Upcoming events
Author Event w/Debra Curtis 'Laws of Love and Logic'
Please join us for an author talk, Q&A, and signing with Rhode Island based author Debra Curtis ("Laws of Love and Logic”).
When: Tuesday, August 25th - 6-7pm
We recommend arriving by 5:30 pm to secure a seat and have time to grab a drink and mingle ahead of the event!
Where: Corner Bar, 3842 Main Road, Tiverton, RI 02878 (parking available at shop or throughout Tiverton Four Corners).
Other info: We will have beverages and snacks available for sale.
RSVP link: https://square.link/u/JSNcAEml
About ‘Laws of Love and Logic’:
A STUNNING DEBUT NOVEL FROM JENNA BUSH HAGER’S NEW VENTURE, THOUSAND VOICES
A story of two sisters, one impossible choice, and the long shadow of the past—perfect for readers of Broken Country.
Lily Webb has spent years trying to build a steady, predictable life, far from the hometown marred by tragedy and the sister she cannot seem to save from herself.
Jane has always been the brilliant sister: fierce, complicated, and drawn to the mysteries of the universe. But after their mother’s death, Jane’s gifts became entangled with addiction, pulling the sisters into a cycle of love, guilt, and heartbreak that neither can escape.
Lily has found comfort in a quiet marriage to a devoted scientist, one who opened her eyes to the beauty of the natural world and offered her safety and stability. But when her first love, a boy she lost under devastating circumstances, returns, Lily is forced to confront the past she thought she had buried.
As old wounds reopen, and her fragile bond with Jane grows ever more tenuous, Lily must navigate the tension between the life she’s built and the life she once imagined,
Spanning decades and rich with questions of faith, science, and the ties that hold us together, Laws of Love and Logic is a compelling, emotionally gripping novel about sisterhood, forgiveness, and the complicated nature of love.
“At once sweeping and intimate, Laws of Love and Logic is a gorgeous meditation on roads not taken. Debra Curtis is not afraid to explore big questions about love and loss, but always with tenderness.”—Shelby Van Pelt, New York Times bestselling author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
About Debra Curtis:
Debra Curtis is a retired professor of cultural anthropology at Salve Regina University, where she specialized in gender and sexuality. This is her first novel. She is the mother of grown-up twin girls and lives in Rhode Island with her husband and her English bulldog, Harry, who is the star of much of her TikTok content.
'Uncertain' Paperback Release Party with Author Maggie Jackson!
A Next Big Idea Club Top Non-Fiction Book - “A Can’t-Miss Must-Read.”
Nonfiction Book of the Year, Independent Publishers of New England - “Absorbing, compelling, revelatory.”
A Library Journal Top 10 Social Sciences Book of the Year – “Remarkable and Persuasive.”
A Top 10 Book of the Year - Greater Good magazine
A Top 10 Summer Read – Nautilus magazine
Celebrate the wisdom of uncertainty!
After a four-continent book tour, three printings, and multiple translations, Maggie Jackson’s “revelatory” and “remarkable” Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure is coming out in paperback.
A scientific adventure tale set on the front lines of a volatile era, Uncertain has inspired people worldwide to wield their unsureness skillfully, and so learn to navigate the unknown with curiosity and wonder, not fear. Far from luring us into inertia or defeat, our inner uncertainty is the key to creativity, agility and even resilience, the skills we need most in this time of flux.
Come join the festivities - an informal evening of community, mingling, nibbles, and curiosity. To reserve your copy, pre-order here. Free and open to all.
Non-Fiction Book Club: September - Trash!
Join us for a monthly discussion around powerful new releases. Sign up for the book club in store or by emailing us and get 10% off the purchase of the featured book. Book club meets in our new Corner Bar, wine, beer, and non-alcoholic drinks available for sale alongside a selection of snacks.
Non-Fiction Book Club - Tuesday, September 15th - 6:00 - 7:00 pm
September’s non-fiction book club features Simon Paré-Poupart’s recent memoir, ‘Trash!: A Garbageman's Story’.
“Raffish and spirited . . . a nonconformist cri de coeur . . . Usually, comparisons to Bourdain are fatuous. This time it’s accurate . . . It’s been a long time since I’ve read so good and rowdy a memoir about blue-collar work.” — Dwight Garner, The New York Times
AN INDIE BESTSELLER
A Montreal garbageman's sharp and funny memoir/exposé, in which he attempts to convince people to "stop imagining that your garbage magically disappears" . . .
This fascinating no-bullshit account of twenty years in waste management paints a vivid portrait of the heroic labor, anarchic spirit, and violent conditions of the people who keep our cities clean.
Paré-Poupart’s story is atypical: he started working as a garbageman to pay for school, and after earning graduate degrees and working in more “respectable” fields, he is still on a truck — out of love for the physical rush, for his rough-and-tumble colleagues, and for an honesty and freedom that no other job has yet given him.
Includes eight black and white photographs of the author on the job.
His sociology background informs his inquiry into our collective wastefulness and individual failure to confront the trash we produce. Every abstract observation comes with hilarious and hair-raising stories from the collection route to his days off spent hunting down furniture and toys for family and friends, as a committed freegan.
Trash! — the French edition of which is a runaway bestseller in Canada — explains and questions efforts to “clean up” a business with longstanding conventions of its own, a last bastion of well-paid employment for people who cannot fit in anywhere else.
Aligned with great books about work from Zola to Orwell to Lucia Berlin, and in dialogue with societal critiques like How To Do Nothing, Trash! will change how you think about your waste and the people who handle it.
About the Author
Simon Paré-Poupart became a garbageman in Montreal to pay for his college education. After graduate studies in sociology and international business, and work experience as a journalist and social worker, he returned to the job, and has been a garbageman for twenty years. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.
Translated by Pablo Strauss. Strauss has translated numerous books from Quebec French into English, and is a three-time finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for translation. He lives in Quebec City.
Fiction Book Club: September - Etna
Join us for a monthly discussion around powerful new releases. Sign up for the book club in store or by emailing us and get 10% off the purchase of the featured book. Book club meets in our new Corner Bar, wine, beer, and non-alcoholic drinks available for sale alongside a selection of snacks.
Fiction Book Club - Tuesday, September 29th - 6:00 - 7:00 pm
September’s fiction book club features Paul Yoon’s recent novel, ‘Etna’.
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME, and LITHUB
A BEST BOOK OF THE SUMMER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE BOSTON GLOBE, LITHUB, and SCARY MOMMY
Beloved author and winner of The Story Prize, Paul Yoon, is back with the unforgettable story of a working dog, Etna, who, after a devastating war, embarks on an odyssey in the hopes of returning home.
“Yoon’s spare, precise, beautiful language lifts a conceit that could have been hokey or gimmicky into something revelatory: a glimpse of human folly and cruelty through eyes of the utmost innocence. …A gorgeous reminder of our ability to look searingly and soulfully at who we are and what we’ve become.”—Frank Bruni, The New York Times
Set in a fictional country in the present day, this is a story told through the eyes of an ex-military dog, Etna. After surviving years of a devastating war, Etna decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside for years and return home—to the place where he was taken from when he was young, in the thin but persistent hope that if a home exists for him, it might be there.
Thus begins an exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a dog as he traverses across ruined landscapes and fights to survive in a world that, even in peacetime, proves to be just as precarious. Along the way, he encounters other animals and humans who are attempting to figure out how to start again. What makes a life when there is no home to go back to? How do we begin to trust each other again after such profound loss?
This is a novel about the power of an idea, about never giving up, and ultimately a novel about finding hope in the most dire of times.
About the Author
Paul Yoon is the author of six works of fiction: Etna; Once the Shore, a New York Times Notable Book; Snow Hunters, winner of the Young Lions Fiction Award; The Mountain, an NPR Best Book of the Year; Run Me to Earth, a Time Must-Read Books of 2020 and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction; and The Hive and the Honey, winner of the 20th Annual Story Prize and longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates prize.
