Boston Flora

Tag: Porter Square Books

  • Wednesday, April 11, 7:00 pm – The Lyme Solution

    Lyme disease is one of the fastest-growing infectious diseases in the United States, and millions of people worldwide, especially gardeners, suffer from its shape-shifting symptoms. Now, in The Lyme Solution, Dr. Darin Ingels shares his revolutionary approach to treating and healing acute and chronic Lyme. Drawing on his experience as a naturopathic physician who has treated thousands of cases, and as a patient, Ingels reveals that Lyme is an autoimmune disease as much as it is an infection. Conventional treatments too often rely on toxic doses of antibiotics that weaken your body and worsen symptoms, instead of boosting your ability to fight for your health. Including the latest research about the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme, Ingels’s uniquely holistic approach provides a path to wellness by fortifying the microbiome, enhancing the immune system, and strengthening the body’s ability to heal from within. The Lyme Solution offers a simple, five-step plan, including:

    1. The most effective early treatment and prevention measures to avoid contracting the disease or stop it in its tracks;
    2. An immune boosting diet and list of herbal supplements that will increase immunity and reduce inflammation;
    3. Guidelines for when and how to use antibiotics as an effective part of your treatment plan;
    4. Tools to identify and eliminate conditions that mimic Lyme disease or exacerbate your symptoms.

    Darin Ingels, ND, FAAEM, is a respected leader in natural medicine with numerous publications, international lectures, and more than twenty-six years of experience in the healthcare field. He received his bachelor of science degree in medical technology from Purdue University and his doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine from Bastyr University in San Diego. He has worked as a clinical microbiologist/immunologist at Lutheran General Hospital, and is board-certified in Integrative Pediatrics. He is also one of the first Naturopathic Physicians to receive a Fellowship with the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.

    Dr. Ingels will speak at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, on Wednesday, April 11 at 7 pm, and will be available to sign copies of his book. Lecture is free, but rsvp at http://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/darin-ingels-lyme-solution

    Image result for the lyme solution darin ingels

  • Friday, September 22, 7:00 pm – Bean-To-Bar Chocolate: America’s Craft Chocolate Revolution

    Author Megan Giller invites fellow chocoholics on a fascinating journey through America’s craft chocolate revolution. Learn what to look for in a chocolate bar and how to successfully pair chocolate with coffee, beer, spirits, cheese, and bread. This comprehensive celebration of chocolate busts some popular myths (like “white chocolate isn’t chocolate”) and introduces you to more than a dozen of the hottest artisanal chocolate makers in the US today. You’ll get a taste for the chocolate-making process and how chocolate’s flavor depends on where the cocoa beans were grown — then turn your artisanal bars into unexpected treats with 22 recipes from master chefs. Meet the author at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, at 7 pm on Friday, September 22. She will also sign copies of her book Bean-To-Bar Chocolate: America’s Craft Chocolate Revolution.

    Megan Giller is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor with strong connections to the food world in both New York City and Austin, TX. Giller writes for many publications, including the New York Times, Slate, Texas Monthly, Zagat Austin, Food & Wine, and Modern Farmer.

  • Friday, August 25, 7:00 pm – The Wildcrafted Cocktail

    Meet the natural lovechild of the popular local-foods movement and craft cocktail scene. It’s here to show you just how easy it is to make delicious, one-of-a-kind mixed drinks with common flowers, berries, roots, and leaves that you can find along roadsides or in your backyard. Foraging expert Ellen Zachos gets the party started with recipes for more than 50 garnishes, syrups, infusions, juices, and bitters, including Quick Pickled Daylily Buds, Rose Hip Syrup, and Chanterelle-infused Rum. You’ll then incorporate your handcrafted components into 45 surprising and delightful cocktails, such as Stinger in the Rye, Don’t Sass Me, and Tree-tini. This lecture and book signing will take place at 7 pm on Friday, August 25 at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge. For more information visit http://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/ellen-zachos-wildcrafted-cocktail

  • Thursday, August 24, 7:00 pm – Fiery Ferments

    The authors of the best-selling Fermented Vegetables are back at Porter Square Books on Thursday, August 24 at 7 pm, and this time they’ve brought the heat with them. Whet your appetite with more than 60 recipes for hot sauces, mustards, pickles, chutneys, relishes, and kimchis from around the globe. Chiles take the spotlight, with recipes such as Thai Pepper Mint Cilantro Paste, Aleppo Za’atar Pomegranate Sauce, and Mango Plantain Habanero Ferment, but other traditional spices like horseradish, ginger, and peppercorns also make cameo appearances. Dozens of additional recipes for breakfast foods, snacks, entrees, and beverages highlight the many uses for hot ferments.

