Gibson’s Bookstore has two author events featuring a total of three authors on the agenda for the following week. As usual, the events are free and open to the public. For more information, go to gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.
Elisabeth Hyde will return to Concord to share her newest novel, Go Ask Fannie!, at Gibson’s on Friday at 5:30 p.m. When Murray Blaire invites his three grown children to his New Hampshire farm for a few days, he makes it clear he expects them to keep things pleasant. The rest of his agenda – using Ruth and George to convince their younger sister, Lizzie, to break up with her much older boyfriend – he chooses to keep private. But Ruth and George arrive bickering, with old scores to settle. And, in a classic Blaire move, Lizzie derails everything when she turns up late, cradling a damaged family cookbook and talking about possible criminal charges against her.
This is not the first time the Blaire family has been thrown into chaos. In fact, that cookbook, an old edition of Fannie Farmer, is the last remaining artifact from a time when they were a family of six, not four, with a father running for Congress and a mother building a private life of her own. The now-obscured notes written in its pages provide tantalizing clues to their mother’s ambitions and the mysterious choices she once made, choices her children have always sought without success to understand. Until this weekend.
As the Blaire siblings piece together their mother’s story, they come to realize not just what they’ve lost, but how they can find their way back to each other.
Then, on Sunday at 2 p.m., there’s a double event for all the hikers and mountaineers out there, with twice the normal amount of authors and books. Joining Gibson’s to teach us the ins and outs of avoiding a tragedy on a hiking excursion are Julie Boardman, with Death in the White Mountains: Hiker Fatalities and How to Avoid Being One, and Dan Allen, with Don’t Die on the Mountain.
Death in the White Mountains examines the many unfortunate deaths that have claimed the lives of more than 200 hikers, skiers and climbers in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Boardman looks at the root causes of these deaths and identifies the fatal mistakes frequently made by the mountain victims. Besides identifying the nine causes of death, Boardman offers advice to help keep your names off the fatalities list.
Don’t Die on the Mountain provides a helpful guide on good judgment while hiking and describes how decisions could be made in the mountains, as well as leadership, followership and information needed by hikers as the basis for making good decisions.
Gibson’s Bookstore