Watercolor Workshop: Landscapes with Local Artist Ashley Ainsworth
Watercolor Workshop: Landscapes!
Sketch a landscape from reference photographs and paint your vision with assistance from Ashley!
Local artist Ashley Ainsworth will lead a 2 hour landscape watercolor workshop. No prior watercolor experience needed! During the session, you will learn the basics of watercolor, and receive personalized instruction guiding you through the process of painting a landscape from photo references.
No prior experience necessary.
Limited capacity, reserve your spot via link below.
Date: Wed, August 19th, 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Fee: $65/pp (includes all materials) - adults only
Buy online: https://square.link/u/AsbfqGgf
Location: Next door to the store - the covered, screened outdoor porch at The Meeting House, Tiverton Four Corners
About Instructor Ashley Ainsworth:
For me color is an art medium itself and a partner. With it I explore space and form, enter conversations, and allow the opening of a story. There is room for me to understand my feelings and space for the experience of my audience.
I have been painting since my early years. It continues to tell me new things about who I am. I consider watercolor my first love where art utensils are concerned. I’m very grateful to live in this community of coastal Rhode Island, so rich in artists and art lovers alike.
Ashley has a gallery and teaching space at 1733 Main Road in Tiverton. It is open by appointment and will hold retail hours the Summer of 2026!
Fiction Book Club: August - Villa Coco
Join us for a monthly discussion around powerful new releases. Sign up for the book club in store or by emailing us and get 10% off the purchase of the featured book. Book club meets in our new Corner Bar, wine, beer, and non-alcoholic drinks available for sale alongside a selection of snacks.
Fiction Book Club - Tuesday, August 18th - 6:00 - 7:00 pm
August’s book club features Andrew Sean Greer’s recent novel, “Villa Coco”.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less, showcases his wit, sophistication, and deep knowledge of focaccia in this tale of a young man who takes an unspecified job with a charismatic elderly Baronessa at her crumbling villa in the Tuscan hills.
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: People, TIME, Esquire, Oprah Daily, Lit Hub, Seattle Times
“No one writing in English is funnier or more charming than Andrew Greer. Every sentence in this novel sings.” —David Sedaris, author of Happy-Go-Lucky
“An absolute delight.”—Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or
“Such a sunny book.”—Kate Atkinson, author of Shrines of Gaiety
An aspiring archivist determined to begin a “serious” life after an undistinguished undergraduate career takes up residence in the Italian countryside. Here, he becomes the all-purpose assistant to the Baronessa, known to her friends as Coco, a defiantly youthful and naturally flamboyant woman of ninety-two. Amid a chaotic and colorful milieu of gin-swilling princesses, incomprehensible handymen, roaming boarhunters, nuns, and other local wildlife, our young man does his best to catalog the villa’s extensive collection of art and antiques—although he notices that things seem to go missing from right under his nose.
Despite himself, he tumbles into an affair with a married man, complicating his future plans considerably. And when the Baronessa loses someone close to her, he becomes an unwitting accomplice in the acceleration of Coco’s great and final plan: to locate the love of her life and be reunited before it’s too late. Told with the signature wit, charm, and humanity that made Less an international phenomenon, Villa Coco is a dazzling, sun-soaked ode to life itself, a meditation on how seriously we ought to take ourselves, and a bawdy Mediterranean ballad about becoming who we’ve always wanted to be.
About the Author
ANDREW SEAN GREER is the bestselling author of seven previous works of fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize winner Less and its companion, Less Is Lost. He lives in San Francisco and Venice, Italy.
Event: Mike Gracie 'The Art of Gracie'
** UPDATED LOCATION: LOCATION HAS CHANGED!!!!! PLEASE READ! → We will be next door at The Meeting House , 3850 Main Road, Tiverton, RI. The property is directly next door to the shop, walk back as if you are headed to the sculpture garden and you will see our signs.
Please join us for a discussion, Q&A, and signing with New York based author Mike Gracie of Gracie("The Art of Gracie”).
When: Monday, August 17th - 6-7pm
We recommend arriving by 5:30 pm to secure a seat and have time to grab a drink and mingle ahead of the event!
Where: The Meeting House, 3850 Main Road, Tiverton
About ‘The Art of Gracie: Handpainted Wallpapers, Timeless Rooms’:
A glorious celebration of America’s most storied handpainted wallpaper company, family owned for 125 years, featuring dozens of rooms by today’s top interior designers.
The story of Gracie wallpaper, founded in 1898 and still family owned by the sixth generation, is one of the great untold stories of American interior design. Best known for their exquisitely detailed designs, Gracie papers have been installed at the White House and many of America’s most notable homes. They are a go-to resource for interior designers including Mark Sikes, Summer Thornton, Ellie Cullman, Brooke Giannetti, Suzanne Kasler, Michael S. Smith, Alexa Hampton, Alex Papachristidis, and Amanda Lindroth, and Gracie can be found in the homes of celebrities including Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, and Cameron Diaz.
This volume, featuring hundreds of color photographs of contemporary rooms by leading interior designers, shows the range not only of the papers themselves—from beautiful florals and birds to panoramic landscapes of American folk scenes and French pastoral hillsides to hunting and maritime scenes—but also the imaginative ways they can be used to create truly transporting spaces. Designs in every imaginable color, from metallics to lush greens and cobalt blues to dramatic reds and blacks, show that with Gracie, any room in the home can become a true, custom work of art.
Exquisite production detail on this volume, including 4-color printed page edges and a cover design custom-painted by Gracie exclusively for the book, will make this a must-have gift item that every interior design fan will want to display.
About Gracie:
For 120 years, the Gracie family has made it their mission to marry the past and present together in a truly unique way. While our world may be obsessed with 2-day shipping, Gracie handpainted wallpapers stand apart, in a niche that has weathered the test of time.
Gracie wallpapers remain highly sought after, and grace the walls of some of the most notable homes in the world. From the White House in Washington, to Winfield House in London, Gracie has always been at the forefront of extraordinary design. And it’s not just the brand’s legacy, but the company’s unique family history that contributes to their distinction in the design world.
About Mike Gracie:
Mike studied pre-law at Northeastern University but chose to enter the family business instead of attending law school. While gaining experience as a furniture salesperson at a San Francisco showroom, Mike began pursuing an acting career there. He returned to New York to join the family business and to continue his acting career, appearing in independent films and off-Broadway plays. Mike found his greatest satisfaction and rewards in the family business, where he has enjoyed a 31-year career. Mike lives in Westchester County with his wife Paula and son Rhys. His older son, Marco, lives in Boston.
Bookstore Romance Day!
Celebrate Indie Bookstore Romance Day with us on Saturday, August 15th!
When: Saturday, August 15th - 11am-4pm
Where: The Yellow House, 3842 Main Road, Tiverton, RI 02878 (parking available at shop or throughout Tiverton Four Corners).
💖 11am - 4pm: Drop-in Flower Pounding Workshop w/Studio Big Rock // $20, pay when you arrive! Back by popular demand!
💖 11am - 3pm: Raffles, giveaways, and more!
💖 1pm - 3pm: Meet the authors! Book signing and meet and greet with Rhode Island-based romance authors C.W. Farnsworth, Stephanie Parente, and Penny Watson!
C.W. Farnsworth is the author of numerous adult and young adult romance novels featuring sports, strong female leads, and happy endings.
Charlotte lives in Rhode Island and when she isn’t writing spends her free time reading, at the beach, or snuggling with her Australian Shepherd.
Find her on Facebook (@cwfarnsworth), TikTok (@authorcwfarnsworth), and Instagram (@authorcwfarnsworth).Stephanie Parente was born and raised in Rhode Island, always within twenty minutes of the ocean. She is a romcom enthusiast passionate about writing messy characters falling in love. When she’s not writing, she spends most of her time reading, hiking with her rescue dog, and daydreaming.
Penny Watson is a dachshund-lover, botanist, and award-winning author of quirky fiction. Titles include THE KLAUS BROTHERS SERIES, LUMBERJACK IN LOVE, APPLES SHOULD BE RED (finalist for the CoRWA Award of Excellence), and A TASTE OF HEAVEN (winner of 2016 National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award).
She lives in Rhode Island with her Filipino-American family.
Author Event w/Julie Gerstenblatt ‘The Stargazer of Nantucket’
Please join us for an author talk, Q&A, and signing with Rhode Island based author Julie Gerstenblatt ("The Stargazer of Nantucket”).
When: Tuesday, August 11th - 6-7pm
We recommend arriving by 5:30 pm to secure a seat and have time to grab a drink and mingle ahead of the event!
Where: Corner Bar, 3842 Main Road, Tiverton, RI 02878 (parking available at shop or throughout Tiverton Four Corners).
RSVP Link: https://square.link/u/0uVL5l2w
Other info: We will have beverages and snacks available for sale.
About ‘The Stargazer of Nantucket’:
This sea-faring adventure for fans of Beatriz Williams features a husband-and-wife team of merchants as they embark on a record-setting journey to China, battling storms and pirate-infested waters—and even greater peril when their stowaway daughter threatens to expose a dangerous family secret.
USA TODAY Bestseller!
"Filled with tension, excitement, and brilliant plot twists, the story moves at a breakneck pace against the backdrop of Gerstenblatt’s meticulous research. Luminous."
—Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author ofThe Stolen Queen
From award-winning author Julie Gerstenblatt, an epic tale of adventure on the high seas, a spunky stowaway, and a family confronting the past to secure their future.
Massachusetts, 1851
Winifred Starbuck wants only one thing: to join her parents on their final merchant voyage—from Nantucket Island to bustling San Francisco, then across the glittering Pacific to the distant ports of China. Yet renowned trade captains Nell and Peter Starbuck have forbidden their daughter from coming aboard on the adventure of a lifetime. So Winnie does what any strong-willed eighteen-year-old would do: she stows away.
Once the ship sets sail, Winnie is plunged into turbulent waters, treachery, and the thrill of life on the high seas. As she drifts farther from shore, and closer to fabled Canton port, she uncovers a long-buried secret—one that reveals the truth behind her parents’ desperate fear. And as she continues to chart her own course, she’ll have to plumb the depths of her courage to take on a world far bigger—and more dangerous—than she ever imagined.
About Julie Gerstenblatt:
Julie Gerstenblatt holds a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her essays have appeared in The Huffington Post and Cognoscenti, among others. When not writing, Julie is a college essay coach, as well as a producer and on-air host for A Mighty Blaze. A native New Yorker, Julie now lives in coastal Rhode Island with her family and one very smart shichon poo. Daughters of Nantucket is her first novel.
Bar Takeover: Sakonnet Vineyard x The Yellow House
Bar Takeover! Come by this Friday, August 7th // 4pm-8pm as Sakonnet Vineyard winemaker Jack takes over our Corner Bar.
Have a glass of wine! Ask questions! Learn, chat, have a general good time with some lovely people.
Support small businesses, small, LOCAL vineyards - what’s better?
Happening in conjunction with the @tivertonfourcorners Summer Celebration! Happening across the street in the Sayles Livingston Design Field - bands, vendors, food trucks! Have a glass of wine and then head over for music, or do it the other way around :)
Author Event w/Ben Shattuck ‘The History of Sound’!
*** NOTE: EVENT LOCATION UPDATE - THIS WILL BE HELD AT A PRIVATE RESIDENCE, DO NOT ARRIVE EARLIER THAN 5:30 PM, PARKING IN ADJACENT LOT, FOLLOW SIGNAGE UPON ARRIVAL.
ADDRESS: BOING! EVENT SPACE, 117 PUNCATEEST NECK ROAD TIVERTON, RHODE ISLAND 02878 ***
Please join us for a presentation, Q&A, and signing with bestselling author Ben Shattuck ("The History of Sound”).
When: Tuesday, August 4th - 6-7pm
We recommend arriving at 5:30 pm to secure a seat and have time to grab a drink and mingle ahead of the event!
Where: Boing! Event Space, 117 Puncateest Neck Road, Tiverton Four Corners
RSVP Link: https://square.link/u/mqaRhJhY
About ‘The History of Sound’:
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING PAUL MESCAL AND JOSH O’CONNOR
Winner of the Story Prize Spotlight Award • Winner of the 2025 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award • Longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction & the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
An ALA Notable Book • One of NPR’s “Books We Love” • One of the Chicago Tribune’s 10 Best Books of 2024 • Best Short Fiction, Kirkus Reviews
“Polyphonic fiction. . . . A reminder of the short story’s power. . . . The History of Sound marks Shattuck as one of the form’s brightest lights.” —The Boston Globe
A stunning collection of interconnected stories set in New England, exploring how the past is often misunderstood and how history, family, heartache, and desire can echo over centuries
In twelve luminous stories set across three centuries, The History of Sound examines the unexpected ways the past returns to us and how love and loss are entwined and transformed over generations. In Ben Shattuck's ingenious collection, each story has a companion story, which contains a revelation about the previous, paired story. Mysteries and murders are revealed, history is refracted, and deep emotional connections are woven through characters and families.
The haunting title story recalls the journey of two men who meet around a piano in a smoky, dim bar, only to spend a summer walking the Maine woods collecting folk songs in the shadow of the First World War, forever marked by the odyssey. Decades later, in another story, a woman discovers the wax cylinders recorded that fateful summer while cleaning out her new house in Maine. Shattuck’s inventive, exquisite stories transport readers from 1700s Nantucket to the contemporary woods of New Hampshire and beyond—into landscapes both enduring and unmistakably modern. Memories, artifacts, paintings, and journals resurface in surprising and poignant ways among evocative beaches, forests, and orchards, revealing the secrets, misunderstandings, and love that linger across centuries.
Written with breathtaking humanity and humor, The History of Sound is a love letter to New England, a radiant conversation between past and present, and a moving meditation on the abiding search for home.
About Ben Shattuck:
Ben Shattuck's most recent book, The History of Sound, was the recipient of the 2025 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the Story Prize Spotlight Award, and was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. His film adaptation of the title story premiered at the 2025 Cannes film festival. His first book, Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau (Tin House, 2022), was a New Yorker Best Book of 2022, a New York Times Best Book of Summer, a New England Bestseller, and was nominated for the Massachusetts Book Award. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he is a recipient of the PEN Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and a Pushcart Prize. He spends time between Brooklyn and coastal Massachusetts, where he owns and runs America's oldest general store, built in 1793.
Author Event w/Author & Costume Designer Debra McGuire “Dressing the Story”
Please join us for a reading, Q&A, and signing with award winning costume designer and author Debra McGuire as we celebrate her new release, “Dressing the Story: The Art of Costume Design”.
When: Tuesday, July 28th - 6-7pm
We recommend arriving by 5:30 pm to secure a seat and have time to grab a drink and mingle ahead of the event!
Where: LOCATION HAS CHANGED!!!!! PLEASE READ! → We will be next door at The Meeting House PORCH, 3850 Main Road, Tiverton, RI. The property is directly next door to the shop, walk back as if you are headed to the sculpture garden and you will see our signs. It is a screened in porch but note that we will be outdoors (shaded and screened).
Free event, books and drinks (wine/beer/non-alcoholic) available for purchase.
You can pre-order a hardcover or paperback copy now! If you are planning on attending the event please pre-order a copy below to ensure availability. See below for purchase links, you will be notified as soon as your copy is available for pickup in store.
