Harvard Book Store Channel |
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December 17, 2020
Katie Mack and Kim Stanley Robinson
present The End of Everything and The Ministry for the Future -
November 12, 2020
Jerald Walker and Robert Atwan
present How to Make a Slave and Other Essays and The Best American Essays 2020 -
November 5, 2020
What Just Happened: Writers Discuss the Post-Election Moment
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October 23, 2020
Deborah Willis, John Stauffer, and Sarah Lewis
discuss To Make Their Own Way in the World with Ilisa Barbash -
October 19, 2020
Claire Messud and André Aciman
present Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write and Find Me -
September 28, 2020
Felton Earls and Mary Carlson
discuss Voice, Choice, and Action with Alex Kotlowitz -
August 22, 2020
Bookstore Romance Day Panel
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July 31, 2020
Alexander Keyssar
discusses Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? with Miles Rapoport -
July 30, 2020
Sara Faith Alterman
discusses Let's Never Talk About This Again with Meredith Goldstein -
July 24, 2020
Adrian Tomine
discusses The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist with Leanne Shapton -
July 12, 2020
Where Do We Go From Here: A Fundraiser for Black Lives
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June 8, 2020
Megha Majumdar and Sue Monk Kidd
discuss A Burning and The Book of Longings with Jordan Pavlin -
May 27, 2020
Heather Cox Richardson
discusses How the South Won the Civil War with Lindsay M. Chervinsky -
November 27, 2018
David A. Kaplan
presents The Most Dangerous Branch: Inside the Supreme Court's Assault on the Constitution -
October 19, 2018
Jabari Asim
discusses We Can't Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival with Adrian Walker -
October 1, 2018
Sarah Smarsh
presents Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth -
September 13, 2018
Soraya Chemaly
discusses Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger with Jaclyn Friedman -
August 15, 2018
Roy Scranton
discusses We're Doomed. Now What? Essays on War and Climate Change with Andrew Bacevich -
June 11, 2018
Howard Bryant
presents The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism -
February 26, 2018
Fifty Years Since MLK
with Brandon M. Terry, Tommie Shelby, Elizabeth Hinton, and Cornel West -
November 14, 2017
Slavoj Žižek and Alenka Zupančič
discuss Incontinence of the Void and What IS Sex? with Mladen Dolar -
October 27, 2017
Worldwide Week with Transition Magazine
featuring Phanuel Antwi, David Chariandy, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Moses Kilolo, Danielle Legros Georges, Enzo Silon Surin, and Novuyo Rosa Tshuma -
September 7, 2017
Vanessa Grigoriadis
discusses Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus -
March 22, 2017
Chris Hayes
discusses a Colony in a Nation with Jabari Asim, Frank Rudy Cooper, and Anthony Brooks -
February 22, 2017
Yuval Noah Harari
discusses Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow with Michael Sandel -
February 17, 2017
James R. Valcourt
discusses Systematic: How Systems Biology Is Transforming Modern Medicine -
February 6, 2017
Gender and Color in Comics
A panel discussion featuring Mildred Louis, John Jennings, and Joel Christian Gill -
January 29, 2017
Melissa Fleming
discusses A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, & Survival -
January 9, 2017
Keramet Reiter
discusses 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement -
October 26, 2016
Sara Goldrick-Rab
discusses Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream -
October 24, 2016
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
discusses Growing Each Other Up: When Our Children Become Our Teachers -
August 29, 2016
An Evening with Pangyrus
Boston's new journal of literature, perspective, arts, and politics -
May 20, 2016
Malcolm K. Sparrow
discusses Handcuffed: What Holds Policing Back, and the Keys to Reform -
April 8, 2016
Thomas Frank
discusses Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? -
February 19, 2016
Hillary L. Chute
discusses Disaster Drawn: Visual Witness, Comics, and Documentary Form -
January 29, 2016
Roberto G. Gonzales
discusses Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America -
December 9, 2015
An Evening of Poetry with Boston Review
featuring Mary Jo Bang, Lucie Brock-Broido, Stephen Burt, and Major Jackson -
October 8, 2015
Roberta Kaplan
discusses Then Comes Marriage: United States v. Windsor and the Defeat of DOMA with Eric Lander -
September 18, 2015
Daniel Geary and Benjamin Hedin
discuss today's civil rights movement with Eugene Rivers -
June 19, 2015
City by City
featuring Stephen Squibb and contributors Greg Afinogenov, Dan Albert, and Annie Wyman -
June 16, 2015
The Nation’s First 150 Years
featuring Katrina vanden Heuvel, D.D. Guttenplan, and Chloe Maxmin -
March 24, 2015
Barney Frank
discusses Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage -
September 3, 2014
George Marshall
discusses Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change -
May 2, 2014
The Opposite of Loneliness
