Boston Flora

Category: Author Book Signing

  • Thursday, October 10, 6:00 pm – Meat Planet

    In 2013, a Dutch scientist unveiled the world’s first laboratory-created hamburger, and since then the idea of producing meat, not from live animals but from carefully cultured tissues, has spread through the media like wildfire. Racing against population growth and climate change, researchers have dedicated their efforts to making sustainable protein. Meat Planet, by historian and University of California, Berkeley PhD Benjamin Wurgaft, explores the quest to generate meat in the lab—a substance sometimes called “cultured meat”—and asks what it means if this new creation might be the future of food. The free lecture will take place October 10 at 6 pm at 871 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston University College of General Studies, Room 505. To be sure you’ll have a seat, visit www.bu.edu/foodandwine

  • Thursday, October 3, 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Plants Go To War

    Join the Massachusetts Horticultural Society on October 3 at The Gardens at Elm Bank for a special presentation and book signing with author Judith Sumner. Drawing from her book, Plants Go to War, Sumner will examine the plants that provided wartime food, pharmaceutical drugs, timber, rubber, canvas, and other essential goods and survival techniques that helped to win the war. Join us for a fascinating story of the convergence of history and horticulture! Join us for a reception at 6 p.m. copies of Plants Go to War will be available for purchasing and signing. Presentation to begin at 7 p.m. $30 for Mass Hort members, $45 general admission. Register at https://masshort.org/garden-event/plants-go-to-war/

    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.  

  • Tuesday, September 24, 7:00 pm – The City-State of Boston

    On September 24 at 7 pm at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Yale professor Mark Peterson reads from his book The City-State of Boston, a groundbreaking history of early America that shows how Boston built and sustained an independent city-state in New England before being folded into the United States.

    In the vaunted annals of America’s founding, Boston has long been held up as an exemplary “city upon a hill” and the “cradle of liberty” for an independent United States. Wresting this iconic urban center from these misleading, tired cliches, The City-State of Boston highlights Boston’s overlooked past as an autonomous city-state, and in doing so, offers a pathbreaking and brilliant new history of early America. Following Boston’s development over three centuries, Mark Peterson discusses how this self-governing Atlantic trading center began as a refuge from Britain’s Stuart monarchs and how — through its bargain with slavery and ratification of the Constitution — it would tragically lose integrity and autonomy as it became incorporated into the greater United States.

    Drawing from vast archives, and featuring unfamiliar figures alongside well-known ones, such as John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, and John Adams, Peterson explores Boston’s origins in sixteenth-century utopian ideals, its founding and expansion into the hinterland of New England, and the growth of its distinctive political economy, with ties to the West Indies and southern Europe. By the 1700s, Boston was at full strength, with wide Atlantic trading circuits and cultural ties, both within and beyond Britain’s empire. After the cataclysmic Revolutionary War, “Bostoners” aimed to negotiate a relationship with the American confederation, but through the next century, the new United States unraveled Boston’s regional reign. The fateful decision to ratify the Constitution undercut its power, as Southern planters and slave owners dominated national politics and corroded the city-state’s vision of a common good for all.

    Peeling away the layers of myth surrounding a revered city, The City-State of Boston offers a startlingly fresh understanding of America’s history. Books may be purchased in advance at the event, but the lecture is free. Register at https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/mark-peterson-city-state-boston

    Mark Peterson is the Edmund S. Morgan Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of The Price of Redemption: The Spiritual Economy of Puritan New England.

  • Wednesday, September 18, 7:00 pm – We Are The Weather

    Join Porter Square Books at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School’s Fitzgerald Theater, 459 Broadway in Cambridge on September 18 at 7 pm to hear bestselling author Jonathan Safran Foer in conversation with renowned author and environmental advocate Frances Moore Lappé, discussing Safran Foer’s newest book, We are The Weather. A signing will follow the talk.

    Some people reject the fact, overwhelmingly supported by scientists, that our planet is warming because of human activity. But do those of us who accept the reality of human-caused climate change truly believe it? If we did, surely we would be roused to act on what we know. Will future generations distinguish between those who didn’t believe in the science of global warming and those who said they accepted the science but failed to change their lives in response?

    In We Are the Weather, Jonathan Safran Foer explores the central global dilemma of our time in a surprising, deeply personal, and urgent new way. The task of saving the planet will involve a great reckoning with ourselves—with our all-too-human reluctance to sacrifice immediate comfort for the sake of the future. We have, he reveals, turned our planet into a farm for growing animal products, and the consequences are catastrophic. Only collective action will save our home and way of life. And it all starts with what we eat—and don’t eat—for breakfast.

    Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the novels Everything Is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and Here I Am, and of the nonfiction book Eating Animals. His work has received numerous awards and has been translated into thirty-six languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

    Frances Moore Lappé is the co-founder of Food First, the Institute for Food and Development Policy, and the Small Planet Institute. She is the author of nineteen books, including the three-million-copy Diet for a Small Planet and, most recently, World Hunger: 10 Myths, co-authored with Joseph Collins. Lappé has received eighteen honorary doctorates, as well as the Right Livelihood Award, often called the “Alternative Nobel,” and the James Beard Foundation’s “Humanitarian of the Year” award. Gourmet Magazine chose her among twenty-five people whose work has changed the way America eats. Lappé has been a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley.

    Tickets are $25, and you may register at https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/jonathan-safran-foer-frances-moore-lapp%C3%A9-we-are-weather

  • Wednesday, July 24, 7:30 pm – Climate Resilience in Your Own Backyard

    Wright-Locke Farm in Winchester continues its 2019 Speaker Series on July 24 with Allison Houghton speaking on Climate Resilience in Your Own Backyard. Soil is alive with more microbes in a teaspoon of healthy soil than there are people on this planet. Only in recent years have we come to fully understand the extent to which a thriving soil also has the potential to rapidly sequester carbon, store and filter water, buffer extremes, break down toxins, and support biodiverse ecosystems. This talk is a call for gardeners to learn to become stewards of the immense thriving world beneath our feet. Learning these skills not only has benefits for our gardens and the food we grow, but also for our local ecosystems, watersheds, communities, and for the planet. Free, but registration required at www.wlfarm.org

    Allison Houghton is a soil, plant and natural world enthusiast. She recently wrote The Carbon Sequestering Garden: Gardening for the Planet While Growing Some of the Best Food Possible. She has played many roles over the past few years as a gardener, farmer, teacher, writer, mother, and naturalist, including as former Director of Horticulture at Green City Growers in Somerville where she wrote the gardening guide, The Urban Bounty: How To Grow Fresh Food, Anywhere. She currently works at the Northeast Organic Farming Association with their soil technical assistance program.

  • Thursday, June 27, 6:30 pm – 7:45 pm – Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees

    William Bryant Logan, Certified Arborist, Founder and President of Urban Arborists, Inc., and author, will speak on June 27 at the Arnold Arboretum’s Hunnewell Building beginning at 6:30 pm.

    When his company was asked to pollard trees in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, William Bryant Logan was stymied. This prompted him to research and learn this ancient way of pruning that prompts thick nests of sprouts to form on major branches.

    The irony here is that pollarding (and the similar practice of coppicing) had been the preeminent way in which humans had tended trees from the last ice age to the Industrial Revolution. What would have seemed the most mundane of tasks to a villager in the Middle Ages had slipped from use, and even memory, in the twenty first century.

    Hear Logan speak of the many ways in which these lost ancient arts (including pruning, hazel creating living hedges, growing oak for ships) created and supported human cultures all over the world and how we once lived closely as partners with trees, as we can only hope to do again. Logan offers both practical knowledge about how to live with trees to mutual benefit and hope that humans may again learn what the persistence and generosity of trees can teach.

    William Bryant Logan is a practicing arborist and author of three acclaimed books on nature, Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, Oak: The Frame of Civilization, and Air: The Restless Shaper of the World. In his book, Sprout Lands, Logan uncovers the millennial story of the call-and-response by which people and trees have lived together in the world. He reflects deeply on how we helped woodlands, but also how in a rapidly changing world, the sprouting of trees can save us.

    Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

  • Tuesday, July 16 – Thursday, July 18 – Nantucket Garden Festival: A Celebration of Island Gardening

    Tuesday, July 16 – Thursday, July 18 – Nantucket Garden Festival: A Celebration of Island Gardening

    The 11th Annual Nantucket Garden Festival highlights the unique and beautiful garden ecosystems on Nantucket and focuses on the importance of sustainability, conservation and gardening ethics for the long-term health of the island. Scheduled for July 16th-18th, the festival celebrates gardening through creative workshops, exquisite garden tours, children’s workshops, family activities and an opening night party. Register at http://www.ackgardenfestival.org/

    Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch will speak, and Ed Bowen and Taylor Johnston of Issima will give a talk on The Cutting Garden Reimagined.

