The Regulator Bookshop: "Happiness." At the bookshop Tuesday night!

A few words about a very special event The Regulator is hosting Tuesday evening

...author Heather Harpham reading from and discussing her new memoir, Happiness: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After.

Happiness tells the story of a struggle with a deadly illness, culminating, in the last half of the book, with most of a year spent at Duke Hospital. As anyone who has spent considerable time in hospitals knows, they are places of hope and fear, of life and death, of pain and suffering, of healings, endings and new beginnings ----- and Happiness encompasses all of this, made especially acute by the fact that the patient here is Heather Harpham's three-year-old daughter Gracie, whom she has brought to Duke to undergo a high-stakes but finally life-saving bone marrow transplant.

Heather Harpham will be joined Tuesday by Bobbie, the nurse who oversaw Gracie's (and Heather's) care. See you there.

"Utterly gorgeous. . .heartbreaking. . . staggering. . . If you're looking for a book to love, I recommend it. . . .[Happiness] is told in riveting, plot-twisting fashion. . . .But I'll say that it's also told with care and courage and humor, and it will deepen your understanding of not just life with a sick child, but life." -Chicago Tribune

Upcoming Events

HEATHER HARPHAM in conversation with BOBBIE, RN

Tuesday, August 22, 7:00PM

The Regulator welcomes Heather Harpham in conversation with Bobbie, the Duke pediatric nurse featured in Harpham's new memoir, Happiness: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After. Durham and Duke Children's Hospital figure prominently in this shirt-grabbing, page-turning love story that follows a one-of-a-kind family through twists of fate that require nearly unimaginable choices.

At first glance, Happiness is a wry, honest, captivating story about parenting a sick child and that would be enough. But it turns out that Harpham is up to something even more interesting here, exploring the complexities of love. Told with abundant charm and insight, this book is a beautifully drawn portrait of one family--its comforts, disappointments and, on the very best days, moments of grace." -Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, bestselling author of The Nest

"An extraordinary and bewitching book, Happiness has staked a claim among the most beautiful and moving portraits of parenthood and partnership." -Susan Cheever, bestselling author of Treetops: A Memoir and Home Before Dark

Heather Harpham has written six solo plays, including Happiness and BURNING which toured nationally. Her fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in MORE Magazine and Water~Stone Review. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and SUNY Purchase and lives along the Hudson River with her family.

PRESCHOOL STORY TIME

Wednesday, August 23, 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 and is bringing that fun to The Regulator every Wednesday!

DAWN RENO LANGLEY

Thursday, August 24, 7:00PM

The Regulator welcomes Dawn Reno Langley for a reading and book signing of her new book, The Mourning Parade: A Novel.

Natalie DeAngelo lost everything the day her two young sons were killed in a school shooting. Desperate to find relief from her unspeakable loss, she volunteers as a veterinarian on an elephant sanctuary in Thailand, but soon realizes she may be in over her head. Battling the memories that torment her day and night, Natalie must find a way to heal an angry, injured elephant named Sophie. Through love, acceptance, and gentle care, Natalie and Sophie heal together, finding new ways to enjoy life again.

Dawn Reno Langley is a Fulbright scholar with an MFA in Fiction from Vermont College and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from Union College. She lives in Durham, NC. Reno Langley will donate a portion of her proceeds from The Mourning Parade to various animal sanctuaries in the United States and Thailand.

PRESCHOOL STORY TIME

Wednesday, August 30, 10:15AM

Join us for Preschool Storytime at The Regulator with Amy Godfrey. Free!

JOCELYN OLCOTT

Thursday, August 31, 7:00PM

The Regulator welcomes Duke professor Jocelyn Olcott for a reading and signing of her new book, International Women's Year: The Greatest Consciousness-Raising Event in History.

Amid the geopolitical and social turmoil of the 1970s, the United Nations declared 1975 as International Women's Year. The capstone event, a two-week conference in Mexico City, was a watershed moment in transnational feminism that launched a new generation of activist networks that spanned continents, ideologies, and generations. How did organizers juggle geopolitical rivalries and material constraints amid global political and economic instability? International Women's Year looks at how these sometimes combative, unanticipated encounters at the conference generated the most enduring legacies, including women's networks across the global south, greater attention to the intersectionalities of marginalization, and the arrival of women's micro-credit on the development scene.

Jocelyn Olcott is associate professor of History and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University. She is the author of Revolutionary Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico and the co-editor of Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico.