Calendar of Events

This event is a free event, but registration is required. Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.

If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!

Taking its inspiration from Great Expectations, this novel teases us with the question of what Pip might have been like had he grown up in the American South of the 1960s and 1970s and faced the explosive social issues–racial injustice, a war abroad, womenís and gay rights, class struggle–that galvanized the world in those decades. A guilty encounter with an escaped felon, a summer spent working for an eccentric man with a mysterious past, conflicted erotic feelings for his employerís niece and nephew–these events set the stage for a journey of sexual and moral discovery that takes Newt Seward to New England, Rome, and Paris–all before returning home to confront his lifeís many expectations and disappointments. Deftly combining elements of coming-of-age story, novel of erotic discovery, Southern Gothic fiction, and detection-mystery thriller, FURNACE CREEK leaps the frame of Dickensí masterpiece to provide a contemporary meditation on the perils of desire, ambition, love, loss, and family.

Joseph Boone has written a page-turning novel, a spirited American retelling of an English classic. The American South is our own Dickensian England, and Boone brings both worlds vividly alive with his ebullient prose. A joyously ambitious debut! – Marianne Wiggins, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominee for Evidence of Things Unseen, Joe Boone’s FURNACE CREEK is a funny, moving, and true rendition of everybody’s story: surviving our childhoods, which can be uniquely challenging if you’re Southern, and queer. Boone is a natural novelist, and FURNACE CREEK is a genuine accomplishment.–Michael Cunningham

Joseph Allen Boone grew up in the piedmont foothills of North Carolina and earned his BA from Duke University, where Reynolds Price numbered among his creative writing teachers. Now a professor of English at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, he is the author of three works of non-fiction, a musical adaptation of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man, and a forthcoming short story collection from BSPG, Conditions of Precarity.  Furnace Creek, his debut novel, was a finalist in four international competitions.

Elizabeth Kostova is the author of the international bestseller The Historian. She graduated from Yale and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award for the Novel-in-Progress.

Sourcebooks launches its Booklight Events seres with a virtual Women’s History Month event with authors Marie Benedict, Kate Moore, Heather Webb, and Katharine Gregorio and host Mary O’Malley of Skylark Bookshop. They will be speaking about telling the stories of forgotten women in history, showcased in their new releases.

Click here to register for the free online event, hosted by Sourcebooks.

Order books from Malaprop’s below and receive a signed bookplate. 

MARIE BENEDICT is a graduate of Boston College, with a focus in history and art history, and the Boston University School of Law. Marie, author of The Other Einstein, Carnegie’s Maid, The Only Woman in the Room, and Lady Clementine, views herself as an archaeologist, telling the untold stories of women. She is a lawyer in Pittsburgh, where she lives with her family.

About Her Hidden Genius:

The next novel from New York Times bestselling powerhouse Marie Benedict (more than 750,000 sold), shining a light on Rosalind Franklin, the woman who died to make a world-changing scientific discovery of our very DNA, a woman whose thinking was suppressed by the men around her but whose relentless drive gave us profound knowledge of humankind.

KATE MOORE is the award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Radium Girls. A British writer based in London, she has published numerous Sunday Times bestsellers, writing across various genres including history, biography, true crime, gift and humor. She has written more than fifteen books and her work has been translated into more than 12 languages.

About The Woman They Could Not Silence:

From the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Radium Girls comes a dark, dramatic, but ultimately inspiring biography of Elizabeth Packard, the forgotten woman whose fight for her own justice brought about lasting change to science and human rights for all women.

HEATHER WEBB is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of seven historical novels. Her novels have been Goodreads Top Picks, honored by the Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Award, finalist for the 2020 Goldsboro RNA award finalist in the UK, and more. To date, Heather’s books have been translated to over a dozen languages. She lives in New England with her family and one feisty rabbit.

About The Next Ship Home:

A thoughtful historical novel inspired by true events and for fans of Kristina McMorris and Hazel Gaynor about dark secrets of Ellis Island, when entry promised a better life but often delivered something drastically different, and when immigrant strength and female friendship found ways to triumph even on the darkest days.

KATHARINE GREGORIO, the great-niece of Katharine Clark, holds a BA in History from Dartmouth College, an MSc in International Relations from The London School of Economics and Political Science, and an MBA from The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. She currently works in product marketing for Adobe.

About The Double Life of Katharine Clark:

A gripping biography that illuminates a remarkable chapter of the 20th century, one that shows how an unwavering commitment to truth, justice, and freedom of the press prevailed even in the hardest of circumstances. It is the untold story of Katharine Clark, a woman who forged a career in a male-dominated profession and risked her life to expose the truth about Communism to the world. Written by Katharine’s great-niece.