    On Wednesday, July 17 from 6 – 9, the Garden Soiree ($175 before June 30, $225 thereafter) will be held at The Middle Brick, 95 Main Street, a benefit for the Nantucket Lighthouse School. The School is the venue for the three day Garden Marketplace. Five different garden tours are also planned. Buy your tickets now.

  • Saturday, September 28, 8:30 am – 3:45 pm – Inspiration for Next Year’s Garden

    For the Massachusetts Master Gardener Association’s 2019 Gardening Symposium we’ve assembled a group of horticulturists and garden designers whose innovative work is widely recognized. In addition to their presentations, speakers will be available to meet and greet you during breaks and for book signing. The event takes place Saturday, September 28 from 8:30 am – 3:45 pm at Westford Academy in Westford, Massachusetts.

    Fergus Garrett, Head Gardener at Great Dixter House & Gardens in East Sussex, England, and horticultural heir to legendary designer Christopher Lloyd, will speak on how to design with plants “the Great Dixter way,” keeping the garden constantly changing throughout the seasons by experimenting with new plants and plant combinations.

    Jacqueline Van Der Kloet, Dutch garden designer, Piet Oudolf associate, and designer of Martha Stewart’s iconic 120,000 blue bulb linden allee, will teach us how to interplant Dutch tulips and other spring-flowering bulbs with annuals and perennials in naturalistic displays that delight the eye and extend the seasons.

    Paul Zammit, Director of Horticulture at the Toronto Botanical Garden, will show us how to create an eye-catching and lasting planter that transcends the seasons, including favorite choice plants, container combinations, and planter accents.

    Finally, learn about the history of vegetables as well as proven and new ways to raise veggies organically in our challenging New England climate with Matt Mattus, award winning plantsman, blogger, and author of the newly-published book Mastering the Art of Vegetable Gardening.

    Early bird pricing is in effect now – $85 per person through August 17, $100 per person through September 22. The price includes lectures. admission to the Garden Marketplace and Silent Auction, box lunch, and parking. Visit http://massmastergardeners.org/2019-symposium/

  • Thursday, May 23, 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm – Seasonal Flower Arranging: Fill Your Home with Blooms, Branches, and Foraged Materials All Year Round

    Meet Ariella Chezar, one of the most sought after and highly regarded floral designers in the world, and the author of the recently released book Seasonal Flower Arranging: Fill Your Home with Blooms, Branches, and Foraged Materials All Year Round. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Penguin Random House, this lavishly photographed book provides step-by-step instructions for 39 seasonal floral arrangements and projects that celebrate the splendor of flowers, the bounty of the changing seasons, and the wild beauty of nature in your home. This May 23 Berkshire Botanical Garden talk and book signing is co-presented with Berkshire Magazine.

    Ariella Chezar is the author of The Flower Workshop and Flowers for the Table and a master floral designer who has appeared in numerous magazines, including O, Martha Stewart Living, and Real Simple. She is an instructor and artistic director at FlowerSchool New York, and has designed flower arrangements for the White House.

    $10 for BBG members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/seasonal-flower-arranging-talk-and-book-signing-ariella-chezar$10 for BBG members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/seasonal-flower-arranging-talk-and-book-signing-ariella-chezar

  • Wednesday, June 5, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm – Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts Annual Meeting

    Wednesday, June 5, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm – Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts Annual Meeting

    Please join President Suzanne McCance along with the Board of Directors of

    THE GARDEN CLUB FEDERATION OF MASSACHUSETTS, INC.

    Wednesday, June 5th, 2019 at The Hilton Boston Dedham , 25 Allied Drive, Dedham MA 02026

    9:00 – Registration, Coffee, Boutique Shopping, and Design Specialty Flower Show

    9:30 – Credentials & Call to Order. Welcome, Announcements, and Business Meeting

    10:30 – Keynote Speaker Professor Doug Tallamy: Professor of                  Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. Author of the award-winning book  ‘Bringing Nature Home’

    11:45 – Awards Presentation

    12:15 – Installation of new officers – Barbara May, former GCFM & NGC president

    12:45 – Credentials and Announcements

    12:50 – Boutique Shopping, Flower Show, and Social Hour

    1:30 – Luncheon on the lawn

    Please refer questions and inquiries to Nancy D’Ercole: nancy.m.dercole@gmail.com.

    Register online at https://www.gcfm.org/annual-meeting

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