Posted By Pamela Polston on Fri, May 1, 2020 at 5:52 PM

Jan Reynolds

Five-year-old Rinpoche

Sometimes a kids' book comes along that contains some important reminders for grown-ups. Loving Kindness is one such book.

Jan Reynolds, a Stowe-based writer, photographer and adventurer — particularly the mountaineering kind — has written for both adults and children. Though an eighth-generation Vermonter, she has a proclivity for hanging out with indigenous cultures far, far away.

Several of her previous 16 books are centered on the Himalayas, and so is Loving Kindness. It tells the story of Ngawang Thrinley Palbar (aka Rinpoche), a 5-year-old Sherpa boy in Nepal who's studying to be a great lama, or teacher.

Tags: Jan Reynolds , Himalayas , Tibetan Buddhism , lama , Web Only , Image

Posted By Dan Bolles on Thu, Apr 2, 2020 at 2:48 PM

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Courtesy of Galaxy Bookshop

Bookshelves at Galaxy Bookshop

As Vermonters hunker down during the coronavirus pandemic, finding ways to stave off boredom has become more important than ever. But what to do when you've burned through the home library in, like, four days? Throughout this indefinite period of isolation, we're checking in regularly with local booksellers for reading tips. Next up in the Quarantine Book Club: Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick.

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Pandemic preppers in Hardwick are fortunate to have the coronavirus-era equivalent of one-stop shopping right downtown. Main Street neighbors the Galaxy Bookshop and Buffalo Mountain Food Co-op & Café both currently offer curbside pickup. That means residents of the Northeast Kingdom hamlet can stock up on sustenance for their bellies and their minds in one fell swoop. 

"A lot of customers come in to town and just grab their groceries and grab their books at the same time," Galaxy Bookshop co-owner Sandy Scott said by phone. While that's been a convenient setup for shoppers, she said the move to semi-remote business has been surprisingly tricky for her and business partner Andrea Jones.

"I have to say it's been a funny adjustment," Scott said. "I would have thought it would have been easier, because we don't have customers coming in all the time with interruptions. But it's so much easier to have customers coming in, and we'd so much rather see them in person!"

Tags: Gene Luen Yang , Louis Sachar , T.J. Klune , Sandy Scott , Quarantine Book Club , Galaxy Bookshop , bookstores , Web Only , Image

Posted By Dan Bolles on Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 2:26 PM

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Courtesy of Phoenix Books in Burlington

Phoenix Books in Burlington

As Vermonters hunker down during the coronavirus pandemic, finding ways to stave off boredom has become more important than ever. But what to do when you've burned through the home library in, like, four days? Throughout this indefinite period of isolation, we'll check in regularly with local booksellers for reading tips. First up in the Quarantine Book Club: Phoenix Books in Burlington.

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You might think that since it closed to in-person customers more than a week ago, Phoenix Books in Burlington would be like a ghost town. (Ghost store?) However, the Bank Street bookseller has been anything but.

"We've been pretty busy," said store manager Tod Gross, "there's no down time." He explained that both the Burlington store and its counterpart in Essex Junction have been doing brisk business in online and phone sales both for mail order and "contact-less" curbside pickup.

Tags: Tod Gross , Chris  Bohjalian , Kate Messner , Major Jackson , Quarantine Book Club , Web Only , Image

Posted By Chelsea Edgar on Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 8:29 PM

Courtesy of Stephanie Seguino

Emily Bernard

Emily Bernard, a professor of English and critical race and ethnic studies at the University of Vermont, was named the recipient of the Los Angeles Times' prestigious Christopher Isherwood Prize for autobiographical prose for her 2019 essay collection, Black Is the Body: Stories From My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine.

Each essay presents a different vantage of Bernard's experiences "as a woman, a black American, a teacher, writer, mother, wife, and daughter," as she writes in the book. Bernard reflects on what it feels like to be a person of color in Vermont, on the process of adopting Ethiopian twins with her husband, and on going to Mississippi, where her close relatives live, in the wake of her grandmother's death.

Tags: Emily Bernard , Christopher Isherwood Prize , Los Angeles Times , autobiography , Web Only , Image

Posted By Margot Harrison on Mon, Nov 11, 2019 at 10:51 AM

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Courtesy of Jay Ericson

Jason Lutes accepting the Vermont Book Award

At a gala ceremony on Saturday night in Montpelier, the fifth annual Vermont Book Award was presented to Hartland cartoonist Jason Lutes for his 2018 graphic novel Berlin. It's the first graphic work to win the award, which is administered by the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

The $5,000 literary prize isn't the first award that Lutes, a Center for Cartoon Studies faculty member, has won for his work. In summer 2018, he received the prestigious Inkpot Award at Comic-Con International in San Diego, as Pamela Polston noted in a 2018 Seven Days cover story. She described the three-volume Berlin, which combines history and fiction to chronicle the rise of German fascism between the world wars, as "an astonishing accomplishment that represents a grand vision and more than 20 years' work."

“I felt grateful and honored for having my book nominated for the VBA, but the last thing I expected was to actually win," Lutes wrote in an email. "To work in solitude on a project for 22 years, and then to receive a standing ovation for that work from a roomful of strangers, was an unimaginable and deeply humbling experience. I could barely keep it together at the podium. It was a night I will never forget."

Tags: Jason Lutes , Vermont College of Fine Arts , Berlin , Vermont Book Award , Web Only , Image

Posted By Chelsea Edgar on Mon, Jun 3, 2019 at 9:05 AM

Courtesy

Major Jackson

Acclaimed poet and South Burlington resident Major Jackson, an English professor at the University of Vermont, has been selected as co-editor of the 2019 edition of The Best American Poetry. Yes, non-poetry peeps: that is a BFD. The anthology, published by Simon & Schuster, is slated for release on September 10 — the day after Jackson’s 51st birthday.

The recipient of a Pushcart Prize and a Whiting Award, Jackson is the author of four volumes of poetry. Two of his books, Hoops and Holding Company, were finalists for the NAACP Image Award. His debut collection, Leaving Saturn, won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Jackson's poems and essays have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Callaloo, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, the Paris Review, Ploughshares and Tin House, as well as several volumes of The Best American Poetry.