Easter celebration
All are invited to attend a joyous Easter Worship Service at East Congregational Church UCC on April 17 at 10 a.m. The church is located at 51 Mountain Road, Concord. An Easter Egg hunt will follow the service. All children are invited! Go to eastchurchucc.org for more information, or call 224-9242.
Author discussion
Gibson’s Bookstore is pleased to virtually welcome New York Times bestselling author Anne Hillerman during a virtual presentation on April 19 at 7 p.m. Hillerman is back with her seventh installment in the Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito series, The Sacred Bridge. When Jim Chee makes a shocking discovery on ancient land, his vacation turns into an investigation of a new mystery, while Bernie Manuelito finds herself in the most dangerous situation she’s been in thus far. Registration is required at eventbrite.com/e/ 269787330167.
Virtual book talk
Gibson’s Bookstore is pleased to join Books & Books, the Miami Book Fair, and indie bookstore partners across America to present Mary Laura Philpott (I Miss You When I Blink), in conversation with Kimberly Williams-Paisley, discussing Philpott’s new book, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives! The virtual event will be held April 20 at 8 p.m. This is a ticketed virtual event, with a copy of Bomb Shelter included with each ticket (or a ticket included with each preorder of Bomb Shelter from Gibson’s Bookstore).
Your ticket includes admission to this virtual event and a hardcover copy of Bomb Shelter ($27 retail price), as well as sales tax, shipping, and handling (if applicable).
Registration is required at eventbrite.com/e/ 305771650237.
Book presentation
Keith O’Brien (Fly Girls) returns to Gibson’s Bookstore to virtually present his new work of meticulously researched history in Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe on April 18 at 7 p.m.
The staggering story of an unlikely band of mothers in the 1970s who discovered Hooker Chemical’s deadly secret of Love Canal — exposing one of America’s most devastating toxic waste disasters and sparking the modern environmental movement as we know it today.
Lois Gibbs, Luella Kenny, and other mothers loved their neighborhood on the east side of Niagara Falls. It had an elementary school, a playground, and rows of affordable homes. But in the spring of 1977, pungent odors began to seep into these little houses, and it didn’t take long for worried mothers to identify the curious scent. It was the sickly sweet smell of chemicals.
In this propulsive work of narrative storytelling, NYT journalist Keith O’Brien uncovers how Gibbs and Kenny exposed the poisonous secrets buried in their neighborhood. The school and playground had been built atop an old canal — Love Canal, it was called — that Hooker Chemical, the city’s largest employer, had quietly filled with twenty thousand tons of toxic waste in the 1940s and 1950s. This waste was now leaching to the surface, causing a public health crisis the likes of which America had never seen before and sparking new and specific fears. Luella Kenny believed the chemicals were making her son sick.
O’Brien braids together previously unknown stories of Hooker Chemical’s deeds; the local newspaperman, scientist, and congressional staffer who tried to help; the city and state officials who didn’t; and the heroic women who stood up to corporate and governmental indifference to save their families and their children. They would take their fight all the way to the top, winning support from the EPA, the White House, and even President Jimmy Carter. By the time it was over, they would capture America’s imagination.
Sweeping and electrifying, Paradise Falls brings to life a defining story from our past, laying bare the dauntless efforts of a few women who — years before Erin Brockovich took up the mantle — fought to rescue their community and their lives from the effects of corporate pollution and laid the foundation for the modern environmental movement as we know it today.
Register for the virtual event at eventbrite.com/e/ 310644244297.