About the Book:
Dressing the Story: The Art of Costume Design by Debra McGuire
“If it weren’t for Debra McGuire, The Forty Year-Old Virgin, McLovin and Dewey Cox would be naked!” — Judd Apatow
Dressing the Story is a rare, inside-the-room account of how films are truly made—not just written and directed, but seen. In these vivid, candid conversations, celebrated costume designer Debra McGuire, whose film and TV credits include Friends, Freaks and Geeks, The Morning Show, Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad and Walk Hard, reveals how clothing becomes character, how fabric carries emotion, and how the smallest visual detail can shape an audience’s experience without them ever realizing it. Drawing on decades of work across film and television, she takes us from first script reading to final fitting, from instinct to execution, showing how costume design is not decoration but storytelling in its most immediate, visual form.
At once a practical guide, a memoir of creative life, and a love letter to collaboration, this book captures the exhilaration—and the sheer labor—behind the craft. McGuire writes with warmth, wit, and hard-won authority about working with actors, navigating directors and producers, building teams, solving problems under pressure, and trusting intuition when it matters most. Whether you’re a filmmaker, designer, or simply someone who loves cinema, Dressing the Story opens your eyes to an essential, often invisible art—and leaves you watching every film differently.
Presented as a series of conversations with independent producer Jim Stark, and enriched by contributions from Gavin McGuire and longtime collaborator Joe Mastrolia, this book offers a uniquely intimate portrait of the collaborative spirit at the heart of costume design.
About Debra McGuire:
Debra McGuire is an award-winning American costume designer best known for defining the look of the hit sitcom Friends over its ten-season run. Her work spans film, television, and theatre, with credits including Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Superbad, Freaks and Geeks, and The Morning Show. Known for blending character psychology with contemporary fashion, McGuire has collaborated with filmmakers including David Mamet, Judd Apatow, and Jake Kasdan, and has become one of Hollywood’s most influential contemporary costume designers. Her website is here.
Event: Author Talk w/Emily Franklin ‘Love & Other Monsters’!
Please join us for a presentation, Q&A, and signing with bestselling author Emily Franklin ("The Lioness of Boston”).
When: Wednesday, July 22nd - 6-7pm
We recommend arriving by 5:30 pm to secure a seat and have time to grab a drink and mingle ahead of the event!
Where: LOCATION HAS CHANGED!!!!! PLEASE READ! → We will be next door at The Meeting House PORCH, 3850 Main Road, Tiverton, RI. The property is directly next door to the shop, walk back as if you are headed to the sculpture garden and you will see our signs. It is a screened in porch but note that we will be outdoors (shaded and screened).
Other info: We will have beverages and snacks available for suggested donation (cash only).
RSVP to guarantee a seat:
OPTION 1 (Book + Drink + Guaranteed Admission): $40 rsvp (guarantees your seat, drink ticket for wine/beer/non-alc drink, signed copy of the book) https://square.link/u/dF1EgCV1
OPTION 2: $5 rsvp (guarantees your seat, you receive a $5 coupon to use night of the event towards purchase of the book) https://square.link/u/nDBAC9Vi
If you do not rsvp we recommend arriving by 5:30 pm to snag an overflow seat.
About ‘Love & Other Monsters’:
In the stormy, scandalous summer of 1816, daring eighteen-year-old Claire Clairmont changed the course of literature forever. But then—unlike her stepsister Mary Shelley—she was forgotten, until now.
During the dangerous storms of The Year Without Summer, a group of famous young writers gathered at a mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, her fiery fiancé Percy Shelley, the famously promiscuous Lord Byron, and John Polidori, his sexually tormented personal physician. At the group’s center was Claire Clairmont, Mary’s impressionable, clever, and dangerously loyal stepsister.
Those months of desire, betrayal, and creative passion gave the world the works of Frankenstein, the modern vampire, and the mythic image of these Romantic literary giants. In this intense and propulsive story of love, lust, art and betrayal Claire tells her story, trying to solve the mystery of why she was all but erased from history.
Claire—herself a writer—is desperate to free herself from the uncomfortable role she plays in her sister’s marriage in London. Fueled by Jane Austin’s romantic novels, and believing love offers freedom, Claire begins an affair with celebrity Lord Byron and convinces Mary and Shelley to follow him to Switzerland.
With the threat of paparazzi lurking nearby, Claire’s intimate connection to each member of the celebrity group grows more complex. Her journey of self-discovery leads her to document everyone’s secrets in her journal, and when climate disaster causes food shortages, Claire learns to forage, determined to prove her worth in a world built by and created for men.
The real Claire Clairmont poured her love, life, and razor-sharp wit into her pages, yet her journal from 1816 is curiously missing and each member of the group had a reason to take it.
With searing relevance to our here and now—of celebrity worship, climate disaster, of complicated femininity, Love & Other Monsters is the untold origin story of Frankenstein, a feminist reckoning of sisters, survival, and the creation of monsters—both those on the page and those who walk among us.
About Emily Franklin:
Emily Franklin is the bestselling author of The Lioness of Boston, based on the life of trailblazer Isabella Stewart Gardner, and more than twenty other books. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Kenyon Review, and The Journal of the American Medical Association, read aloud on National Public Radio, named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries, and longlisted for the London Sunday Times Short Story Award.
Drop In: Outdoor Flower Pounding Craft w/Gina Melone
Back by popular demand…
Second Annual Flower Pounding!
Flower Pounding (Hapa Zome) with Studio Big Rock! Drop In Outdoor Crafting Event!
Sunday, July 19th, from 11:00am – 4:00pm
Event length: 20 minutes + (feel free to stay as long as you like!)
Drop in event!
No experience needed! All ages (kids with adult supervision)
$20 per person (leave with your own fabricated tea towel or wine tote bag)
Join us for a drop in event on our side lawn! Did you know that if you hammer a flower onto a piece of fabric it can produce a beautiful design? The hammering transfers the color and pattern of the flower, actually dying the fabric with gratifying results.
If this sounds interesting to you, come join our community of crafters in this very therapeutic session. Not only will you work out any aggressions through group hammering, but you will leave some lasting impressions.
We will show you which local flowers work best (we’ve tried many). You will also learn how to make the natural dye more permanent. We will have some samples and give you some ideas on how to approach your design. You will leave with a lovely tea towel, bandana, or wine gift bag imprinted with local blossoms.
Provided:
local flowers and plant material
2 prepared textiles (One for practice and another for keeps)
Guidance and encouragement
Good music
Bring:
A hammer (if you can, we will also have a few to use)
Optional: Ear protection if you have it
Optional: Some flowers and leaves that you might like to experiment with.
About the Instructor:
Georgina Melone of Studio Big Rock comes to us from a vibrant design career in the Toy and Entertainment world where she has spent her adulthood tinkering with beloved brands such as Playdoh, My Little Pony, Transformers, and so many more. Most recently, Gina has led the Futuring Team at Hasbro and served as the Global VP of Innovation and Design.
Gina has now entered her “Third Act”, where she is pioneering her role as the Chief Creative behind Studio Big Rock. This mischief-making includes inventing, lecturing and consulting with individuals and corporations.
Also, as a RISD grad, Gina has always enjoyed giving back by teaching and lecturing at RISD, URI, Pratt, Ringling School of Design among others.
So now, at Studio Big Rock she is passionate about sharing the joy of creating by inviting everyone to become makers through teaching meaningful craft experiences.
“At Studio Big Rock, we believe that everyone has the innate ability to create. Come and play with us and reconnect with your maker self.”
Event: ‘A Night at the Disco’ Discussion w/author Christian John Wikane
Calling all disco fans!!
Please join us for a discussion, Q&A, and signing with NY based music journalist and author Christian John Wikane ("A Night at the Disco”).
When: Thursday, July 16th - 6-7pm
Where: Corner Bar @ The Yellow House, 3842 Main Road, Tiverton Four Corners
RSVP needed to guarantee a seat:
OPTION 1 (Drink + Book + Admission): $60 rsvp (guarantees your seat, drink ticket for wine/beer/non-alc drink, signed copy of the book) https://square.link/u/CpSDzG7h
OPTION 2: $5 rsvp (guarantees your seat, you receive a $5 coupon to use night of the event towards purchase of the book) https://square.link/u/wqdxBl9o
If you do not rsvp we recommend arriving by 5:30 pm to snag an overflow seat. Put your disco shoes on!
