The Bookplate is happily continuing their popular Authors & Oysters event series at The Retriever Bar in 2023. “The World Girls”; poets Meredith Davies Hadaway, Erin Murphy, and Amanda Newell were featured in the most recent Authors & Oysters event on December 14th. Now in the new year, on Wednesday, January 11th at 6pm, all are invited to The Retriever to hear author Tom Cousineau present “The Seance of Reading: F. Scott Fitzgerald and his Gatsby”.

Inspired by Mircea Eliade’s commentaries on the Romanian ballad, “The Legend of Master Manole” — in which the master-builder Manole learns that he must bury his wife Ana alive in the walls of the monastery that he is building at Curtea de Arges — Cousineau’s book gathers together guest-lectures presented at various Romanian universities in which the author explored the disguised return of archaic building-rituals in nine “monuments” of twentieth-century century literature, including F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” James Joyce’s “The Sister’s,” Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and “Endgame,” Fernando Pessoa’s”The Book of Disquiet,” T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Emil Cioran’s “A Short History of Decay,” Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” and William Faulkner’s “Light in August.”

Cousineau, Professor of English (Emeritus) at Washington College, former visiting professor at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bucharest, edited the newsletter of the Samuel Beckett Society for several years and co-directed the “Présence de Samuel Beckett” conference at Le Centre Culturel International de Cerisy-la-Salle in Normandy. He is the author of After the Final No: Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy, Waiting for Godot: Form in Movement, Ritual Unbound: Reading Sacrifice in Modernist Fiction, Three-Part Inventions: The Novels of Thomas Bernhard, An Unwritten Novel: Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet (recipient of an “Outstanding Title” citation from the American Library Association), and the focus of this event; The Séance of Reading: Uncanny Designs in Modernist Writing

“From Eliot to Fitzgerald to Beckett, Pessoa, and Cioran, Cousineau’s wide-ranging study of literary Modernism offers insightful and sensitive interpretations of major canonical pieces of American and European literature: a rewarding and gracious book.” 

– Galin Tihanov, George Steiner Professor of Comparative Literature, Queen Mary University of London

“Thomas Cousineau’s “The Séance of Reading” is itself a Séance to read.  His idea that sacrifice, as expressed in the Romanian legend of Manole, holds a key to understanding certain literary classics, shines a fresh and strange light on those classics.”

– John Vernon, Author of “Peter Doyle,” “The Last Canyon,” and “Lucky Billy” 

For more event details contact The Bookplate at 410-778-4167 or [email protected]. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. The next Authors & Oysters event is scheduled for 1/18 with Academy Award-winner, Ernest Thompson. All events are held in the back room of The Retriever. The Retriever is located at 337 ½ High Street, in Chestertown, Maryland. 

The Bookplate is proud to announce the next segment of their Authors & Oysters events at The Retriever Bar. David O. Stewart was featured in the most recent Authors & Oysters event on November 9th with his book, George Washington; The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father. On Wednesday, December 7th at 6pm, all are invited to The Retriever to meet author Douglas Richardson for a book signing and author lecture on his debut thriller; Down Wind and Out of Sight. 

A finalist for the American Fiction Awards, Down Wind and Out of Sight is a strikingly original suspense thriller, populated with unforgettable characters and loaded with bizarre twists and quirky science. It takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride from the Australian outback to a top-secret US government research facility and into the astonishing electronics lab of an adolescent autistic savant. On the other hand, the novel is a compassionate and moving exploration of the unique emotional bonds forged by an improbable cast of damaged and marginalized characters linked by the drive to survive. 

