Barn Historian Greg Huber signs copies of his new book, The Historic Barns of Southeastern Pennsylvania. For anyone who has ever admired a barn on an old country lane, this is the story of that barn and many others in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

About the Book:

Huger’s work focuses on “the hearth,” the area east of the Susquehanna River and South of the Blue Mountains. One of the earliest-settled areas in North America, this region of the Keystone State, which includes eleven counties, is home to an astounding 20,000 standing barns, in various states of repair, built from the mid 1700s on. Discussed in this text are the primary factors that have determined the fundamental structures and appearances of the six great barn classifications, including forest resources. Other featured topics are architectural aspects and regionalisms, dates of construction, survival of 18th-century examples, mysterious decorations, and barn preservation. Completing this treatise are representative color photographs, building plan sketches, charts conveying the prevalence of types, and a glossary of barn terms.

About the Author:

Greg Huber is a barn and house historian, consultant, and owner of Past Perspectives and Eastern Barn Consultants – historic cultural resource companies. Huber has specialized in house and barn architecture of Holland Dutch and Pennsylvania Swiss-German culture areas that include more than 8,000 vernacular houses and barns. He has authored more than 230 articles on architecture and is co-author of two books – the second edition of The New World Dutch Barn (2001) and Stone Houses – Traditional Homes of Pennsylvania’s Bucks County and Brandywine Valley (2005). He has also led 60 tours and given more than 195 lectures on architecture in the past 25 plus years. He won the Alice Kenney award and the Allen Noble Book Award issued by the Pioneer America Society.

The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is pleased to welcome longtime Kurt Vonnegut friend Dan Wakefield as he discusses the first-ever complete collection of Vonnegut's short stories, Kurt Vonnegut: Complete Stories. RSVP here. 

About the Book:

Here for the first time is the complete short fiction of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. More than half of Vonnegut's output was short fiction, and never before has the world had occasion to wrestle with it all together. Organized thematically—War, Women, Science, Romance, Work Ethic v. Fame and Fortune, Behavior, The Band Director (those stories featuring Lincoln High's band director and nice guy, George Hemholtz), and Futuristic—these ninety-seven stories were written over a lifetime, from 1941 to 2007, and include those published during Vonnegut's lifetime in magazines and collected in Welcome to the Monkey House, Bagombo Snuff Box, and other books; those published posthumously; and, here for the first time, five previously unpublished stories as well as a handful of others that were published online only and read by few. Vonnegut published only about half of the stories he wrote, his agent telling him in 1958 upon the rejection of a particularly strong story, "Save it for the collection of your works which will be published someday when you become famous. Which may take a little time."

Curated and introduced by longtime Vonnegut friend, Dan Wakefield, and Vonnegut scholar Jerome Klinkowitz, The Complete Stories puts Vonnegut's great wit, humor, and humanity on full display. This is an extraordinary new work for readers, Vonnegut fans, and scholars alike.

About the Editor:

A longtime friend of Kurt Vonnegut's, Dan Wakefield edited and introduced Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, and is the author of the memoirs New York in the Fifties and Returning: A Spiritual Journey, and the novel, Going All the Way, which was made into a movie starring Ben Affleck. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Midtown Scholar Bookstore and Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel are pleased to welcome poet Gary Fincke to Harrisburg to discuss his new short-story collection, The Out-Of-Sorts: New and Selected Stories. 

About the book:

The new and selected stories in this collection, written over a period of thirty years, are firmly entrenched in the culture and people of rust belt cities and rural Appalachia. 

These stories are often set against large, significant events like the Cold War, Vietnam, and the Kent State shootings, but are always uniquely local. A mother fends off the police by brandishing copperhead snakes. A woman cares for the dog of an alleged double murderer. A husband who has lost his job works at trying to save his wife from a debilitating phobia. 