About ‘A Night at the Disco’:
A Night at the Disco is a celebration of groundbreaking dance music from 1970–79, with an unprecedented collection of photographs of more than 100 artists.
A Night at the Disco is a celebration of groundbreaking dance music from 1970–'79. An unprecedented collection of photographs of more than 100 artists, illuminating the styles and sounds from a decade that sparked a global phenomenon in music and culture. Exclusive comments from Donna Summer, Barry Gibb, Debbie Harry, Giorgio Moroder, founding members of CHIC, Labelle, The Trammps, Village People, Earth, Wind & Fire, and dozens more artists, songwriters and producers, offering fascinating insights that tell the stories behind the beats. From underground New York clubs to discothèques across the globe, A Night at the Disco illustrates how artists spanning soul, pop, disco, funk, jazz and rock defined nightlife during the 1970s and influenced popular music to the present day.
With a foreword by Verdine White of Earth, Wind & Fire, this is a real treat for music, dance and disco fans everywhere.
About Christian John Wikane:
Christian John Wikane is a NYC-based writer who has interviewed 500+ recording artists. He is a Contributing Editor at PopMatters, Co-producer of Unscripted: Conversations with Christian John Wikane, and Consultant on Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over (CNN), Love to Love You, Donna Summer (HBO), and the Emmy-nominated Tina Turner documentary, TINA (HBO).
Watercolor Workshop w/local artist Ashley Ainsworth
Watercolor Workshop: Floral Still Life!
Local artist Ashley Ainsworth will lead a 2 hour still life watercolor workshop. No prior watercolor experience needed! During the session, you will learn the basics of watercolor, and receive personalized instruction guiding you through the process of painting a floral still life.
No prior experience necessary.
Limited capacity, reserve your spot by emailing hello@theyellowhouseri.com or stopping in the store. Wine and drinks available for sale!
Date: Wed, July 15th, 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Fee: $65/pp (includes all materials) - adults only
Buy online: https://square.link/u/MzYlYnWy
Location: our new Corner Bar space at The Yellow House, Tiverton Four Corners
About Instructor Ashley Ainsworth:
For me color is an art medium itself and a partner. With it I explore space and form, enter conversations, and allow the opening of a story. There is room for me to understand my feelings and space for the experience of my audience.
I have been painting since my early years. It continues to tell me new things about who I am. I consider watercolor my first love where art utensils are concerned. I’m very grateful to live in this community of coastal Rhode Island, so rich in artists and art lovers alike.
Ashley has a gallery and teaching space at 1733 Main Road in Tiverton. It is open by appointment and will hold retail hours the Summer of 2026!
Poetry Book Club: July - How About Now
Join our bookseller, Andrea, as she leads discussions around powerful new releases. Sign up for the book club in store or by emailing us and get 10% off the purchase of the featured book. Book club meets in our new Corner Bar, wine, beer, and non-alcoholic drinks available for sale alongside a selection of snacks.
Poetry Book Club - Tuesday, July 14th - 6:00 - 7:00 pm
July’s book club features Kate Baer’s recent collection of poems, “How About Now”.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“Kate Baer's poems are so full of life—life as it is now, that I can hear them breathing. I loved this book.”—Emma Straub
"How About Now is a balm, a banister, and a battering ram. Her very best yet."—Catherine Newman
The third full length poetry collection from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Kind of Woman.
Renowned poet Kate Baer returns with a bold and compassionate collection that confronts the march of time in a shifting world.
With her trademark candor and curiosity, Baer explores what it means to grow older, to release children into the wildness of their own lives, and to reclaim the ever-evolving self. Raw, luminous, and urgent, this collection channels Baer’s own journey to middle age into poems that are profoundly intimate yet resound universally, identifying the beauty, resilience, and fragility that arrive in every stage of life.
How About Now is a striking declaration of ongoing transformation and self-discovery. From the poet who has captured the heartbeat of the modern woman, this collection reaffirms Kate Baer’s place among the most vital voices of our era.
About the Author
Kate Baer is the three-time New York Times bestselling author of What Kind of Woman, I Hope This Finds You Well, and And Yet. Her work has also been published in The New Yorker, Literary Hub, Huffington Post, and the New York Times.
Fiction Book Club: June - Kin
Join our bookseller, Andrea, as she leads discussions around powerful new releases. Sign up for the book club in store or by emailing us and get 10% off the purchase of the featured book. Book club meets in our new Corner Bar, wine, beer, and non-alcoholic drinks available for sale alongside a selection of snacks.
Fiction Book Club - Tuesday, June 16th - 6:00 - 7:00 pm
June’s fiction book club features “Kin” by Tayari Jones.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR • OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK •
A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage—Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy.
“Tayari Jones’s storytelling washed over me like a trip back home. . . . Kin is a masterpiece of a novel that will live with you long after you turn the last page.” —Oprah Winfrey
Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.
A novel about mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in contemporary fiction.
About the Author
TAYARI JONES is the author of four novels, most recently An American Marriage, which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection and also appeared on Barack Obama’s summer reading list and his year-end roundup. It won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and an NAACP Image Award and has been published in two dozen countries. Jones is the C.H. Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University and lives in Atlanta.
Event: Salon with Memoir Authors Hester Kaplan & Alizah Holstein
Please join us for a salon style discussion, Q&A, and signing with Rhode Island based authors Hester Kaplan ("Twice Born”) and Alizah Holstein (“My Roman History”).
When: Wednesday, June 3rd - 6-7pm
We recommend arriving by 5:30 pm to secure a seat and have time to grab a drink and mingle ahead of the event!
Where: Corner Bar @ The Yellow House, 3842 Main Road, Tiverton Four Corners
Free event, books and drinks (wine/beer/non-alcoholic) available for purchase.
Pre-order your copy by emailing hello@theyellowhouseri.com
About ‘Twice Born’:
Longlisted for the NBCC Award for Autobiography
A deeply reflective memoir weaving together the personal story of Hester Kaplan’s acclaimed biographer father and his fraught effect on her artistic development with a rich portrait of twentieth century intellectual life and a meditation on family intimacy, identity, and the art of writing
Twice Born opens with the death of Hester’s father, Justin Kaplan, known for his award-winning biographies of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. Despite his relatively prolific output, Justin rarely wrote, or said, much about himself—even to his daughter. Standing at his open casket, Hester has the realization that while alive, her father never looked her in the eyes.
Hester takes on the challenge of piecing together as intimate a biography of her own father as possible, comparing his story to the lives of his biographical subjects and dissecting the various personas he presents to the world—from which the name “dad,” “daddy,” or even “father” is conspicuously and painfully absent. Parallel to Justin’s story runs Hester’s own journey of development as a writer and a thinker, which begins in the shadow of not only her talented father, but also her novelist mother, and the fiercely protective union the two of them had built, often to the exclusion of their own children.
In sensitive, intimate writing, Kaplan paints a rich picture of the twentieth century literary world that she grew up in, all while reflecting on the deceptive nature of memory, the loneliness of creative pursuits, and the dovetailing paradoxes of biographical and autobiographical writing.
About Hester Kaplan:
Hester Kaplan is the author of novels and story collections including The Edge of Marriage, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in literary journals and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories series. She is the recipient of two NEA awards, and was named a Mark Twain Fellow for Twice Born.
About ‘My Roman History’:
“A lyrical and moving exploration of the ways in which the heart governs even the pursuit of a life of the mind, this is a book for anyone who has ever loved Rome, as well as anyone who shares the experience of having found, in an unfamiliar history, their own unexpected home.” —Rebecca Mead, author of My Life in Middlemarch and Home/Land
“Brilliant . . . A personal intellectual history, a poignant account of how an expected life veers, and a boldly structured piece of writing." —Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun, via Instagram
In this exquisite and profound memoir, a medieval historian traces her lifelong obsession with Rome and the encounters with the city’s past and present that became fulcrum points in her life
From the time she first felt called to its gates as a high school student fascinated by Dante and Italian thanks to a life-changing teacher, Rome has been a fixed star around which Alizah Holstein’s life has rotated—despite the fact that she bears no Italian heritage, and has never lived there long enough to call it home.
