn about and value the world’s plants, animals, and habitats—both for the crucial roles they play in nature and for the benefits they provide to humankind. What Linnaeus Saw gives us a chance to examine the past and see what it can teach us for the future. A book sale and signing will follow the talk.

    Karen Beil was born in Boston, MA, into a family of book lovers, herself studying magazine journalism and English literature at Syracuse University. She reveled in the romantic poets, Shakespeare, and Chaucer.. But her greatest influence was a science professor, an expert on inland aquatic ecosystems. Her first professional job came as a news reporter in Chicago and later as a writer and editor at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, essentially translating the fascinating technical work of scientists and engineers into understandable English. 

    Later, reading with her own young children, she began to write articles for children’s magazines including Ranger Rick and National Geographic World, and has since written several picture books as well as a mid-grade nonfiction about wildfire. Her talk will take place at Berkshire Botanical Garden on March 21 at 2 pm. Free for students with valid ID, $15 for BBG members, and $20 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/what-linnaeus-saw-scientist%E2%80%99s-quest-name-every-living-thing

  • Saturday, March 14, 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm – The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants

    Focus in a wholly unique way on how horticulture intersects with our everyday world, and on women whose work has enriched and expanded these intersections in the last 25 years. The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants by Jennifer Jewell explores and celebrates how the plant world is improved not only by greater representation of women, but also by diversity amongst those women. It chronicles how working in the world of plants is a more viable and creative career path for women than ever before and how the plant-work world is demonstrating greater social and environmental responsibility, in large part due to women’s contributions. Walking through profiles of women doing current and innovative work in all fields horticultural – botany, environmental science, landscape design and architecture, floriculture, agriculture, social justice, plant seeking and breeding, seed science, gardening, garden writing and garden photography, public garden administration, research, and public policy – we see how they often represent larger issues or shifts in our world. The work of these women illustrates how the many challenges of our world – environmental, economic, cultural/societal, individual – can be met through cultivating an interdependence with plants. 

    The group of 75 includes representatives from the United States, England, Ireland, Wales, Canada, Australia, India, and Japan.  These paradigm-shifting women range beautifully across race, ethnicity, socio-economic and religious backgrounds, sexual orientation, and age – in a way that transcends preconceived notions of what horticulture/gardening is and what plantspeople/gardeners look like. These women and their work have profoundly positive impacts on the larger world – aesthetically, environmentally, culturally, and economically – making them joyful and encouraging role models and inspirations for us all.

    Following the March 14 lecture at the Berkshire Botanical Garden in West Stockbridge, there will be a book sale and signing of The Earth in Her Hands.

    Jennifer Jewell is the creator and host of Cultivating Place, an award-winning public radio program and podcast on natural history and the human impulse to garden.

  • Saturday, March 7, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Expert Honey Tasting

    Every taste of honey is an opportunity to learn something about its floral source, region and even the beekeeper’s practices. Tasting and evaluating honey is a skill learned through formal sensory training along with experience. Join honey connoisseur and beekeeper, Carla Marina Marchese, on Saturday, March 7 from 1 – 4 at Berkshire Botanical Garden to learn the methods of sensory analysis used by sommeliers to taste and evaluate honey like an expert. The art of honey tasting is as complex as skills used by a wine or olive oil sommelier. If you are looking to improve your knowledge of honey and your tasting skills you should attend this workshop, which is appropriate for those who appreciate honey and beekeepers alike. Copies of The Honey Connoisseur will be available for purchase and signing by Marina. $55 for BBG members, $65 for nonmembers. Register at www.berkshirebotanical.org

    Carla Marina Marchese is a member of the Italian National Register of Experts in the Sensory Analysis of Honey, where she received her formal training. Her book, The Honey Connoisseur, co-authored with Kim Flottum (editor of Bee Culture Magazine), parallels the concept of terroir to single-origin honey, directly matching floral sources to flavors, and conceived the first U.S. honey aroma and flavor wheel. In 2011, Marina established The American Honey Tasting Society as the leading resource for honey sensory education in the United States. An accomplished apiculturist, Marina has also successfully completed the Charles Mraz Apitherapy Course, deepening her understanding of products of the beehive and their applications to health and healing. Marchese is also the founder of the beloved brand of Red Bee honey.

  • Friday, February 7, 7:00 pm – A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal

    In the twenty-first century, all politics are climate politics. The age of climate gradualism is over, as unprecedented disasters are exacerbated by inequalities of race and class. We need profound, radical change. A Green New Deal can tackle the climate emergency and rampant inequality at the same time. Cutting carbon emissions while winning immediate gains for the many is the only way to build a movement strong enough to defeat big oil, big business, and the super-rich—starting right now.

    A Planet to Win explores the political potential and concrete first steps of a Green New Deal. It calls for dismantling the fossil fuel industry and building beautiful landscapes of renewable energy, guaranteeing climate-friendly work and no-carbon housing and free public transit. And it shows how a Green New Deal in the United States can strengthen climate justice movements worldwide. We don’t make politics under conditions of our own choosing, and no one would choose this crisis. But crises also present opportunities. We stand on the brink of disaster—but also at the cusp of wondrous, transformative change.

    Alyssa Battistoni is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University and an Editor at Jacobin. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, n+1, the Nation, Jacobin, In These Times, Dissent, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. 

    Thea Riofrancos is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Providence College and the author of Resource Radicals. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, n+1, Jacobin, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Dissent, and In These Times. She serves on the steering committee of DSA’s Ecosocialist Working Group.

