Boston Flora

Category: Author Book Signing

  • Thursday, March 15 – Sunday, March 18 – AD 20/21

    AD 20/21: Art & Design of the 20th & 21st Centuries, featuring 50 Select Exhibitors offering modern to contemporary fine art, photography, jewelry, vintage and contemporary studio furniture, decorative arts, sculpture, fine prints, drawings and more at the only show and sale of its kind in New England, takes place at The Cyclorama, Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street in Boston, beginning with a gala preview party Thursday, March 15 to benefit Boston Architectural College. Weekend hours are Friday, 1 – 8, Saturday, 11 – 8, and Sunday, 11 – 5. Standard admission $15, children under 12 free.

    On Friday, special guest speaker Vicente Wolf will present a talk on the infusion of global design and style into his work, and will sign copies of his books Lifting the Curtain on Design and Crossing Boundaries: A Global Vision of Design. The talk begins at 1:30. On Saturday at 3, join panelists Richard Baiano, President of Childs Gallery, Judith Bookbinder, author of Boston Modern: Figurative Abstraction as Alternative Modernism, and Katherine French, Executive Director of the Danforth Museum and School of Art, for a lively exchange moderated by Judith Tolnick Champa, Editor of Art New England. Immediately following the Boston Expressionism panel, Martha Richardson of Martha Richardson Fine Art, and James Stroud of Center Street Studio will offer informal talks in their exhibition booths, which will both feature works by African American Boston artist John Wilson. Finally, on Sunday at 2, Katherine Mierzwa of the Friends of Modern Architecture/Lincoln offers a fascinating presentation on architect Charles M. Goodman, the 1957 Alcoa Care-Free House in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and the history of aluminum and its important role in mid-20th century modern architecture. For complete information visit www.AD2021.com.

  • Saturday, March 24, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Bark: Get to Know Your Trees

    The traits typically used to describe trees, leaves, twigs, and buds are often not clearly visible or seasonally absent. Join Michael Wojtech, naturalist and writer, at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive, Boylston, Massachusetts on Saturday, March 24, from 1 – 4 for an indoor/outdoor exploration of bark, which is always visible, in any season. You will learn about a system for distinguishing bark characteristics and discover clues to bark ecology. For more details on Michael or his new book, Bark: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast, visit: www.knowyourtrees.com.  Tower Hill member price $30, nonmembers $35.  Sign up at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Thursday, March 8, 7:00 pm – Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea

    When Donovan Hohn heard of the mysterious loss of thousands of bath toys at sea, he figured he would interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, and read up on Arctic science and geography. Hohn’s accidental odyssey pulls him into the secretive arena of shipping conglomerates, the daring work of Arctic researchers, the lunatic risks of maverick sailors, and the shadowy world of Chinese toy factories. Moby-Duck is a journey into the heart of the sea and an adventure through science, myth, the global economy, and some of the worst weather imaginable.

    Donovan Hohn is the recipient of the Whiting Writers’ Award, a 2010 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, Hopwood Awards in essay and poetry, and a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Ocean Science Journalism Fellowship. His work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and Outside, among other publications. His January 2007 cover story for Harper’s was included in The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 2, and received honorable mention in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008. A former English teacher, and a former senior editor of Harper’s, he is now the features editor of GQ. He lives in New York with his wife and sons. Moby-Duck is his first book. Meet him Thursday, March 8, beginning at 7 pm at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge. For more information, visit www.portersquarebooks.com, or call 617-491-2220.

  • Saturday, March 3, 4:00 pm – An Everlasting Meal

    Join Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, for an author signing and meet and greet with Tamar Adler, author of An Everlasting Meal, this Saturday, March 3, beginning at 4 pm.

    “An Everlasting Meal is beautifully intimate, approaching cooking as a narrative that begins not with a list of ingredients or a tutorial on cutting an onion, but with a way of thinking…. Tamar is one of the great writers I know—her prose is exquisitely crafted, beautiful and clear-eyed and open, in the thoughtful spirit of M.F.K. Fisher. This is a book to sink into and read deeply.”
    Alice Waters, from the Foreword

    “In this beautiful book, Tamar Adler explores the difference between frugal and resourceful cooking. Few people can turn the act of boiling water into poetry. Adler does. By the time you savor the last page, your kitchen will have transformed into a playground, a boudoir and a wide open field. An Everlasting Meal deserves to be an instant and everlasting culinary classic.”
    Raj Patel, author of The Value of Nothing

    Tamar Adler is a former editor of Harper’s Magazine, the founding head chef of Farm 255 in Athens, Georgia, and cooked at Chez Panisse from 2007-2009. Her book has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, the Irish Times, the San Francisco Examiner, among other publications. Her writing has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, The New Leader, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, Fine Cooking, Salon.com, Gilt Taste, the Atlantic.com, and more. Tamar lives in Brooklyn, NY.

    The event is free. For more information, telephone 617-491-2220, or email ellen@portersquarebooks.com.

