From Ritual to Romance
Happy Lughnasadh [ritual] and [Romance] Awareness Month!
I was going to go with Dog Days and Deep Reads, but when we discovered that August was Romance Awareness month… AND… we are hosting Julia Turshen’s debut romance novel Down to Earth (our Book of the Month selection) as our farewell-to-August event on Saturday, August 29th, at 6 pm, then everything, like true love, fell into place.
Julia, who is a bestselling author and chef, renowned for her cookbooks Simply Julia and What Goes with What, has gone the E-40 distance and put romance on the menu. Join us at the bookshop and then mosey on over to Ollie’s for a free cocktail (with proof-of-purchase of the novel from BHB) and stay for the pizza, delicious food, and the vibes.
August, too, as we bask in the afterglow of the Buck Moon, is a time of ritual and reflection.
Come through for our second-annual Summer Salon, this Friday, August 7th, at 6pm, featuring Stephanie Davies new collection of timely and incisive essays, Surviving a Patriarchy on Steroids. Stephanie writes with compassion, humor, and wisdom as we together strive to locate “islands of sanity” in these trying, often dastardly, and criminal times. Stephanie will be joined by poet and meditation guide, Jacinta Lanz, whose new bi-lingual book, En Nuestro Camino / On Our Way is a beautifully produced poem/meditation collection that conjures and combines both breathing practice, language, and the listening body in an experience of individual and shared presence. She will be opening the salon with a guided meditation. Award-winning poet, Janlori Goldman, will also be reading from her collection Bread from a Stranger’s Oven, as well as other work past and present, and internationally recognized and award-winning visual artist and performance artist, Nancy Ostrovsky, who designed the cover art of Stephanie’s book will share her insights on her aesthetics and artistic choices in relation to the “birdwoman figure” on the cover and its presence in her work more broadly speaking.
Also, we’re partnering this month with Intuitively Wild for a Book Club! We’ll be reading Homeschooled by Stefan Merrill Block, a New York Times bestselling memoir that is moving, engaging, and exceedingly well written. As an added bonus, Stefan, who lives locally, will be joining us on August 20th, Thursday, at 6:30pm at Intuitively Wild, for an in-depth conversation about the book! Register for the event either at Intuitively Wild, on our Events page on our website, or just come in and sign up at the bookstore. Buy the book, read the book (it goes quick!), and come to the Book Club event at Intuitively Wild’s beautiful space (2 doors over) on August 20th Thursday, at 6:30pm.
Also, wanting to wish you all Happy Lughnasadh (which begins on August 1st); Lugh (Irish) or Lleu (Welsh) is the “Bright and Shining One” God of All Skills, champion of the Tuatha de Danaan, Sun God and God of Grain, who is also intimately connected to the shape-shifting Welsh Goddess Cerridwen and her son the great bard and seer-poet, Taliesin. See, also, Celebrate the Earth, or the soon-to-be-relaunched The Witch in Every Woman ;)
I know it’s alotttt right now on all fronts, but if you can, and as you prepare for heading “back-to-school,” include us in your plans and come by the bookstore to meet the writers and support the arts.
With much love and respect, and yikes, and phew,
Jean