Our final speaker of the 2018 season on Tuesday, December 11 is the acclaimed foreign-policy journalist (and South End resident) Stephen Kinzer, who will present his analysis of what the United States' future relationship with Iran and Syria could be. Kinzer, a former New York Times bureau chief in, among other places, Istanbul, has been hosted by South End Writes several times before: once, to discuss his riveting book, The Brothers, about the impact of the policies of former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother, former CIA director Allen Dulles; and, before that, to talk about his reporting trip to Iran, just before the nuclear deal was signed.
Kinzer will be introduced by the esteemed WBUR's Open Source radio host, Christopher Lydon. The event is free. Seating is limited.
South End Writes
Tuesday, January 15:
Joan Diver, When the Spirit Calls, a Healing Odyssey. Joan Diver and her husband, Colin, former South End residents, were featured in the Pulitzer prize-winning book about the 1970s school integration crisis in Boston by J. Anthony Lukas, Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families. This is Diver's first book.
Tuesday, February 19, (date may change to a later one in March): Suzanne Berne, The Dogs of Littlefield. Berne, the fiction editor of The Harvard Review,won the UK's Orange Prize for a previous novel, A Crime in the Neighborhood,and is the acclaimed author, too, of The Ghost at the Table and A Perfect Arrangement.
Local Focus
Visual artist Marianne Kinzer's work will be on display in the Tremont Street window in December. She works from her South End studio at 46 Waltham Street. Her art has been shown in community centers and galleries abroad (Germany and Turkey), and in the U.S., including a solo show at the Snow Library in Orleans, MA. She had various other exhibits at the J jake Art Gallery, in the South End; the Truro Center for the Arts, in Truro, MA; the Watercolor Art Gallery in Pawtucket, RI; and at the Watson Institute in Providence, RI. Kinzer regularly participates in South End Open Studios. Our devoted FOSEL supporter, Reinhold Mahler, has put together a slide show of her work that will be featured on the flat screen in the window.
"Books Of Mystery And Suspense And Thrillers" will be featured in the Local/Focus window in January when winds are known to howl around Tremont Street. Selected by FOSEL advisory-board member, Nick Altschuler, a suspense writer himself, the stories are either taking place in or around Boston, or written by people from the area. A list of titles will be provided.
The South End Library Holiday Concert:
The South End Library Holiday Concert with Pat Loomis and his Friends is scheduled for Tuesday, December 18 at 6:30 PM. This year, a Special Guest is being booked, as well, perhaps even a vocalist. Pat Loomis will be there on the sax; with Antonio Loomis, guitar; Jim Dower, piano; Colescott Rubin, bass; and Benny Benson on drums. A holiday dinner will be served, as always. This program is jointly funded by the staff of the library and FOSEL.
A New Window Project
The Friends of the South End Library is planning to use the large window to the left of the front entrance for regular displays of books that won awards for fiction, non-fiction, adults, young adults, children and illustrations. We hope to feature the Pulitzers, Helen Caldicotts and the National Book Critics Circle Awards, but also to feature prizes bestowed by groups like the Coretta Scott King Book Awards, the Lambda Literary Awards, Crime Fiction Awards, Pen/New England Awards and others. We welcome your suggestions.
The first display will be of the 2018 Massachusetts Book Awards, sponsored by the Mass Center for the Book and funded, in part, by the Massachusetts State Legislature.
The 2018 winners are: Fiction, Margot Livesey for her novel, Mercury; Non-fiction, Jane Kamensky for A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley; Poetry, Martin Espada for Vivas to Those Who Have Failed, Poems; Middle Grade/Young Adult: Lauren Walk for Wolf Hollow; Picture Book/Early Reader, Susan E. Goodman for The First Step: How One Girl Put Segregation on Trial.
More information at www.friendsofsouthendlibrary.org. The South End Branch of the Boston Public Library is located at 685 Tremont Street.