Read It and Reap: Area bookstores, library offering full slate of talks, workshops in May

Spring has reluctantly shown its face, hidden among clouds and chilly temperatures, but a seasonal change it is, and a variety of programs are opening up in the area — some by online platform and others in person.

TidePool Book Shop launches a full garden’s worth of variety in May. Events begin with a 4 p.m. May 8 event featuring Sharon Healy-Yang. Yang is the author of a series of mysteries whose heroine is Jessica Minton: “Bait and Switch,” “Letter from a Dead Man” and “Always Play the Dark Horse.” She will discuss and sign copies of the latter book. Yang loves 1940s films and mysteries, and models her books on the wit and flavor of that era.

Worcester County Poetry Association will host a 5 p.m. poetry reading at TidePool on May 10.

Shawn Driscoll, author of “We are But Your Children: An Oral History of the Nightclub Manray,” will hold a talk and signing at 6:30 p.m. May 12. Manray was a Cambridge nightclub between 1985 and 2005. Its unusual atmosphere welcomed freedom of expression on many fronts. The book includes comments from DJs, artists and musicians, owners and employees who worked there.

Linda Hoffman, author of “The Artist and the Orchard,” will lead a book signing and talk at 5:30 p.m. May 17. The Harvard orchard owner has written in a spiritual and reflective manner about creating an organic apple orchard, Old Frog Pond Farm, over the past 15 years. Within, she shares her life story, orchard tales and the story of the farm’s sculpture garden.

Outdoor writers from Worcester, Loree Griffin Burns and Maria Gianferrari, launch their newly published books about wildlife and the Greater Worcester Land Trust at 1 p.m. May 22. Burns is the author of “Honeybee Rescue” and Gianferrari has written “Bobcat Prowling.”

At 6:30 p.m. May 26, Andrew Noone, author of “Bathsheba Spooner: A Revolutionary Murder Conspiracy,” will be guest at a book talk and signing, and at 4 p.m. May 28, Bill Samuel, author of “An Accidental Bookseller’s Personal Memoir of Foyles,” will recall a noted bookstore, Foyles, during a book talk and signing. Samuel is a descendant of the family members who established Foyles in 1906. In 2018, Waterstone’s purchased the business.

“It is a very personal memoir of my relationship with a wonderful family business and with two extraordinary people,” he said of William and Gilbert Foyle.

Zoom away…

• Walter H. Hunt, a science fiction and historical fiction writer from Massachusetts, will discuss how to pursue a writing project set in a historical contest in a Zoom program 11 a.m. to noon May 14. Hunt has 11 published novels and is currently writing for Baen Books, Wildfire Press and Ring of Fire Press. Register on the Worcester Public Library website.

• On May 21, WPL sponsors a workshop on writing and craft, presented by author Leslie-Ann Murray. Murray is a fiction writer from Trinidad and Tobago. She will discuss descriptions, setting and place, and the basics of a first draft. Murray created Brown Girl Book Lover, where she interviews diverse writers and reviews books. Register through the WPL website.

At Booklovers’ Gourmet

Novelist Robert Eugene Perry will lead an advanced poetry workshop from 10 a.m. to noon May 14 in Booklovers’ Gourmet, 72 East Main St., Webster. Fee is $25 per participant and the session is limited to six people. Call 508-949-6232 or email deb@bookloversgourmet.com to register. Covers writing, editing, preparing to publish, stage performance. Bring a few pieces to share.

Perry, a much-published poet, hosts the monthly open mic at Booklovers Gourmet. Next session of the open mic is 2 p.m. May 21.

Booklovers’ Gourmet will also host multi-media artwork by Eren Torres, “Is there beauty within tragedy?” Display is from May 7 to 31 during store hours. A meet-and-greet with the artist is from 2 to 4 p.m. May 14. Torres, 17, says she seeks to transform the dark areas of life to light, dismissing the negative aspects of life through a new vision.

Book clubs

• The 6:30 p.m. June 1 meeting of O’Connor’s Books, Brews and Banters club is “Empire of Pain: The Secret Life of the Sackler Dynasty,” by Patrick Radden Keefe.

• N.O.W. Book Club will meet to discuss “In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss,” in TidePool Book Shop. Meeting is at 5 p.m. May 19.

• Worcester Public Library’s True Crime Book Club meets at 7 p.m. May 11 to discuss Harold Schechter’s “Hell’s Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men.”

WPL book groups meet virtually. Register on the library website.

On May 17, “Solaris” by Stanislaw Lem is the 1 p.m. topic for the Science Fiction Book Club.

The Great American Book Club takes on “Jane Eyre” at 7 p.m. May 24.

Send book club and book-related information to Read It and Reap at ann.frantz@gmail.com. Deadline for the May 29 column is May 23.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester area bookstores, library offering full slate of talks in May