Sunday, March 12, 2017

Elinor Lipman, Tim Gautreaux, "Modern Death,"..and our first preschool story time!

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Its all happening this week at The Regulator
 
Tuesday evening we welcome the marvelous Elinor Lipman with her latest novel, On Turpentine Lane. Conventional wisdom has it that Elinor Elinor Lipman Lipman writes romantic comedy (rom-com, for short). Well let me tell you that I am decidedly not a rom-com guy, but I am just loving reading On Turpentine Lane. If rom-com is an author writing exceedingly well about characters she clearly cares about, with a sense of humor and an appreciation for the absurdities of life--sign me up for more!
 
And I can tell you from experience that Elinor Lipman in person is every bit as engaging as her books. Come to The Regulator Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. and give yourself an enjoyable break from reading the news! (See the great things the New York Times had to say about On Turpentine Lane in our events listing below).
 
Wednesday night Louisianan Tim Gautreaux comes to the store to read from his acclaimed new book Signals: New and Selected Stories.
Tim Gautreaux writes riveting stories of down on their luck folks in the Tim Gautreaux rural south. He is one of those writers that other writers study and marvel at (see the comments on the book's dust jacket). And Gautreaux himself, as an undergraduate, studied under another Southern master, James Dickey. Reflecting on this, Rebecca Lee wrote in the New York Times:  
 
"In the humble and great problems strewn through Gautreaux's excellent stories, in his primal forests and his crumbling mansions, in his beautiful and intelligent and ambitious sentences, I find (James) Dickey himself after all these years. He practically shakes my hand. And there is (Flannery) O'Connor too, over by herself, asking us all to please quit making such a big deal of things and tell the story. Gautreaux does them both proud."

Then Thursday night Duke M.D. Harder Warraich will be at The Regulator to read from and discuss his splendid, important new book,
Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life. Modern Death is a wonderful combination of science, medicine, and humanity, written with grace and compassion. This book brilliantly expands upon and adds to the conversation started with Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. If you think that you or someone you care about just might die someday...come talk about it at The Regulator Thursday at 7:00.

"Harder Warraich has looked at modern death with the cool eye of a scientist, and the heart of a humane doctor. It's a wonderful combination of history, anatomy, public policy, and storytelling. A warm and thorough guide to living well all the way to the end."--Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and New York Times bestselling author of I Know Just What You Mean and Paper Trail
 
"Warraich demystifies what is known and unknown about how cells and bodies die, while sensitively grappling with the changing cultural landscape surrounding the end of life, including patients who tweet and share the details of their decline on social media. His story is filled with compassionate accounts of the different ways he has witnessed people meet death in the modern age."--Scientific American
 
And on a lighter note-we hold our first Wednesday morning (10:15) preschool story time with Amy Godfrey this Wednesday!
 Upcoming Events   

You can see our complete events calendar on our website

ELINOR LIPMAN
Tuesday, March 14, 7:00PM
Acclaimed best-selling author Elinor Lipman comes to The Regulator with her highly praised new book, On Turpentine Lane, an endearing romantic comedy from the beloved author of The Family Man and The View from Penthouse B. Lipman may well have invented the screwball romantic comedy for our era, and here she is at her sharpest and best. On Turpentine Lane is funny, poignant, and a little bit outrageous.
 
"Light and tight, 'On Turpentine Lane' is constructed with an almost scary mastery. Not a single thread dangles, not a single character is left without a place in Faith's world.  The story folds out and back in as neatly as an origami flower, and Faith recounts it all with a raised eyebrow and plenty of cheek." -- New York Times Book Review
 
Elinor Lipman is the author of ten novels, including Dearly Departed and The Inn at Lake Devine. She lives in Massachusetts and New York City.

PRESCHOOL STORY TIME
Wednesday, March 15, 10:15AM
Join us for Preschool Storytime at The Regulator with Amy Godfrey. Free!
Amy Godfrey loves telling stories. With 10 years of experience as a Children's Librarian, Amy Godfrey is known for her energetic musical story times. Amy will be bringing fun and stories to The Regulator every Wednesday morning.
 
TIM GAUTREAUX
Wednesday, March 15, 7:00PM
Tim Gautreaux will read from and sign his new short story collection, Signals: New and Selected Stories. After the stunning historical novels The Clearing and The Missing, Gautreaux now ranges freely through contemporary life with twelve new stories and eight from previous collections. Most are set in his beloved Louisiana, many by the Mississippi River, others in North Carolina and even in midwinter Minnesota. But generally it's heat, humidity, and bugs that beset his people as they wrestle with affairs of the heart and matters of faith.
 
"With searing truthfulness, great humor, and abiding love, Tim Gautreaux reveals how an astonishing variety of hard-bitten, good-hearted working people both shape and are shaped by his beloved and endlessly intriguing Louisiana back country. Signals is the most entertaining and original story collection to come out of the American South in many years." -Howard Frank Mosher
 
Timothy Martin Gautreaux is the award-winning author of three novels and two earlier short story collections. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The Atlantic, Harper's, and GQ. After teaching for thirty years at Southeastern Louisiana University, he now lives, with his wife, in Chattanooga.
 