Essays and stories by Marina Keegan presented by Anne Fadiman, Ratna Gill, and Luke Vargas -
September 28, 2012
Steven Johnson
discusses Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age -
September 28, 2012
Natalie Hopkinson
discusses Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City -
September 21, 2012
Daniel Kantstroom
discusses Aftermath: Deportation Law and the New American Diaspora -
October 18, 2011
Ron Suskind
discusses Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President -
March 4, 2011
Maya Jasanoff
discusses Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World
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December 20, 2013
Don’t Watch This If You Are a Bookseller’s Cousin or Mom
What is our discerning staff giving for the holidays? -
September 22, 2011
Minimum Paige: A Harvard Book Store Comic Anthology
A project this heroic could only be accomplished by the most dynamic of duos. -
September 16, 2011
Lucy the Wonder-Pup Picks the Booker
Can this adorable puppy predict the winner of the Man Booker Prize? -
January 21, 2011
HBTV Presents: Jurassic Books
A short film that ponders the possibilities of a large scale book printing robot... -
January 14, 2011
HBTV Is On The Air!
Cambridge's only local, fictional television station that's based out of an independent book store. -
September 8, 2010
Carole
recommends Wrestling with Moses and The Death and Life of Great American Cities
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Annik LaFarge
Harvard Book Store's virtual event series and the Frederick Historic Piano Collection welcome acclaimed writer, photographer, and lecturer ANNIK LAFARGE—author of On the High Line: Exploring America's Most Original Urban Park—for a discussion of her latest book, Chasing Chopin: A Musical Journey Across Three Centuries, Four Countries, and a Half-Dozen Revolutions. She will be joined in conversation by celebrated novelist MARISA SILVER. During the conversation, Annik will share a short video featuring internationally acclaimed pianist Eric Clark performing at the First International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments in Warsaw.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the Fryderyk Chopin Institute for permission to show this excerpt. The video and audio are the property of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute. All rights reserved.
The Frédéric Chopin Annik LaFarge presents here is not the melancholy, sickly, romantic figure so often portrayed. The artist she discovered is, instead, a purely independent spirit: an innovator who created a new musical language, an autodidact who became a spiritually generous, trailblazing teacher, a stalwart patriot during a time of revolution and exile.
In Chasing Chopin she follows in his footsteps during the three years, 1837–1840, when he composed his iconic “Funeral March”—dum dum da dum—using its composition story to illuminate the key themes of his life: a deep attachment to his Polish homeland; his complex relationship with writer George Sand; their harrowing but consequential sojourn on Majorca; the rapidly developing technology of the piano, which enabled his unique tone and voice; social and political revolution in 1830s Paris; friendship with other artists, from the famous Eugène Delacroix to the lesser known, yet notorious in his time, Marquis de Custine. Each of these threads—musical, political, social, personal—is woven through the “Funeral March” in Chopin’s Opus 35 sonata, a melody so famous it’s known around the world even to people who know nothing about classical music. But it is not, as LaFarge discovered, the piece of music we think we know.
As part of her research into Chopin’s world, then and now, LaFarge visited piano makers, monuments, churches, and archives; she talked to scholars, jazz musicians, video game makers, software developers, music teachers, theater directors, and of course dozens of pianists.
The result is extraordinary: an engrossing, page-turning work of musical discovery and an artful portrayal of a man whose work and life continue to inspire artists and cultural innovators in astonishing ways.
Annik LaFarge is a writer, photographer, lecturer, and author of the much-praised On the High Line: Exploring America’s Most Original Urban Park, winner of the IPPY award for Travel Guidebook. She has been writing about the High Line and urban landscapes since 2009 on the blog Livin The High Line. Her most recent book is Chasing Chopin: A Musical Journey Across 3 Centuries, 4 Countries, and a Half Dozen Revolutions. She lives in New York City.
Marisa Silver’s new novel, The Mysteries, will be published in 2021. She is also the author of six previous works of fiction, including the novels Mary Coin, a New York Times bestseller, and, most recently, Little Nothing, a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker as well as other publications, and has been included in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories. Silver has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She teaches at the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.