In this kaleidoscopic yet intimate memoir, her shifting relationship to a vibrant city layered with human history becomes a lens on why we look to the past, on the mysteries of affinity and desire, and on what it means to grow up. Holstein weaves the stories of Romans past and present, and encounters with the city of historical figures from Petrarch to Freud, into the narrative of her evolution from a curious student abuzz with the thrill of discovery, to a lonely researcher in a city to which she feels she belongs despite knowing no one, to an ambitious young historian struggling to find her place in the halls of academia. Following a trail of memories—that first taste of a tartufo cioccolato in Piazza Navona, the ancient walls of the Via Appia blurring from the back of a motorcycle, the smudge of ink on a manuscript left by a scribe's hand over seven hundred years before—she explores what it means to be romana, Roman—and to find solace and self-knowledge in the presence of the past.
An enveloping, original, and deeply resonant account, set against one of the world's most beguiling cities, of the unexpected things that give our lives meaning, My Roman History is a profound depiction of the winding path to self-realization, which—much like history itself—is mysterious, captivating, and ever-unfolding.
About Alizah Holstein:
Alizah Holstein holds a PhD in history from Cornell University and an MFA in nonfiction writing and literary translation from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives with her family in Providence, Rhode Island.
Fiction Book Club: May - The Rest of Our Lives
Join our bookseller, Andrea, as she leads discussions around powerful new releases. Sign up for the book club in store or by emailing us and get 10% off the purchase of the featured book. Book club meets in our new Corner Bar, wine, beer, and non-alcoholic drinks available for sale alongside a selection of snacks.
Fiction Book Club - Tuesday, May 19th - 6:00 - 7:00 pm
May’s fiction book club features “The Rest of Our Lives: A Novel” by Ben Markovits.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
FINALIST FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE
“Feels less like reading a novel and more like sitting in a car beside a dear friend as he navigates the road up ahead. A profoundly moving experience.” —Ann Patchett
“Deeply human...a beautifully quiet and devastating book.” —Sarah Jessica Parker
A triumphantly life-affirming road trip novel about marriage, middle-age, and a man at a crossroads in his life.
When Tom Layward’s wife had an affair twelve years ago, he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest child left the nest. Now, while driving his college-bound daughter to Pittsburgh, he remembers his promise to himself. He is also on the run from his own health issues and a forced leave from work.
So, rather than returning to his wife in Westchester, Tom keeps driving west, with the vague plan of visiting people from his past—an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son—en route, maybe, to California. He’s moving towards a future he hasn’t even envisioned yet while he considers his past and the choices he’s made that have brought him to this particular present. Pitch-perfect, tender, and keenly observed, The Rest of Our Lives is a story about what to do when the rest of your life is only just the beginning of your story.
PVD Coven Broom Making Workshop
Broom-Making Workshop with PVD Coven
The artists at PVD Coven lead a 2 hour workshop on the time-honored art of broom-making. During the session, you will learn both history and craft, and receive personalized instruction guiding you through the process of creating a broom from scratch.
You’ll leave the workshop with a deeper appreciation of this practical art as well two to three beautiful and utilitarian handmade brooms (they make great gifts!) and the new skills that created them.
No prior experience necessary.
Limited capacity, reserve your spot by emailing hello@theyellowhouseri.com or stopping in the store. This workshop makes a great Mother’s Day gift or experience!
Date: Sat, May 9th, 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Fee: $120/pp includes materials to make 2-3 handbrooms
Buy online:https://square.link/u/6cZslcMw
Location: our new Corner Bar space at The Yellow House, Tiverton Four Corners
About PVD Coven/Artist Bios:
PVD Coven is a broom making workshop started by Ayumi Kodama and Cutter Hutton. The pair lead classes to introduce the craft and techniques of broom making in an effort to share skills and strengthen the creative communities within Rhode Island.
Cutter was drawn to broom making because of its simple hand made nature and the meditative process of the craft. Broom making serves as a counterpoint to his professional work as a product and furniture designer. He also teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design in the Furniture and Industrial Design Departments.
Ayumi is an artist and designer working across mediums, from glass and textiles to the grasses and fibers of broom making. She has integrated broom making into her creative practice, creating sculptural pieces and installations. Most recently at an art residency at the Centre d'art Jardins Racine in Québec, Canada where she made her first site specific broom with grass fibers and driftwood found on the property.
Author Event: Kristy Halvorsen's Perfect Unfolding: Seven Years Migrating Off-Grid Lessons from the Road -- An Interactive Discussion
Please join us for an interactive discussion, Q&A, and signing with author Kristy Halvorsen as she presents her newly released book, “Perfect Unfolding”.
When: Wednesday, May 6th - 6-7pm
Pre-order your copy by emailing hello@theyellowhouseri.com
About the Book:
Perfect Unfolding is a thought-provoking travel memoir about a woman who trades her dream home and fourteen-year firefighting career for the freedom and possibility of the open road.
Living off-grid in an Airstream, migrating with the seasons without a plan, Kristy discovers the most challenging wilderness isn’t outside her windows. It’s within. From exploring Arctic shores with an Indigenous guide to hiking the desert canyons of the American West, she navigates not just unmarked roads, but the unmapped territory of living on her own terms.
Perfect Unfolding weaves together three transformative journeys: adventures across breathtaking landscapes where survival awakens true resilience; a mother-daughter bond that transcends distance and past hurts; and an unexpected romance that challenges everything she thought she knew about love.
This raw and refreshingly honest story of self-discovery speaks to anyone who has felt the pull of something bigger—a life beyond expectation, beyond fear, beyond the safe and predictable. You’ll ride in the passenger seat as Kristy navigates the universal tension between following society’s script and surrendering to the unknown.
Perfect Unfolding is an invitation:
How far will you go to find the life that’s calling?
About the Author
If “normal” is a way of being, I am not that. Back in 2017, I sold my house and almost everything I owned, and hit the road.
Without meaning to, I sent myself on a modern-day walkabout. I’ve migrated with the seasons while living off-grid in my 2002 Airstream trailer ever since.
My first career was mechanical engineering, but sitting at a desk was not my jam. So I followed a deeper calling and became a firefighter/paramedic, a role I enjoyed for fourteen years. I founded my mentoring and coaching practice in 2015. That started as a fun side gig, and grew into a full time passion. Then one day, I knew it was time to set out on a grand adventure. (Read the book to find out how that’s going!)
Since hitting the road, work and fun have intermingled. A common thread is helping people realize who they truly are and live their dreams without sacrificing happiness along the way. My word to describe this simple, fun, and beautiful way to live is “coddiwomple”—to live in wonder, embrace the unknown, and trust Life while waking up to the complete freedom available to us all.
As for writing, I’ve been telling stories for as long as I can remember. I was first published at fourteen in the local newspaper. My blog and monthly newsletter have been entertaining and touching readers for almost ten years. Online publications have featured my articles, essays, and life/travel tips. For several years, I’ve been a regular columnist for the Blue Beret magazine. Perfect Unfolding is my first book.
Non-Fiction Book Club: May - Forest Euphoria
Join our bookseller, Andrea, as she leads discussions around powerful new releases. Sign up for the book club in store or by emailing us and get 10% off the purchase of the featured book. Book club meets in our new Corner Bar, wine, beer, and non-alcoholic drinks available for sale alongside a selection of snacks.