This extensive collection by Gary Fincke, an accomplished poet and writer of fiction, gives rise to ordinary people living lives made fascinating by attention to the particulars of voice, place, and character. With precise language, surprising imagery, and sharp, evocative dialog, these stories deepen beyond the oddities of their characters, who are scarred and defeated by circumstance and choice, but also attain moments of grace, compassion, and generosity of the spirit.

About the author:

Author of the just-published The Out-of- Sorts: New and Selected Stories and Winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and the Ohio StateUniversity/The Journal Poetry Prize, Gary Fincke has published thirty-one books of poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction, most recently, Bringing Back the Bones: New and Selected Poems, A Room of Rain: Stories, and The Killer’s Dog: Stories. Within the past year he has won three national book prizes, one in each of the genres of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.

His stories have appeared in such periodicals as The Missouri Review, Newsday, The Kenyon Review, Black Warrior Review, and CrazyHorse. He has been twice awarded Pushcart Prizes for his work, recognized by Best American Stories and the O. Henry Prize series, and cited fifteen times in the past eighteen years for a
"Notable Essay" in Best American Essays. He has just retired as the Charles Degenstein Professor of English and Creative Writing at Susquehanna University.

The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is pleased to welcome Jared Yates Sexton to Harrisburg as he discusses his new book on the rise of Donald Trump, THE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO RISE LIKE THE WATERS UPON YOUR SHORE.

About the book:

On June 14, 2016, Jared Yates Sexton reported from a Donald Trump rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. One of the first journalists to attend these rallies and give mainstream readers an idea of the raw anger that occurred there, Sexton found himself in the center of a maelstrom. Following a series of tweets that saw his observations viewed well over a million times, his reporting was soon featured in The Washington Post, NPR, Bloomberg, and Mother Jones, and he would go on to write two pieces for The New York Times. Sexton gained over eighteen thousand followers on Twitter in a matter of days, and received online harassments, campaigns to get him fired from his university professorship, and death threats that changed his life forever.

The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore is a firsthand account of the events that shaped the 2016 Presidential Election and the cultural forces that powered Donald Trump into White House. Featuring in-the-field reports as well as deep analysis, Sexton’s book is not just the story of the most unexpected and divisive election in modern political history. It is also a sobering chronicle of our democracy’s political polarization—a result of our self-constructed, technologically assisted echo chambers.

Like the works of Hunter S. Thompson and Norman Mailer— books that have paved the way for important narratives that shape how we perceive not only the politics of our time but also our way of life— The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore is an instant, essential classic, an authoritative depiction of a country struggling to make sense of itself.

About the author:

Jared Yates Sexton's political writing has appeared in The New York Times, the New Republic, Salon, and elsewhere. He is the author of three collections of fiction and a crime novel. Currently he serves as an associate professor of creative writing at Georgia Southern University.

The Midtown Scholar is pleased to welcome Carmen Maria Machado to Harrisburg! Carmen will discuss and sign copies of her new short-story collection, HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES.

About the book:

In this electric and provocative debut, Carmen Maria Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies: a wife refuses her husband’s entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck; a salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store’s prom dresses. And in the bravura novella “Especially Heinous,” Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgängers, ghosts, and girls-with-bells-for-eyes. Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.

About the author: 

Carmen Maria Machado’s work has appeared in Granta, the New Yorker, NPR, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for a Nebula Award and a Shirley Jackson Award, and was a finalist for the Calvino Prize. She lives in Philadelphia.

Friday, November 10, 2017  |  All ages, general admission.

Doors open at 7:15 PM, concert at 8 PM.

$25 in advance, $30 at the door.

“Superb songwriting . . .warm, intimate, yet texturally intricate.” — Vintage Guitar "Wry, slice-of-life observations reminiscent of Lyle Lovett and John Prine." — Associated Press

"The preeminent male singer-songwriter of the New Folk Movement.” — Rolling Stone

“With his wide-eyed lyrical honesty, and wistful, nice-guy baritone, he offers gentle, sharply observed songs that refuse to cliche their way around life’s tangles.” — Boston Globe

“It’s all there: the smooth baritone voice and thoughtful lyrics....he always delivers.” — Elmore

"Mr. Gorka mesmerizes." — New York Times

The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is pleased to welcome award-winning biographer Walter Stahr to Harrisburg as he discusses and signs copies of his new historical biography of President Lincoln's War Secretary, STANTON. This event is free and open to the public. 

