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SUMMARY:Book Launch: Tom Shachtman, A JERICHO’S COBBLE MISCELLANY
UID:2084
DTSTAMP:20260415T231300Z
DTSTART:20260517T203000Z
DTEND:20260517T213000Z
LOCATION:Scoville Memorial Library, 38 Main Street, Salisbury, CT 06068, U
 nited States
ROOM: Reading Room
DESCRIPTION:Join author Tom Shachtman and interviewer Cynthia Hochswender 
 for the launch of A JERICHO'S COBBLE MISCELLANY (April 2026, Madvill
 e Publishing), a genre-bending novel depicting a New England town through 
 over 100 voices. Told via diaries, letters, and objects, it explores commu
 nity, history, and tension.This “miscellany” is a portrait of a fictio
 nal New England small town over the past several hundred years, celebrator
 y and insightful, its stories recounted by more than a hundred voices, tho
 se of the living—white, Black, Native American, male, female, gay—and 
 of the dead, and also of inanimate objects—a neglected upright piano, a 
 bench along a nature trail—in poems, dialogues, roadside markers, tombst
 ones, business brochures, newspaper articles, a playlet, diary entries, or
 al history transcripts, a stitched sampler, and even a nursery rhyme. Some
  tales are of quiet happiness, others of roiling passions, moral quandarie
 s, tragedy and comedy; above all they speak to the centrality of community
  and continuity in our lives.About the authorAuthor, filmmaker, and educat
 or Tom Shachtman has written over forty books as well as television docume
 ntaries aired on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and other channels. He has lectured a
 t universities from Harvard to Georgia Tech to Stanford, and at libraries 
 from the New York Public to the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, the 
 Newberry in Chicago, and the Hoover Institution. His trilogy of books prov
 iding new perspectives on the American Revolution includes THE FOUNDING FO
 RTUNES (2020); HOW THE FRENCH SAVED AMERICA (2017); and GENTLEMEN SCIENTIS
 TS AND REVOLUTIONARIES (2014).Advance praise for JERICHO'S COBBLEAn i
 nvitingly varied and intimate look at what makes a small town tick. —Kir
 kus ReviewsA patchwork quilt, stitched from voices, artifacts, and memorie
 s, it’s messy and alive, much like the New England hamlet it captures. 
  I found myself laughing at one passage and then feeling the weight of gri
 ef a page later. A Jericho’s Cobble Miscellany is about what it feels li
 ke to live in the shadow of history while stumbling through the present. 
  —Literary Titan5 of 5 stars, a Must Read. —Reedsy Discovery: I loved
  it. Rich in detail, every turned page a surprise, the different voices an
 imate and inanimate (I got a special kick out of “Lament for an Upright�
 ��), the vivid imagination, and much more. —John G. Ryden, Director Emer
 itus, The Yale University PressI really love it … The orchestra of voice
 s, alive and dead, works very well in evoking the feeling of place, the hi
 story of it, the complexity …. Each of the voices feels fully realized a
 nd fleshed out, even when brief. And the cumulative effect is that of a ch
 orus, each holding a part of the story. —Eiren Caffall, 2023 Whiting Pri
 ze winner and author, The Mourner’s Bestiary, and All the Water in The W
 orld.
URL:https://www.scovillelibrary.org/event/book-launch-tom-shachtman-jerich
 os-cobble-miscellany-2084
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