A graduate of Harvard Law School, with a Master’s degree in communications from Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication, Douglas Richardson was a trial lawyer in a large Philadelphia law firm and then a federal prosecutor responsible for complex criminal investigations and high-profile prosecutions.  Later he became legal counsel to Pennsylvania’s mental hospitals before being named Director of Communications for a multi-billion-dollar government agency. In a mid-career shift, Doug became an executive coach and recognized national authority on career management.  As a Certified Master Coach, he has counseled scores of senior executives, attorneys and high-performing project teams on leadership and professional development. His articles and nonfiction writings have appeared in numerous legal and business publications, including Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The American Lawyer, The National Law Journal, Law 360, and The Edge International Review. He wrote the Dow Jones National Business Employment Weekly Premier Guide to Networking and the Bala Creative Group’s Haiku Talks Business, and is co-author of the American Bar Association’s Legal Project Management in One Hour for Lawyers. ​Doug lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and a “variety pack” of three spectacularly gonzo dogs.

“Down Wind and Out of Sight is a unique novel. It’s both a riveting thriller and a compassionate exploration of people who are different. Full of wry wit, compelling characters and unexpected twists, the adventures of people bound together by extraordinary circumstances race to a shocking climax, catching you up in a powerful dynamic you won’t forget.” – Goodreads 5-Star Review

For more event details contact The Bookplate at 410-778-4167 or [email protected]. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. The next Authors & Oysters event is on 12/14 with The Word Girls; Meredith Davies Hadaway, Erin Murphy and Amanda Newell. All events are held in the back room of The Retriever. The Retriever is located at 337 ½ High Street, in Chestertown, Maryland. 

On Saturday, December 3rd at 11am, all are invited to meet local author Lucy Maddox as she signs copies of and discusses her book, “The Parker Sisters: A Border Kidnapping” upstairs at Zelda’s on Cross Street. This event is hosted by The Bookplate as part of the Dickens of a Christmas holiday weekend festival. The back room of The Bookplate has been expanded during the pandemic to include a larger selection of titles, so events such as the popular Authors and Oysters series, are often held off-site.

The Parker Sisters is a nonfiction exploration of the 1851 kidnapping of two free black sisters from Chester County, PA,  just above the Pennsylvania-Maryland state line. 

Lucy Maddox is Professor Emerita of English and American Studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of several books including The People of Rose Hill: Black and White Life on a Maryland Plantation, Nabokov’s Novels in English, Removals: Nineteenth-Century American Literature & the Politics of Indian Affairs, Citizen Indians: Native American Intellectuals, Race & Reform. She lives with her husband in Chestertown. 

“The Parker Sisters impresses by the breadth and depth of the impeccable research as well as by its engaging, at times genuinely suspenseful writing. The brisk narrative of the kidnapping of two free black sisters across the Mason-Dixon Line comes to life here. Maddox is a skillful historian who enters a single case so fully that the Fugitive Slave Act becomes understandable in a very direct way. This is an outstanding book.” – Werner Sollors, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Research Professor of English Literature, Harvard University

Then at 2pm on the same day, join us back at Zelda’s to meet NPR’s Maureen Corrigan as she discusses her book, So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be And Why It Endures. Corrigan’s book asks us; how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? While Fitzgerald’s masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power. Offering a fresh perspective on what makes Gatsby great — and utterly unusual — So We Read On takes us into archives, high school classrooms, and even out onto the Long Island Sound to explore the novel’s hidden depths, a journey whose revelations include Gatsby ‘s surprising debt to hard-boiled crime fiction, its rocky path to recognition as a “classic,” and its profound commentaries on the national themes of race, class, and gender. (And we can’t think of a more appropriate location to discuss this book than at Zelda’s!)

Maureen Corrigan is the book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air and the author of Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading. Winner of an Edgar Award for criticism, she has written essays and reviews for many publications. She teaches literature at Georgetown University, where she is the critic in residence, and lives with her husband and daughter in Washington, D.C.

“Maureen Corrigan has produced a minor miracle: a book about The Great Gatsby that stands up to Gatsby itself.” -Michael Cunningham, author of The Snow Queen

For more event details contact The Bookplate at 410-778-4167 or [email protected]. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. Zelda’s Speakeasy is located at 108 S. Cross Street, in Chestertown, Maryland. The Bookplate will continue its popular Authors & Oysters series at The Retriever Bar on 12/7 with Doug Richardson and his thriller, “Down Wind and Out of Sight”.

The Bookplate is proud to announce the next segment of their Authors & Oysters events at The Retriever Bar. All events are held in the back room of The Retriever. Alix Rickloff was featured in the most recent Authors & Oysters event on November 2nd with her new novel, The Girls in Navy Blue.

On Wednesday, November 9th at 6pm, all are invited to The Retriever to meet author David O. Stewart for a book signing and author lecture on his book on our first president. George Washington; The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father is a fascinating and illuminating account of how George Washington became the single most dominant force in the creation of the United States of America

“Washington’s rise constitutes one of the greatest self-reinventions in history. In his mid-twenties, this third son of a modest Virginia planter had ruined his own military career thanks to an outrageous ego. But by his mid-forties, that headstrong, unwise young man had evolved into an unassailable leader chosen as the commander in chief of the fledgling Continental Army. By his mid-fifties, he was unanimously elected the nation’s first president. How did Washington emerge from the wilderness to become the central founder of the United States of America?

In this remarkable new portrait, award-winning historian David O. Stewart unveils the political education that made Washington a master politician—and America’s most essential leader. From Virginia’s House of Burgesses, where Washington learned the craft and timing of a practicing politician, to his management of local government as a justice of the Fairfax County Court to his eventual role in the Second Continental Congress and his grueling generalship in the American Revolution, Washington perfected the art of governing and service, earned trust, and built bridges. The lessons in leadership he absorbed along the way would be invaluable during the early years of the republic as he fought to unify the new nation.

• Winner of the 2022 Book Award of the Colonial Dames of America
• Winner of the 2021 History Prize of the Society of the Cincinnati, New Jersey.
• Finalist, 2022 George Washington Prize of Mount Vernon and Gilder-Lehrman Institute
• Featured at the National Book Festival, 22 September 2021
• Winner of  2002 George Washington Memorial Award of the G. Washington Masonic National Memorial Ass’n.

A recovering lawyer and proud graduate of Curtis High School on Staten Island, David Stewart has published five books of history and four historical novels. His most recent nonfiction work, George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father, has won several awards and is a finalist for Mount Vernon’s George Washington Prize.  His most recent novel, The New Land, is inspired by family stories his mother told, and is the first of a trilogy. He lives in Maryland with his wife of 48 years, Nancy; they have three children and five grandchildren.

“[A]n outstanding biography that both avoids hagiography and acknowledges the greatness of Washington’s character. . . Mr. Stewart’s writing is clear, often superlative, his judgments are nuanced, and the whole has a narrative drive such a life deserves.” – Wall Street Journal

“In this lively and admirable study, Stewart offers a balanced and thoughtfully well-written appreciation of George Washington’s life and leadership.  A must for fans of biographies.” -Library Journal (STARRED Review)

For more event details contact The Bookplate at 410-778-4167 or [email protected]. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. The next Authors & Oysters event is on 12/7 with Doug Richardson and his book, Down Wind and Out of Sight. The Retriever is located at 337 ½ High Street, in Chestertown, Maryland. 

The Bookplate is proud to announce that three authors will be coming to town between October 28th & 29th to hold Authors & Oysters events at The Retriever Bar during Sultana’s Downrigging Festival Weekend. All events will be held in the back room of The Retriever. Jacqueline Boulden was featured in the most recent Authors & Oysters event on October 12th with her novel, Her Past Can’t Wait.

On Friday, October 28th at 5:30pm, all are invited to The Retriever to meet author Philip Greene as he discusses his book, To Have and Have Another; A Hemingway Cocktail Companion. “Ernest Hemingway is nearly as famous for his drinking as he is for his writing. Throughout his collected works, Papa’s sensuous explorations of the delights of imbibing engaged both his characters and his readers. Now revised and expanded to include even more authentic recipes, history and folklore, colorful anecdotes, and the drinks themselves, this Hemingway cocktail companion provides an engaging and unique perspective on Papa’s world.

Philip Greene is one of the founders of the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans. He is a sought-after speaker on topics within cocktail history, as well as a mixology consultant for restaurants and institutions across the world. A descendant of the Peychaud family of New Orleans, he counts among his ancestors the illustrious Antoine Peychaud, the nineteenth-century New Orleans pharmacist who created Peychaud’s Bitters and is credited with coining the word “cocktail”.”

“[A] fascinating literary-booze study.” – The Washington Post

“Might be the next best thing to drinking with Hemingway.” – Imbibe

On Saturday, October 29th at 11:00 am, all are again invited to The Retriever to meet author Greg Melville as he discusses his book, Over My Dead Body; Unearthing The Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries. “The summer before his senior year in college, Greg Melville worked at the cemetery in his hometown. Thanks to hour upon hour of pushing a mower over the grassy acres, he came to realize what a rich story the cemetery told of his town and its history. Thus was born Melville’s lifelong curiosity with how, where, and why we bury and commemorate our dead. 

Over My Dead Body is a lively (pun intended) and wide-ranging history of cemeteries, places that have mirrored the past eras of history but have also shaped them. The book explores how cemeteries have given birth to landscape architecture and famous parks, as well as influenced architectural styles; how they’ve inspired and motivated some of our greatest poets and authors—Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson; and how they’ve been used as political tools to shift the country’s discourse and as important symbols of the United States’ ambition and reach.”

“Melville is an ideal guide, carrying a revealing lantern into both beautiful and disturbing corners of the nation’s undervalued graveyards. At the end of a glorious excursion, he leaves you with a deep appreciation of the rich heritage sleeping just under Americans’ feet. Captivating.”  -Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris, bestselling author of The Butchering Art

“Witty, warm, and bristling with fascinating history and firsthand details… Essential-no, vital-reading.” – Robert Moor, New York Times bestselling author of On Trails: An Exploration

Later in the day at 2pm on October 29th, all are invited back to The Retriever to meet writer Peter A. Jay as he discusses his book Timepieces: Three Decades of Commentary in the Baltimore Sun. “As Timepieces makes clear, occasional blog posts are no substitute for the collected newspaper columns of an astute observer whose sustained curiosity, distinctive perspective and dry humor can be crafted into such a compelling book. Peter’s columns range from statehouse politics in Maryland, the periphery of several presidential campaigns and the Baltimore Orioles to farming in Harford County, watermen on the Chesapeake and a symposium on “contemporary writing.”

A  war correspondent in Vietnam for The Washington Post, a long-time farmer in rural Churchville, the one-time owner of The Havre de Grace Record, a commercially licensed river captain and a font of well-chosen literary references, Peter could be forgiven if his sensibilities were more attuned to the nineteenth century than the twentieth, but that’s not remotely the case. Reading Timepieces from the vantage point of the twenty-first century, the freshness, spirited curiosity and, dare one say, timelessness of the columns is refreshingly of the moment. We can add Peter Jay to an eminent tradition of newspaper columnists who shared one thing in common: an abiding fascination with local life and place.”

“Each of these pieces tells a tale from start to finish..the work of a reporter with a writer’s many skills.” – Peter Osnos, author of An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen and founder of PublicAffairs Books

“Peter Jay is a funny man. He is also a very perceptive one who writes with equal parts irreverence and passion of the quirky metropolis of Baltimore and the farming hills that unfold beyond it. For this child of Baltimore raised on the outskirts of Charm City, his collection of Baltimore Sun columns is as moving as it is hilarious.”  – Sally H. Jacobs, former Boston Globe reporter and author of The Other Barack, The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father

For more event details contact The Bookplate at 410-778-4167 or [email protected]. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. The next Authors & Oysters event is on 11/2 with Alix Rickloff and her new novel, The Girls in Navy Blue. The Retriever is located at 337 ½ High Street, in Chestertown, Maryland.