KENT—The House of Books will offer a smorgasbord of events this month, with two author talks, a book club meeting and a story time.
Jack Sheedy will appear at the Kent Memorial Library, 32 Main St., tonight (June 7) at 6 p.m. in a program co-sponsored by the House of Books, discussing “In my Father’s Tire Tracks” In the book, Sheedy traces the December 1959 journey his father took across the U.S. in a brand-new Thunderbird. As he drove away, he vowed to his wife and young children, “I’ll be home for Christmas.” More than six decades later, his son decided to retrace those tire tracks city by city. As you ride along with both men on their separate but congruent journeys, the author makes surprising connections with his father across the gulf of time.
The program is free and open to the public.
Historian James Traub come to the House of Books, Friday, June 14, at 6 p.m. for an author’s talk about “True Believer,” his book about Hubert Humphrey’s role as a liberal hero of 20th-century America. Humphrey was liberalism’s most dedicated defender, and its most public and tragic sacrifice.
As a young politician in 1948, he defied segregationists and forced the Democratic Party to commit itself to civil rights. As a senator in 1964, he made good on that commitment by helping pass the Civil Rights Act. But as Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice president, his support for the war in Vietnam made him a target for both Right and Left, and he suffered a shattering loss in the presidential election of 1968.
Wednesday, June 19, the book club will discuss “Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino at 6 p.m. Calvino’s book tells the story of an encounter between the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo. The Mongol emperor has sensed the end of his empire coming soon and Marco Polo diverts his host with stories of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire.
Gabriele Davis, author of “Peaches” will come to the House of Books Saturday, June 22 at 11 a.m. for a special story time. In “Peaches,” a hopeful multigenerational story of love and healing, a girl holds her mother’s memory close while carrying on an important family tradition of making peach cobbler together.
The events are free. House of Books is located at 10 North Main St.
