This Week at The Bookstore June 2 – 8, 2025

June is (finally) warming up, I’m sure you’ve noticed!  We’re going to start the month off with an author appearance this coming Friday evening, and then there are a few more items. First, we’re very happy to welcome Dr. Claudia Gold this coming Friday evening June 6 at 5 pm to talk about her new book Getting to Know You: Lessons in Early Relational Health from Infants and Caregivers.  Pediatrician, infant-parent mental health specialist, author, teacher, public speaker, and member of Volunteers in Medicine, Claudia has been here at The Bookstore before, for two of her earlier books The Silenced Child and Keeping Your Child in Mind.   This new book is different, though, using a story-telling approach to the principles of early relational health between child and parent and or caregiver.   Claudia is an engaging speaker, and has a wealth of knowledge to share.  I’m always happy when she has a new book. Sunday June 8 at 5 pm, to celebrate Berkshire Pride Month, our friend Karen Chase will be presenting a staged reading of Jamali Kamali, a homoerotic love poem that takes place in 16th century India (this is from her new book Two Tales: Jamali-Kamali and ZundelState)  at The Dream Away Lodge in Becket, co-sponsored by QMoB (Queer Men of the Berkshires).  Next week June 11 we’ll be at The Hot Plate in Pittsfield for a book launch for The Slip by Lucas Schaefer, and then next night June 12, back at our place we’ll be hosting Jean Moore for her new novel Crossing from Shore to Shore. More about those two events in our next mailing. And last, but not least, a most exciting announcement: Joan Ackerman has begun a GoFundMe campaign to re-open her Great Barrington theater Mixed Company.  What can I tell you about Joan and her theater that you don’t already know? How much can I tell you how I love and have loved this theater for all the years I’ve been here, all the years that they’ve been here. How many hours of pure joy, how many memories of great stories, great acting, great community.   Mixed Company has been dark for over five years. After their recent sell-out success with This Place, These Hills, Joan decided that,  as she says, “we’re feeling the call in these dark times to rise up and shine our small but bright beacon. But, we can’t do it alone.” I know, and you know, what you and countless others did for me when we ran our own GoFundMe.  Here’s another opportunity, for all of us, to help save a much beloved ‘beacon of light’.  And don’t be shy, spread the word. And make sure you don’t miss it when they do re-open, whenever that may be. And as always, Thanks for reading. Matt