HAIDER J. WARRAICH
Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 7:00PM
Haider Warraich, MD, will discuss his debut book, Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life. Delving into the vast body of research on the evolving nature of death, Dr. Warraich provides readers with an enriched understanding of how death differs from the past, what our ancestors got right, and how trends and events have transformed this most final of human experiences. A new brilliant voice in the conversation about death and dying Warraich takes a broader look at how we die today, from the cellular level up to the very definition of death itself.
 
"There is no topic more universal--or more universally unnerving--than death. Haider Warrich's Modern Death is a much-needed exploration of this treacherous territory, offering clear-eyed analysis of what it means to die in America today and how to focus one's own life toward a saner and gentler denouement."--Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of What Patients Say; What Doctors Hear
 
Haider Warraich is a fellow in cardiovascular medicine at Duke University Medical Center. He is a regular Op Ed contributor for the New York Times, as well as the Atlantic, Guardian, Wall Street Journal and LA Times amongst others. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, PBS, NPR, and the BBC World Service.
 
RICKY GARNI
Tuesday, March 21, 2017 at 7PM
Join us for a fun evening of poetry with Durham-Chapel Hill resident Ricky Garni who will be at The Regulator to read and sign copies of his new collection, Divisive Potatoes. Garni's poems have been called "lighter than air, crisp and refreshing, salty and snacky...with meaning and good cheer."
 
Ricky Garni has worked over the years as a teacher, wine merchant, musician, and graphic designer. A Duke graduate, Garni began writing poetry in 1978, and has produced over thirty volumes of prose and verse since 1995. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize on seven occasions.
 
PRESCHOOL STORY TIME
Wednesday, March 22, 10:15AM
Join us for Preschool Storytime at The Regulator with Amy Godfrey. Amy Godfrey, a Children's Librarian for 10 years, is known for her energetic musical story times and is bringing that fun to The Regulator every Wednesday!

LISA YARGER
OFFSITE: Duke Center for Documentary Studies, 1317 W Pettigrew St.
Wednesday, March 22 6:00PM -- Please note TIME & LOCATION
Lisa Yarger, author of Lovie: The Story of a Southern Midwife and an Unlikely Friendship,  will give a talk and book signing at The Center for Documentary Studies. From 1950 until 2001, Lovie Beard Shelton practiced midwifery in eastern North Carolina homes, delivering some 4,000 babies to black, white, Mennonite, and hippie women; to those too poor to afford a hospital birth; and to a few rich enough to have any kind of delivery they pleased. Her life, which was about giving life, was conspicuously marked by loss, including the untimely death of her husband and the murder of her son.

Lovie is a provocative chronicle of Shelton's life and work, which spanned enormous changes in midwifery and in the ways women give birth. As Lovie describes her calling, we meet a woman who sees herself working in partnership with God and who must wrestle with the question of what happens when a woman who has devoted her life to service, to doing God's work, ages out of usefulness. When I'm no longer a midwife, who am I? Facing retirement and a host of health issues, Lovie attempts to fit together the jagged pieces of her life as she prepares for one final home birth.

MICHELE MOORE
Thursday, March 23, 7:00PM
Michele Moore's novel The Cigar Factory tells the story of two entwined families, both devoutly Catholic-the white McGonegals and the African American Ravenels-in the storied port city of Charleston, South Carolina, during the world wars. The Cigar Factory follows the parallel lives of family matriarchs working on segregated floors of the massive Charleston cigar factory, where white and black workers remain divided and misinformed about the duties and treatment each group receives.  Segregation keeps them from recognizing their common plight until the Tobacco Workers Strike of 1945 -- a powerful moment in labor history that gives rise to the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome." With a foreword by Pat Conroy.
 
Michele Moore has served as a fellow in the English Department at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia. She was a 2006 finalist for the Bellwether Prize for Literature and her creative nonfiction has been broadcast on Georgia Public Radio and published in numerous journals and has won several awards and grants from arts organizations in the Southeast.

WILL SCHWALBE
Friday, March 24 at 7:00PM
New York Times best-selling author Will Schwalbe will read from and discuss his new book, Books for Living at The Regulator. An inspiring and magical exploration of the power of books to shape our lives in an era of constant connectivity, Books for Living provides an impassioned recommendation of specific books that can help guide us through our daily lives.
 
"Schwalbe's 'manifesto for readers' is not about his favorite books but those that helped him when he had a need. Written in a chatty, conversational style, the book is thematically organized by a wide variety of needs: slowing down, searching, trusting, napping, praying, etc.... In an age when the number of readers is declining, a delightful book like this might just snare a few new recruits." -Kirkus Reviews
 
Will Schwalbe has enjoyed a storied career in publishing (most recently with MacMillan); digital media, as the founder and CEO of Cookstr.com; and as a journalist, writing for various publications, including The New York Times and the South China Morning Post. He is the author of The End of Your Life Book Club, and coauthor, with David Shipley, of Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better.
 
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Tom Campbell
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