    Kirsten K. Shockey and Christopher Shockey got their start in fermenting foods with their farmstead food company, where they created more than 40 varieties of cultured vegetables and krauts. Their current focus is on teaching the art of fermenting vegetables to others through classes and workshops at their farm. They live on a 40-acre hillside homestead in the Applegate Valley of southern Oregon. Porter Square Books is located at 25 White Street in Cambridge. More information at http://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/kirsten-shockey-fiery-ferments

  • Monday, June 26, 7:00 pm – The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions

    As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet’s history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet’s five mass extinctions and, in the process, offering us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future.

    Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future.

    Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside -scenes of the crime, – from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record–which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish–and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits.

    Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light. Peter Brannen will discuss and sign copies of his book at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge on Monday, June 26 at 7 pm. For more information call 617-491-2220, or visit www.portersquarebooks.com.

  • Wednesday, May 10, 7:00 pm – Building Old Cambridge

    Old Cambridge is the traditional name of the once-isolated community that grew up around the early settlement of Newtowne, which served briefly as the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and then became the site of Harvard College. This abundantly illustrated volume from the Cambridge Historical Commission traces the development of the neighborhood as it became a suburban community and bustling intersection of town and gown. Based on the city’s comprehensive architectural inventory and drawing extensively on primary sources, Building Old Cambridge considers how the social, economic, and political history of Old Cambridge influenced its architecture and urban development.

    Old Cambridge was famously home to such figures as the proscribed Tories William Brattle and John Vassall; authors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Dean Howells; publishers Charles C. Little, James Brown, and Henry O. Houghton; developer Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a founder of Bell Telephone; and Charles Eliot, the landscape architect. Throughout its history, Old Cambridge property owners have engaged some of the country’s most talented architects, including Peter Harrison, H. H. Richardson, Eleanor Raymond, Carl Koch, and Benjamin Thompson.

    The authors, Susan Maycock and her husband Charles Sullivan, explore Old Cambridge’s architecture and development in the context of its social and economic history; the development of Harvard Square as a commercial center and regional mass transit hub; the creation of parks and open spaces designed by Charles Eliot and the Olmsted Brothers; and the formation of a thriving nineteenth-century community of booksellers, authors, printers, and publishers that made Cambridge a national center of the book industry. Finally, they examine Harvard’s relationship with Cambridge and the community’s often impassioned response to the expansive policies of successive Harvard administrations.

    Susan and Charles will speak at Porter Square Books on Wednesday, May 10 beginning at 7 pm. For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com.

  • Tuesday, May 9, 7:00 pm – The Outer Beach

    Those who have encountered Cape Cod or merely dipped into an account of its rich history know that it is a singular place. Robert Finch writes of its beaches: No other place I know sears the heart with such a constant juxtaposition of pleasure and pain, of beauty being born and destroyed in the same moment. And nowhere within its borders is this truth more vivid and dramatic than along the forty miles of Atlantic coast what Finch has always known as The Outer Beach. The essays here represent nearly fifty years and a cumulative thousand miles of walking along the storied edge of the Cape’s legendary arm.

    Finch considers evidence of nature’s fury: shipwrecks, beached whales, towering natural edifices, ferocious seaside blizzards. And he ponders everyday human interactions conducted in its environment with equal curiosity, wit, and insight: taking a weeks-old puppy for his first beach walk; engaging in a nocturnal dance with one of the Cape’s fabled lighthouses; stumbling, unexpectedly, upon nude sunbathers; or even encountering out-of-towners hoping an Uber will fetch them from the other side of a remote dune field.

    Throughout these essays, Finch pays tribute to the Outer Beach’s impressive literary legacy, meditates on its often-tragic history, and explores the strange, mutable nature of time near the ocean. But lurking behind every experience and observation both pivotal and quotidian is the essential question that the beach beckons every one of its pilgrims to confront: How do we accept our brief existence here, caught between overwhelming beauty and merciless indifference?