Mary Webber O’Malley is a writer and a Virtual Bookseller for Skylark Bookshop in Columbia, Missouri, reading and blurbing books across many genres. She is also the Author Liaison and Scheduling Producer for A Mighty Blaze, and co-host of the Blaze Boudoir. When not reading or writing, Mary and her husband love spending time with their grandchildren and tending their little suburban homestead outside Chicago, Illinois. She can be found on FB and Instagram @Blurb_Your_Enthusiasm.

Join us for a special virtual Miss Malaprop’s Storytime event with Alice Faye Duncan!

Duncan will share a short video reading from Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free, read from the book, Just Like A Mama, and lead a poetry writing activity.

Registration is not required for this event, but you can RSVP here to receive a reminder email with the YouTube link. To attend the event, please go to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MalapropsBookstoreCafe

Every year, Opal looked forward to the Juneteenth picnic–a drumming, dancing, delicious party. She knew from Granddaddy Zak’s stories that Juneteenth celebrated the day the freedom news of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation finally sailed into Texas in 1865–over two years after the president had declared it! But Opal didn’t always see freedom in her Texas town. Then one Juneteenth day when Opal was twelve years old, an angry crowd burned down her brand-new home. This wasn’t freedom at all. She had to do something! Opal Lee spent the rest of her life speaking up for equality and unity. She became a teacher, a charity worker, and a community leader. At the age of 89, she walked from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington, D.C., in an effort to gain national recognition for Juneteenth.

Featuring the illustrations of New York Times bestselling illustrator Keturah A. Bobo (I am Enough), Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free celebrates the life and legacy of a modern-day Black leader while sharing a message of hope, unity, joy, and strength.

Alice Faye Duncan is a National Board Certified Teacher, who writes for young learners. Memory is her motivation. She writes to help children remember important moments from African American history. Her books are celebrated for vivid imagery and lyrical texts that sound like music. Alice’s most popular titles include A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks; Just Like a Mama; Honey Baby Sugar Child; and Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop, which received a 2019 Coretta Scott King Honor Medal. Alice lives in Memphis, Tennessee, where at a young age, her mother nurtured her writing talent with prayer, poetry books, and praise. Her website is www.alicefayeduncan.com.

Order your copy of HER LAST AFFAIR below and you’ll receive a special code to virtually attend this live event at New York City’s Symphony Space!

You’ll also receive a signed bookplate and, if you’re in Asheville, you can pick up some popcorn (while supplies last).

A NIGHT FOR BOOKLOVERS! AMY RYAN, JOHN SEARLES & HER LAST AFFAIR

Academy Award-nominated actress, Amy Ryan, joins in what promises to be a fun and insightful conversation with New York Times bestselling author, John Searles. The evening is a celebration of the release of his much anticipated, genre-bending, new novel Her Last Affair, published by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers. Her Last Affair has been praised by critics as “a tense, intricately woven tale of heartbreak, retribution and redemption” (Publishers Weekly) and “a twisted thriller that explores despair and loneliness with cinematic flair.” (Kirkus). Amy Ryan starred in the film adaptation of Searles’s critically-acclaimed novel, Strange But True, currently streaming on HBO Max. The evening’s ticket price includes a signed copy of Her Last Affair.

New York Times bestselling and award-winning author, John Searles, is the author of HER LAST AFFAIR, to be published by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers on March 22, 2022. Praised as “a twisted thriller that explores loneliness and despair with cinematic flair…” (Kirkus) and “a tense, intricately woven tale of heartbreak, retribution and redemption,” (Publishers Weekly) HER LAST AFFAIR is a genre-bending read that tells the story of three seemingly separate, desperate characters, each of whom “makes a date” with a significant person from their past…to deadly effect. John’s previous novels— HELP FOR THE HAUNTED, STRANGE BUT TRUE, BOY STILL MISSING—have been voted best of the year or top picks by Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Salon and the American Library Association. He has written for written for the New York Times and Washington Post as well as appearing frequently on NBC’s Today show and CBS This Morning to discuss his favorite book selections.

Academy Award-nominated actress, Amy Ryan, is well-known for her work on the big and small screen alike, as well as her Tony-nominated work on stage. Ryan recently wrapped a starring role opposite Joaquin Phoenix in writer/director Ari Aster’s DISAPPOINTMENT BLVD for A24. She was last seen starring opposite Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez in Hulu’s ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING. Some notable film credits include: WORTH, BIRDMAN, CLEAR HISTORY (all with Michael Keaton), LOST GIRLS, LATE NIGHT, STRANGE BUT TRUE, GONE BABY GONE, BRIDGE OF SPIES, WIN WIN, JACK GOES BOATING, CAPOTE, GREEN ZONE, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, and KEANE Television credits include: THE WIRE, THE OFFICE, IN TREATMENT. BROAD CITY and HIGH MAINTENANCE. Her work onstage earned two Tony nominations for A Streetcar Named Desire and Uncle Vanya and an OBIE award for her performance in LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Her Last Affair: A Novel (Hardcover)

By John Searles

$27.99

ISBN: 9780060779658

Availability: Coming Soon – Available for Pre-Order Now

Published: Mariner Books – March 22nd, 2022

CFL Speaker Event: Wholehearted Faith with Jeff Chu

Register for this free event HERE by Tuesday, March 1.

Books will be available for purchase from Malaprop’s at the event.

Rachel Held Evans is widely recognized for her theologically astute, profoundly honest, and beautifully personal books, which have guided, instructed, edified, and shaped Christians as they seek to live out a just and loving faith. At the time of her tragic death in 2019, Rachel was working on a new book about wholeheartedness.

With the help of her close friend and author Jeff Chu, that work-in-progress has been woven together with some of her other unpublished writings into a rich collection of essays that ask candid questions about the stories we’ve been told—and the stories we tell—about our faith, our selves, and our world. Several groups within the church will be reading and reflecting on this book. We will have a Wednesday evening group to discuss God’s grace and love and explore our questions about beauty, becoming, and belonging.

First Baptist Church’s Center for Faith and Life is also hosting a Wholehearted Faith Book Study on Wednesdays, February 9 through 23 at 6:00 p.m.
More information here or contact First Baptist Church at (828) 252-4781.

This event is a free event, but registration is required.  Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.

If you decide to attend and purchase the authors’ books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!

The harvesting of wild American ginseng ( panax quinquefolium), the gnarled, aromatic herb known for its therapeutic and healing properties, is deeply rooted in North America, but nowhere has it played a more important role than in the southern and central Appalachian Mountains. Made possible by a trans-Pacific trade network that connected the region to East Asian markets, ginseng was but one of several medicinal Appalachian plants that entered international webs of exchange. As the production of patent medicines and botanical pharmaceutical products escalated in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, southern Appalachia emerged as the United States’ most prolific supplier of many species of medicinal plants. The region achieved this distinction due to both its biodiversity and the persistence of certain common rights that guaranteed widespread access to the forested mountainsides, regardless of who owned the land.

Following the Civil War, root digging and herb gathering became one of the most important ways landless and smallholding families earned income from the forest commons. This boom influenced class relations, gender roles, forest use, and outside perceptions of Appalachia, and it began a widespread renegotiation of common rights that eventually curtailed access to some plants such as ginseng.

Based on extensive research into the business records of mountain entrepreneurs, country stores, and pharmaceutical companies, Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia is the first book to unearth the unique relationship between the Appalachian region and the global trade in medicinal plants. Historian Luke Manget expands our understanding of the gathering commons by exploring how and why Appalachia became the nation’s premier purveyor of botanical drugs in the late nineteenth century and how the trade influenced the way human residents of the region interacted with each other and with the forests around them.

Luke Manget is an assistant professor of history at Dalton State College in Dalton, Georgia. He is a contributor in Southern Communities: Identity, Conflict, and Memory in the Nineteenth-Century American South, edited by Steven E. Nash and Bruce E. Stewart.

Daniel S. Pierce is professor of history at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His books includeTar Heel Lightnin’: How Secret Stills and Fast Cars Made North Carolina the Moonshine Capital of the World, Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France, and Corn from a Jar: Moonshining in the Great Smoky Mountains.

This event is a free event, but registration is required.  Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.

If you decide to attend and purchase the authors’ books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!

The inspiring, little-known story of the poor Irish refugee couple who escaped famine, created a life together in a city hostile to Irish, immigrants, and Catholics, and launched the Kennedy dynasty in America. Written by the grandson of an Irish immigrant couple and based on first‑ever access to P.J. Kennedy’s private papers, The First Kennedys is a story of sacrifice and survival, resistance and reinvention: an American story.

Neal Thompson is a journalist and the author of five highly acclaimed books, including A Curious Man, Driving with the Devil, and the memoir Kickflip Boys. A former newspaper reporter, he has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Esquire, Outside, Men’s Health, Vanity Fair, the Wall Street Journal and more. Neal has appeared on NPR, PBS, The Daily Show, CNN, Fox, TNT, The History Channel, and ESPN. He lives in Seattle with his family.

Denise Kiernan is an author, journalist, producer, and host of “CRAFT: Authors in Conversation.” Her latest book, We Gather Together, arrived winter 2020. Her last book, The Last Castle (Sept., 2017), was an instant New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback and was also a Wall Street Journal bestseller. She is also the author of The Girls of Atomic City, which is a New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and NPR bestseller and has been published in multiple languages. She lives in North Carolina.