About the Book:

Award-winning biographer Walter Stahr—author of the New York Times bestseller Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man—breathes new life into one of the most crucial and controversial, yet underappreciated figures in President Lincoln’s cabinet in STANTON: Lincoln’s War Secretary.

A difficult and stubborn genius, Edwin Stanton (1814-1869) was Lincoln’s stalwart Secretary of War, who not only brilliantly organized the Union Army, but dramatically raced to Lincoln’s deathbed on the night of April 14, 1865, and assumed control of the government. Later, President Andrew Johnson attempted to remove Stanton from office after Stanton opposed Johnson’s Reconstruction policies, which led to Johnson’s impeachment. One cannot understand the first impeachment of an American president without understanding Stanton. Walter Stahr’s STANTON truly restores this complicated figure to his proper place in American history and “should be Stanton’s definitive biography for some time to come."

About the Author:

Walter Stahr is the author of the New York Times bestseller Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man as well as John Jay: Founding Father, a biography of America’s first Supreme Court Chief Justice. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, he practiced international law for twenty-five years, including seven years in Hong Kong and five years with the Securities & Exchange Commission in Washington. He lives in Newport Beach, California.

The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is pleased to welcome award-winning teacher at Northwestern University, Wendy Pearlman, to Harrisburg! Wendy will discuss and sign copies of her new book, WE CROSSED A BRIDGE AND IT TREMBLED: VOICES FROM SYRIA. 

About the book:

Reminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, an astonishing collection of intimate wartime testimonies and poetic fragments from a cross-section of Syrians whose lives have been transformed by revolution, war, and flight.

Against the backdrop of the wave of demonstrations known as the Arab Spring, in 2011 hundreds of thousands of Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom, democracy and human rights. The government’s ferocious response, and the refusal of the demonstrators to back down, sparked a brutal civil war that over the past five years has escalated into the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our times.

Yet despite all the reporting, the video, and the wrenching photography, the stories of ordinary Syrians remain unheard, while the stories told about them have been distorted by broad brush dread and political expediency. This fierce and poignant collection changes that. Based on interviews with hundreds of displaced Syrians conducted over four years across the Middle East and Europe, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled is a breathtaking mosaic of first-hand testimonials from the frontlines. Some of the testimonies are several pages long, eloquent narratives that could stand alone as short stories; others are only a few sentences, poetic and aphoristic. Together, they cohere into an unforgettable chronicle that is not only a testament to the power of storytelling but to the strength of those who face darkness with hope, courage, and moral conviction.

About the author:

Wendy Pearlman is a professor and award-winning teacher at Northwestern University, specializing in Middle East politics. Educated at Harvard, Georgetown, and Brown, Pearlman speaks fluent Arabic and has spent more than twenty years studying and living in the Arab World. She is the author of numerous articles and two books, Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (Nation Books, 2003) and Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2011). She lives in Chicago, Illinois.

The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is thrilled to welcome award-winning Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen to Harrisburg as she presents her new book, The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.

About the book:

Putin’s bestselling biographer reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a more virulent and invincible new strain of autocracy.

Hailed for her “fearless indictment of the most powerful man in Russia” (The Wall Street Journal), award-winning journalist Masha Gessen is unparalleled in her understanding of the events and forces that have wracked her native country in recent times. In The Future Is History, she follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own—as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. 

Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today’s terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.

About the author:

Masha Gessen is an award-winning Russian-American journalist who is the author of several books, including the national bestseller The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, Slate, and many other publications, and she has received many awards, including a Carnegie fellowship. Her latest book, The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia is forthcoming from Riverhead Books in October 2017. She lives in New York.