Non-fiction Book Club - Tuesday, May 5th - 6:00 - 7:00 pm
May’s non-fiction book club features “Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature” by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION SCIENCE + LITERATURE SELECTED TITLE VANITY FAIR BEST BOOKS OF 2025 * TIME 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2025
“An antidote to the loneliness of our species.”—ROBIN WALL KIMMERER
“A master class in how to love the world.”—MARGARET RENKL
A thrilling book about the abounding queerness of the natural world that challenges our expectations of what is normal, beautiful, and possible.
Growing up, Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian felt most at home in the swamps and culverts near her house in the Hudson Valley. A child who frequently felt out of place, too much of one thing or not enough of another, she found acceptance in these settings, among other amphibious beings. In snakes, snails, and, above all, fungi, she saw her own developing identities as a queer, neurodivergent person reflected back at her—and in them, too, she found a personal path to a life of science.
Braiding her personal story with science, Kaishian shows us this making of a scientist and introduces readers to the queerness of all the life around us. Fungal species, we learn, commonly encompass more than two biological sexes—and some as many as twenty-three thousand. Some intersex slugs mutually fire calcium carbonate “love darts” at each other during courtship. Glass eels are sexually undetermined until their last year of life, a mystery that scientists once dubbed “the eel question.” Nature, Kaishian shows us, is filled with the unusual, the overlooked, and the marginalized—and they have lessons for us all.
Big Book Club: Spring Session - The Sisters
Join our bookseller, Andrea, as we dive into an epic novel with our new, quarterly Big Book Club. Each quarter we will explore a new tome, classic or contemporary. Sign up for the book club by emailing us or coming in store and get 10% off the purchase of the featured book - your attention span will thank you.
Spring Big Book Club - Tuesday, 4/28 6-7pm
April’s big book club features “The Sisters” by Jonas Hassen Khemiri.
An addictively entertaining, internationally bestselling family saga by a National Book Award finalist.
Meet the Mikkola sisters: Ina, Evelyn, and Anastasia. Their mother is a Tunisian carpet seller, their father a mysterious Swede who left them when they were young. Ina is tall, serious, a compulsive organizer. Evelyn is dreamy, magnetic, a smooth talker. And Anastasia is moody, chaotic, a shape-shifting presence, quick to anger.
Ina meets her future husband when she’s dragged to a New Year’s rave by her sisters, only to suffer the ultimate betrayal. Evelyn drifts through life before embarking on a wild career as an actress. And Anastasia runs off to Tunisia, where she falls in love with a woman who, years later, will transform her life.
Following the sisters from afar is Jonas, the son of a Swedish mother and a Tunisian father. Over the course of three decades, his life intersects with the sisters, from a chance encounter in Tunis to the scene of a fighter jet crash in Stockholm. When Evelyn disappears on a trip to New York, Jonas manages to track her down—and helps her to break the curse that has been looming over the Mikkolas for decades. In the process, a shocking revelation changes everything about who they think they are.
Narrated in six parts, each spanning a period ranging from a year to a day to a single minute, Jonas Hassen Khemiri's The Sisters is a big, vivid family saga of the highest order and an addictively entertaining tour de force.
Jonas Hassen Khemiri is the author of six novels, seven plays, and a collection of short stories and essays. The Family Clause was a finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. Invasion! won an Obie Award for best script. Khemiri is the recipient of a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and numerous other publications. The Sisters is his first book to be written in English. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his family and teaches in the creative writing program at New York University.
Uncertainty Walking Book Tour w/author Maggie Jackson! Free!
Uncertainty Walking Book Tour
Stretch your legs and learn about the wisdom and wonder of uncertainty! A popular British innovation, a "walking book tour" makes a book literally leap off the page for both readers and authors. At this event, author Maggie Jackson will lead a walk through historic Tiverton Four Corners, sharing local history and stories that bring to life her award-winning book Uncertainand its revelatory findings on the upsides of skillful unsureness in times of flux. We will learn why productive unsureness boosts resilience and how uncertainty fueled the success of heroes past and present, including Frederick Douglass.
The 1.5 hour tour and book-signing will take place rain or shine largely outdoors and involve about a quarter-mile of easy walking.
Date: Saturday, April 25th
Time: 2 to 3:30 pm.
Place: Meet at the Yellow House, 3842 Main Road, Tiverton, RI (parking available at the shop or throughout the Four Corners village)
Free admission! Copies of the book available for sale at the shop, swing by our new Corner Bar in the shop for a coffee/tea/wine/beer/etc before or after the talk!
Photos courtesy of South Coast Almanac
Corner Bar Opening!
Corner Bar will be open for it’s third official evening on Saturday, April 11th from 4-8pm!
Wine, beer, non-alcoholic options available for sale alongside various snacks and antipasto boxes from Bottega Bocconi!
Corner Bar Opening! Special pop-up w/Little Bitte Cocktails
Corner Bar will be open for it’s second official evening on Friday, April 10th from 4-8pm!
Wine, beer, non-alcoholic options available for sale alongside various snacks and antipasto boxes from Bottega Bocconi.
Pop-up from Willa of Little Bitte Cocktails! Don’t miss her delicious, artisanal drinks!
Corner Bar Opening! Special pop-up w/Exec Chef Erika of Bottega Bocconi
Corner Bar will be open for it’s first official evening on Thursday, April 9th from 4-8pm!
Wine, beer, non-alcoholic options available for sale alongside various snacks.
Pop-up from Bottega Bocconi from 6-8pm! Come say hi to Executive Chef Erika and try some delicious tiramisu samples! We will have a limited amount of Bottega Bocconi tiramisu and antipasto boxes available for sale while they last!
Non-Fiction Book Club: *APRIL* - Eight Million Ways to Happiness
Join our bookseller, Andrea, as she leads discussions around two powerful new releases. Sign up for the book club in store or by emailing us and get 10% off the purchase of the featured book.
Non-fiction Book Club - Tuesday, April 7th - 6:00 - 7:00 pm
*** NOTE: Due to weather we needed to postpone February’s non-fiction book club to APRIL. This book club event will now take place on Tuesday, April 7th - 6:00 - 7:00 pm.
February’s non-fiction book club features “Eight Million Ways to Happiness: Wisdom for Inspiration and Healing from the Heart of Japan” by Hiroko Yoda.
A Shinto cultural historian shares a path to joyful living drawn from Japan’s uniquely flexible approach to spirituality and nature, offering a moving and enriching blend of memoir, cultural history, and guidance for anyone struggling with disconnection in the modern world.
Everyone’s in the pursuit of happiness, but few know how to attain this state of bliss. Millions around the world have turned to Japanese culture to unlock secrets to everything from finding their Ikigai to The Courage to Be Disliked. Yet Japan’s spiritual traditions are the hidden source of so many nourishing aspects of Japanese daily life and culture. Without Japan’s natural spiritual sustenance, Jiro wouldn’t dream of sushi; Hayao Miyazaki’s films wouldn’t spirit us away; and Marie Kondo wouldn’t spark joy.
In her book Eight Million Ways to Happiness, Hiroko Yoda offers the culmination of her decade-long odyssey into the spiritual heart of her homeland, and fills the pages with penetrating and poignant insights. Readers follow Hiroko as she trains as a Shinto shrine-dancer, partakes in Buddhist funeral rituals, ascends holy mountains with Shugendo ascetics, and meets one of Japan’s last living itako, a traditional mystic. She offers a roadmap to a form of spiritual flexibility, by turns ancient and new, mystical and grounded. Hiroko shares personal stories, cultural history, reverence towards nature, and life lessons for readers of any background.
Hiroko awakens readers to the idea of a spiritual flexibility that can nourish them through life’s inevitable ups and downs, wherever they might be, whatever their personal faiths may be. We are all subject to many forces beyond our control, but we are also part of a bigger natural system that can strengthen us—if we first learn how to connect with it.
——
"This book is a triumph! Hiroko Yoda dives into Japanese spirituality with an open heart and a lively, questioning mind. What she discovers is religion with a lowercase r: guidance rather than rules, generosity instead of judgement. Please know: No woo-woo spiritual blather here! Yoda's footing in cultural history and talents as a storyteller set this book apart and above."
—Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Gulp and Stiff
“I didn’t know how much I needed this book until I read it. Hiroko Yoda shows us with tenderness and clarity that healing and resolution occur even without certainty. Eight Million Ways to Happiness reminds us that there’s no single path to meaning or to spiritual health and mental health. Eight Million Ways to Happiness is an antidote to burnout culture and binary thinking. We all need this book right now.”
—Dr. Pooja Lakshmin MD, psychiatrist and bestselling author of Real Self-Care
“Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and cultural history, Yoda’s book provides an invaluable introduction to the spiritual life of Japan. She builds a compelling case for the value of flexibility and resilience in the face of chaos.” —Laura Allen, author of Murakami
Non-Fiction Book Club: March - Bread of Angels
Join our bookseller, Andrea, as she leads discussions around powerful new releases. Sign up for the book club in store or by emailing us and get 10% off the purchase of the featured book.
Non-Fiction Book Club - Tuesday, March 24th - 6:00 - 7:00 pm
March’s non-fiction book club features “Bread of Angels: A Memoir” by Patti Smith.
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A radiant new memoir from artist and writer Patti Smith, author of the National Book Award winner Just Kids
"God whispers through a crease in the wallpaper,” writes Patti Smith in this moving account of her life. A post-World War II childhood unfolds in a condemned housing complex where we enter the child’s world of the imagination. Smith, the captain of her loyal and beloved sibling army, vanquishes bullies, communes with the king of tortoises and searches for sacred silver pennies.
The most intimate of Smith’s memoirs, Bread of Angels takes us through her teenage years where the first glimmers of art and romance take hold. Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan emerge as creative role models as she begins to write poetry then lyrics, ultimately merging both into the songs of iconic recordings such as Horses, Wave, and Easter.
She leaves it all behind to marry her one true love, Fred Sonic Smith, with whom she creates a life of devotion and adventure on a canal in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. Here, she invents a room of her own, a low table, a Persian cup, inkwell and pen, entering at dawn to write. The couple spend nights in their landlocked Chris-Craft studying nautical maps and charting new adventures as they start a family.
A series of profound losses mark her life. Grief and gratitude are braided through years of caring for her children, rebuilding her life and, finally, writing again—the one constant in a life driven by artistic freedom and the power of the imagination to transform the commonplace into the magical, and pain into hope. In the final pages, we meet Smith on the road again, the vagabond who travels to commune with herself, who lives to write and writes to live.
About the Author
Patti Smith is the author of the National Book Award winner Just Kids, as well as Woolgathering, M Train, Year of the Monkey, and Collected Lyrics. Her seminal album Horses has been hailed as one of the top 100 albums of all time. Her global exhibitions include Strange Messenger, Land 250, Camera Solo, and Evidence. In 2005, the French Ministry of Culture awarded Smith the title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, Smith is also the recipient of the ASCAP Founders Award, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize, the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, and the Legion d’honneur.
Buy a copy in store, use our libro.fm site to download the audiobook while supporting the shop, or grab a copy at the library!
Bookselling at The Moth Event in New Bedford
We will be bookselling for The Moth at their upcoming show in New Bedford!! Look for our table in the lobby! The Moth will be hosting an event the day prior (Wednesday, March 18th) at our store!!
About the Event
This Spring, globally beloved storytelling institution, The Moth, is bringing its Mainstage show to New Bedford.
For ONE night, five seasoned storytellers will share extraordinary, true stories that dig deep into the idea of the American Dream.
Does it even exist anymore? FOR WHO? What happens when the dream rubs up against reality? What happens when it’s dashed or deferred? And what happens when the dream comes true?
Come together, sit shoulder to shoulder, and listen to people sharing hilarious, moving, illuminating, astounding stories of their very own
Tickets available through The Zeiterion
About The Moth
The Moth is a nonprofit that believes in connecting humanity through the power of personal storytelling. Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented over 65,000 stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. The Moth produces 600+ live shows annually, as well as the Peabody Award-winning The Moth Radio Hour, and popular The Moth Podcast. You can listen to The Moth weekly on over 540 public radio stations and anywhere you find podcasts.
This performance may contain adult content.
Corner Bar: Preview Week!
Big news! The Yellow House is excited to announce the opening of "Corner Bar," our new bar/cafe space located in the back room of our bookshop. We have a curated, thoughtful selection of wine, beer, and non-alcoholic beverages available for sale alongside delicious pre-packaged snacks!
Starting April 9th, Corner Bar will be open Thursday through Sunday from 11am to 7pm, offering self-serve non-alcoholic cafe drinks and snacks during the day, and bar service starting at 4pm. (Extended hours coming in the summer!)
Corner Bar will kick off a preview week on Wednesday, March 18th with a workshop led by the renowned storytelling organization, The Moth. This free event will take place at our shop on 3/18 from 3pm-4pm. Space is limited and guests will be welcomed on a first-come, first-served basis. We suggest arriving at 2:30pm to secure a spot.
Preview week schedule:
- Wednesday, 3/18: 4pm - 7pm; after the Moth Workshop
- Thursday, 3/19: 4pm - 7pm
- Friday, 3/20: 4pm - 7pm; with our friends at Little Bitte behind the bar for a pop-up
Bring a friend! Grab a neighbor! Come on down, check out our new space, have a drink with us!
The Moth at The Yellow House! "My Life in Stories: A Guided Journaling Workshop from The Moth"
We are thrilled to announce a very exciting upcoming workshop led by The Moth!
About the Event
There’s a great story in all of us. What’s yours?
Join Moth Senior Director Kate Tellers for a behind the scenes look at how the Peabody award-winning storytelling non-profit helps people from all walks of life find their stories. In celebration of My Life in Stories, a keepsake journal filled with prompts that will help you uncover, reflect on, and share the stories that make you who you are. This one-hour event is free and open to the public. Journals will be for sale on-site.
Where
The event will coincide with the soft opening of our new bar space at The Yellow House! We will have a select menu of wine, beer, and NA beverage options as well as some small snacks available for sale.
The Yellow House, 3842 Main Road, Tiverton, RI 02878 - Parking available at the shop or any of the surrounding Tiverton Four Corners parking areas.
Free event - journals/beverages/snacks available for sale!
When
Wednesday, March 18th
2:30 pm - Meet and mingle
3-4 pm - Workshop led by The Moth
4-7pm - Bar is open! Stay as long as you like and chat with new and old friends :)
Note
We will have copies of The Moth’s new journal available for sale in the shop as well as other blank journals available for sale. If you prefer, please arrive with your own journal and writing utensil. Space is limited, we are not taking RSVPs, we advise you arrive early to secure a spot.
About The Moth
Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented thousands of stories told live and without notes. Moth shows are renowned for the great range of human experience they showcase. Each show starts with a theme, and the storytellers explore it, often in unexpected ways. Since each story is true and every voice authentic, the shows dance between documentary and theater, creating a unique, intimate, and often enlightening experience for the audience.
About Kate Tellers
Kate Tellers is a Senior Director, a host of The Moth’s live storytelling series and Peabody Award winning Moth Radio Hour, and co-author of their New York Times bestseller How to Tell a Story. Just a few stories into her first Moth event, fortuitously themed BEGINNINGS, she knew she had found her home. Since then she’s developed stories with her heroes from her Pittsburgh childhood to the present day and helmed storytelling events around the world. As the Director of MothWorks she’s designed and led storytelling programs with non-profits including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and Ashoka, as well as the Chicago Bulls, American Express, Spotify, Google, and the U.S. State Department, that harness the power of storytelling to inspire culture and elevate communication. Her story, “But Also Bring Cheese” can be heard on The Moth Radio Hour and is featured in The Moth’s book All These Wonders: True Stories about Facing the Unknown. Her writing has appeared on McSweeney’s and The New Yorker. Through it all her love of storytelling runs deep because it gives her the phenomenal opportunity to laugh and cry with strangers.