    Finch’s affable voice, attentive eye, and stirring prose will be cherished by the Cape’s staunch lifers and erstwhile visitors alike, and strike a resounding chord with anyone who has been left breathless by the majestic, unrelenting beauty of the shore. He will speak and sign copies of his book on Tuesday, May 9 at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, beginning at 7 pm. For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com.

     

  • Thursday, March 30, 7:00 pm – Sheds

    Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, will host author Howard Mansfield on Thursday, March 30 at 7 pm, who will speak on his book Sheds and sign copies as well. A shed is the shortest line between need and shelter. Drawing on material from his recent book Dwelling in Possibility, Mansfield explores the different types of sheds found around New England and beyond: covered bridges, barns, work sheds, worship sheds (meeting houses), extended farmhouses, bob houses for ice fishing. In lyrical style and supported by photographs by Joanna Eldredge Morrissey, Mansfield shows the connection between the design of these structures and their roles in our lives. Sheds are like our lives not the grandest building or the most graceful. Sheds are ordinary and in that they are exalted.

    Anyone who has ever traveled the back roads of America will enjoy this beautifully photographed exploration of simple, useful structures.

    Howard Mansfield writes about history, architecture, and preservation. Author of The Same Ax, Twice, The Bones of the Earth, In the Memory House, Turn and Jump, and Dwelling in Possibility, he lives in New Hampshire with his wife, the writer Sy Montgomery.

  • Tuesday, January 31, 7:00 pm – Future Humans

    Come to a thought provoking talk and book signing on Tuesday, January 31 at 7 pm at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge. Are humans still subject to the forces of evolution? An evolutionary biologist provides surprising insights into the future of Homo sapiens.

    In his intriguing book Future Humans: Inside the Science of Our Continuing Evolution, evolutionary biologist Scott Solomon draws on the explosion of discoveries in recent years to examine the future evolution of our species. Combining knowledge of our past with current trends, Solomon offers convincing evidence that evolutionary forces still affect us today. But how will modernization, including longer lifespans, changing diets, global travel, and widespread use of medicine and contraceptives, affect our evolutionary future?

    Solomon presents an entertaining and accessible review of the latest research on human evolution in modern times, drawing on fields from genomics to medicine and the study of our microbiome. Surprising insights, on topics ranging from the rise of online dating and Cesarean sections to the spread of diseases such as HIV and Ebola, suggest that we are entering a new phase in human evolutionary history one that makes the future less predictable and more interesting than ever before.

    Scott Solomon is an evolutionary biologist and science writer. He teaches ecology, evolutionary biology, and scientific communication at Rice University, where he is a Professor in the Practice in the Department of BioSciences.

  • Thursday, October 13, 7:00 pm – Water in Plain Sight: Hope for a Thirsty World

    Water scarcity is on everyone’s mind. Long taken for granted, water availability has entered the realm of economics, politics, and people’s food and lifestyle choices. But as anxiety mounts many are finding new routes to water security with key implications for food access, economic resilience, biodiversity and climate change. Judith D. Schwartz shows there are alternatives to praying for rain or sandbagging like crazy, demonstrating that we can ally with the water cycle to revive the earth and restore lush, productive landscapes. Take for instance a river in rural Zimbabwe that, thanks to restorative grazing, now flows a kilometer farther than in living memory. Or a food forest of oranges, pomegranates, and native fruit-bearing plants in Tucson, grown through harvesting urban wastewater. Or a mini-oasis in West Texas nourished by dew.

    Water in Plain Sight shares stories of water innovators and takes readers though the US and the world to find new water—water held in the soil, cycled through plants, captured as dew. We gain new insights on how water flows across the land, insights that can help us replenish water sources and make the best use of what we have. Ms. Schwartz will speak at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge on Thursday, October 13 at 7 pm, and will be available to sign copies of her book.

    Judith D. Schwartz is a journalist whose recent work looks at ecological restoration as a way to address environmental, economic, and social challenges. She writes on this theme for numerous publications and speaks in venues around the world. Her 2013 book Cows Save the Planet was awarded a Nautilus Book Award Silver Prize for Sustainability and is among Booklist’s Top 10 Books On Sustainability. A graduate of the Columbia Journalism School and Brown University, she lives in Vermont. For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com.