I was wandering through North Adams on a quiet afternoon, when I walked into Installation Space and saw Eve Bunting’s ‘One Green Apple’ on a shelf by the door. The shelf said ‘banned challenged books … take one — thank you.’
Read articleIndependent bookstores have a loyal following in and around the Berkshires, and they grow in an ecosystem of independent presses and local writers, writing residencies and creative centers like the Mount, Edith Wharton’s historic home in Lenox. W.E.B. DuBois, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville and Robert Frost, and Edna St. Vincent Millay and Shirley Jackson have all lived here …
What gives you hope? — #berkshireweekend
The question is hanging in the window of MCLA’s art lab on Main Street over a post box painted like a mosaic. In the sunlight, the colors look as bright and abstract as the bus stop across the street.
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Mapping wonder in West Stockbridge — #berkshireexperience
I’m looking at the bin of old maps at Shaker Mill Books in West Stockbridge and thinking, how would I draw a map of these hills, and what would I put in? When you have an afternoon in West Stockbridge to explore, how do you find unexpected places?
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Chestnuts are roasting — over the river and through the woods
I’ve never cracked a hard-boiled egg on my dashboard before … The whole day has been like this, zany and surprising. We’re picnicking in my car in unexpected sun, eating with our fingers, in the middle of an expedition.
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Gifts of time and touch can hold warmth
This holiday, I’m looking for gifts like a warm sip of home-made cordial on a cold night — something that takes time and some quiet thinking. And touch.
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Asking who Emily Dickinson loved
Emily Dickinson is more than I knew. The metaphysical recluse in white is a hurt, outspoken, ardent woman in a smock the wind can blow through.
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Writers warm up with festivals in early fall
“Despite a strong midday sun, the road was all green shadow thanks to trees thick and tall as a god’s fingers. My old block trees were like zoo elephants — one or two specimens stunted by a cement habitat. But this chaos of greenery had my heart calling dibs.” Quiara […]
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‘Hello, Bookstore’ film appears at BIFF
This week the Berkshire International Film Festival will screen Adam Zax’ new feature film about Matt Tannenbaum and his family, and the community that has carried the Bookstore through the pandemic.
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Russell Banks excavates a bare and rugged New England
Russell Banks came to talk about how to put a book together, how to make a character human, how to make us admit that any character, no matter how broken, is like us — how to drop the defenses and put aside the scrims.
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W.E.B. DuBois strengthens the soul of a community (February 17 newsletter)
This morning I remembered a day in July in a garden along the Housatonic River. A woman was singing in a strong, rich alto, leading a spiritual in the W.E.B. Dubois memorial garden, and we were thinking about how he felt about the town where he was born.
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