    The authors will speak and sign copies of their book on February 7 at 7 pm at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge. For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com

  • Saturday, February 1, 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm – Warm Room

    Warm Room: Photographs from Historic Greenhouses (2019) is the culmination of a twenty year project that began at the Planting Fields Arboretum on Long Island where the author Peter Moriarty lived in 1996. Significant American sites were added as the series of gelatin-silver prints evolved. Site notes were made for each of the locations. In 2010 a major grant permitted the addition of British and European works to contrast with the American photographs. Research at the Mertz library at the New York Botanical Garden set the itinerary for a two month excursion. There are 58 photographs in the book, which have been carefully scanned by Thomas Palmer. In addition there are 13 architectural drawings from both Royal and public archives in the US, UK, BE and FR. Botanists at the various conservatories have provided the proper Latin names for plants within his photographs. Ernesto Aparicio designed the book, which will we be printed by Verona Libri, Italy in October, 2019. Prints from this project are now in several collections (Princeton Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, Davison Art Gallery at Wesleyan University, Mt. Holyoke College Art Museum, Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College and the Worcester Art Museum) and a key set is in the Mertz Library. Moriarty published Lotte Jacobi Photographs with David Godine (Boston, MA 2003). BigTown Gallery in Rochester, Vermont represents his work.

    Peter Moriarty’s Warm Room photographs and photogenic subject matter lend themselves beautifully to the gelatin-silver technique. The striking plant forms juxtaposed with glass house architecture provides an intriguing contrast between the built and natural environments. The Warm Room series is rich in tonal variation and texture offering a unique viewpoint into a world rarely imagined. Peter Moriarty is an emeritus professor of art, who taught both in the Vermont State Colleges and at the Trinity School in NYC. He is the author of Lotte Jacobi Photographs (2003) and his prints are represented by BigTown Gallery in Rochester, Vermont. His work is in numerous public collections including the Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Mt.Holyoke.

    Join the author for a talk and book signing on February 1 at Tower Hill Botanic Garden beginning at 1:30 pm. $10 for Tower Hill members, $20 for nonmembers. Books will be available for purchase (extra).

  • Thursday, December 12, 6:30 pm – Decorating “The People’s House”

    Author and renowned event producer Bryan Rafanelli and Jeremy Bernard, former White House social secretary under President Obama, will share their memories of holidays in the Obama White House on December 12 beginning at 6:30 in WBUR’s CitySpace at the Lavine Broadcast Center, 890 Commonwealth Avenue.

    The pair will discuss how the process of designing holiday décor was more than creating visually stunning displays, it was one that honored the history of a great house and the values of the First Family. $10, and door will open at 5:30 Buy tickets at www.wbur.org

    Jeremy Hobson, co-host of Here & Now, will moderate. Copies of Rafanelli’s new book, A Great Party – Designing The Perfect Celebration will be on sale. Rafanelli will sign copies following the discussion.

  • Sunday, November 17, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Laura Dowling: Inspiring Holiday Decor

    As chief floral designer at the White House for six years under President Barack Obama, Laura Dowling was a creative mastermind behind the lavish White House holiday season, working with First Lady Michelle Obama and an extraordinary group of volunteers to create holiday magic. In this November 17 Museum of Fine Arts Boston lecture and floral demonstration, Dowling shares her tips, techniques, and inspiration for creating her favorite White House holiday designs—from Thanksgiving table settings to festive wreaths, trees, and garlands.

    The lecture, in the Remis Auditorium, begins at 1 pm. Book signing to follow in the MFA Bookstore.  $48 MFA members, $60 nonmembers. To order tickets by phone, call 1-800-440-6975 ($6 processing fee applies); to order in person, visit any MFA ticket desk. To order on line, visit www.mfa.org.

    This event is presented in partnership with the MFA Associates. 

  • Friday, November 1, 7:00 pm – Fungipedia: A Brief Compendium of Mushroom Lore

    Local author Larry Millman presents his latest: an illustrated mini-encyclopedia of fungal lore, from John Cage and Terrence McKenna to mushroom sex and fairy rings. He will speak at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, on November 1 at 7 pm. For more information visit https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/lawrence-millman-fungipedia

    Fungipedia presents a delightful A-Z treasury of mushroom lore. With more than 180 entries–on topics as varied as Alice in Wonderland, chestnut blight, medicinal mushrooms, poisonings, Santa Claus, and waxy caps–this collection will transport both general readers and specialists into the remarkable universe of fungi.

    Combining ecological, ethnographic, historical, and contemporary knowledge, author and mycologist Lawrence Millman discusses how mushrooms are much more closely related to humans than to plants, how they engage in sex, how insects farm them, and how certain species happily dine on leftover radiation, cockroach antennae, and dung. He explores the lives of individuals like African American scientist George Washington Carver, who specialized in crop diseases caused by fungi; Beatrix Potter, creator of Peter Rabbit, who was prevented from becoming a professional mycologist because she was a woman; and Gordon Wasson, a J. P. Morgan vice-president who almost single-handedly introduced the world to magic mushrooms. Millman considers why fungi are among the most significant organisms on our planet and how they are currently being affected by destructive human behavior, including climate change.

    With charming drawings by artist and illustrator Amy Jean Porter, Fungipedia offers a treasure trove of scientific and cultural information. The world of mushrooms lies right at your door–be amazed.

    Lawrence Millman is a mycologist and author of numerous books, including Our Like Will Not Be There Again, Last Places, Fascinating Fungi of New England, and At the End of the World. He has done mycological work in places as diverse as Greenland, Honduras, Iceland, Panama, the Canadian Arctic, Bermuda, and Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he has documented 321 different species. Amy Jean Porter is an artist, illustrator, and naturalist. Her illustrated books include Of Lamb and The Artists’ and Writers’ Cookbook, and her artwork has appeared in such publications as McSweeney’s and The Awl.