     

  • Sunday, March 18, 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm – Love Your Lawn Again

    Paul Tukey and Victoria Rowell introduce their new book, Tag, Toss & Run: 40 Classic Lawn Games on Sunday, March 18 from 3:30 to 5:00 pm at The Boston Flower & Garden Show at the Seaport World Trade Center. For the last five years, Tukey has focused his energies on teaching about growing lawns naturally through the SafeLawn Foundation. In his new book, co-authored by actress and best-selling author Victoria Rowell, Tukey shares his desire to inspire people to use – rather than just look at – their lawns. Meet Paul and Victoria and get re-acquainted with the joy of old-time-y family lawn games like bocce and croquet and maybe learn a few new ones, too! Free with admission to the show – for more information, visit www.bostonflowershow.com.

  • Friday, March 2, 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm – Conifers Around the World

    In 1975, dendrologist Zsolt Debreczy and nature photographer István Rácz (then still a university student) set themselves a goal: to search out and document all the conifers in the world’s temperate zones and their adjacent regions — if possible in their most pristine natural habitats. Over the next thirty years, and with the eventual assistance of over a hundred nature-loving volunteers, generous financial supporters, and field associates from hundreds of regional and local institutes and organizations, Debreczy and Rácz spent almost 2,000 days (over five continuous years) in the field on the trail of conifers. They were able to visit and document the world’s most inaccessible conifer taxa and to include the accompanying flora and vegetation in their documentation. They compiled a collection of 340,000 photographs representing thousands of taxa and backed with precise documentation. This collaborative effort produced Conifers around the World in which they present 500 species of conifers of 52 genera, including several that were new to science. Join the Arnold Arboretum on Friday, March 2, from 5:30 – 7 at the Weld Hill Research Building in celebrating this accomplishment, seeing some of these exquisite images, and hearing about this grand search for conifers.  Free, but registration requested at www.arboretum.harvard.edu.

  • Tuesday, February 28, 7:00 pm – Growing Potential: Gardening Behind Bars

    On Tuesday, February 28, beginning at 7 pm, James Jiler will speak at Trinity Church, Copley Square, in a program co-sponsored by Trinity Church and The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University entitled Growing Potential: Gardening Behind Bars. James Jiler is former Director of the GreenHouse Project, a renowned horticultural job training program for inmates at New York City’s Rikers Island prison and is author of Doing Time in the Garden. He is currently director of GreenWorks, a re-entry program in Florida offering vocational training in “Greencollar” jobs, both inside and outside prison walls. Jiler will discuss horticultural therapy, the role of gardens inside and outside of prison walls and the human and landscape transformations he has witnessed. Jiler was featured in the documentary Dirt! which explores the life-changing effects that dirt and “doing time in the garden” have had on improving/reclaiming the lives of inmates. Book-signing to follow.

    For more information on James Jiler, please see www.nativesplendor.com.

    Tickets available at the Shop at Trinity, by phone (617.536.0944 x225) or online arboretum.harvard.edu.
    Questions: Kathy Acerbo-Bachmann, kacerbobachmann@trinitychurchboston or 617.536.0944 x217.

  • Sunday, February 26, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm – Women in Botany

    Judith Sumner, botanist, author, and educator, celebrates women’s many roles in botany, at Garden in the Woods in Framingham on Sunday, February 26 from 10 – 4. Expert practical botanists – as gardeners, cooks, herbalists, and midwives – women have also become recognized professional botanists contributing significantly to plant science through exploration, research, and publication. Beginning with colonial America and the work of Jane Colden, explore the role of women in botanical studies and documentation. Recognize the role of women in protecting biodiversity (including the origins of the New England Wild Flower Society) and the work of Beatrix Farrand and others in ecology and landscape design.  In addition to lecture, slides, and discussion, peruse primary source materials from the Society library and participate in hands-on activities that commemorate the diverse roles of women in botany. This lecture is offered in collaboration with The Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture. Fee for members of either organization is $72 per person, and for non-members, $87. Register on line at www.newfs.org, or at www.wellesley.edu/WCFH.

  • Wednesday, March 14, 7:00 pm – High Line: The Inside Story of New York City’s Park in the Sky

    The 2012 Esther Steinberg Memorial Architecture Lecture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston will take place Wednesday, March 14, beginning at 7 pm in the Remis Auditorium at the MFA.  Robert Hammond, co-founder and executive director, Friends of the High Line, will share the story of how the High Line, a new public park atop an elevated freight rail structure in Manhattan, became an innovative urban reclamation project.  Hammond and his co-founder collaborated with neighbors, elected officials, artists, local business owners, and leaders in horticulture and landscape architecture, to create a park celebrated as a model for creatively designed, socially vibrant, ecologically sound public space.  A book signing follows.  This is a ticketed event ($15 MFA members, $18 others) and tickets may be reserved by calling 1-800-440-6975, going in person to the Remis Auditorium box office at the Museum, or visiting www.mfa.org.  Because this event will undoubtedly sell out, we recommend buying tickets early.

  • Wednesday, February 1, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Creating Beautiful Gardens Filled with Life

    Instructive examples of gardens full of native plants are hard to find. On Wednesday, February 1, from 7 – 8:30 at The Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, landscape architect and author Carolyn Summers fills that void with a plethora of images and commentary to fire our imaginations. She reviews the science behind the essential life support function of indigenous plants, takes us on a journey through a variety of formal gardens and more “naturalistic” landscapes, and illustrates the effective use of our northeastern native flora so that we can better visualize their full design potential. Ms. Summers is an adjunct professor at Westchester Community College and has been an effective advocate for native plants in the urban landscapes of New York City.  The lecture is free. For more information, call 617-354-0502.