STORY HOUR with MISS JULIE Friday Mornings @ 10 am in the Children's Store

MUFFINS WITH MOM ~ Celebrate Mom, Grandma or Your Favorite Gal! Stories, Crafts, Refreshments.

Saturday, May 10th at 11 a.m. (in the Children's Store)

THE HISTORY FORUM with Dr. Taylor featuring special guest author LES STANDIFORD presenting Washington Burning ~ How a Frenchman's Vision of Our Nation's Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army

Saturday, May 10th at 1 p.m.

In 1814, British troops invaded Washington, consuming President Madison’s hastily abandoned dinner before setting his home and the rest of the city ablaze. The White House still bears scorch and soot marks on its foundation stones. It was only after this British lesson in “hard war,” designed to terrorize, that Americans overcame their resistance to the idea of Washington as the nation’s capital and embraced it as a symbol of American might and unity.

The dramatic story of how the capital rose from a wilderness is a vital chapter in American history, filled with intrigue and outsized characters–from George Washington to Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the eccentric, passionate, difficult architect who fell in love with his adopted country. This Frenchman–both inspired by the American cause of liberty and wounded while defending it–first endeared himself to then General Washington with a sketch drawn at Valley Forge. Designing buildings, parades, medals, and coins, L’Enfant became the creator of a new American aesthetic, but the early tastemaker had ambition and pride to match his talent. Self-serving and incapable of compromise, he was consumed with his artistic dream of the Federal City, eventually alienating even the president, his onetime champion.

Washington struggled to balance L’Enfant’s enthusiasm for his brilliant design with the strident opposition of fiscal conservatives such as Thomas Jefferson, whose counsel eventually led to L’Enfant’s dismissal. The friendships, rivalries, and conflicting ideologies of the principals in this drama–as revealed in their deceptively genteel correspondence and other historical sources–mirror the struggles of a fledgling nation to form a kind of government the world had not yet known.

The Vero Beach Book Center Bookies Bookgroup

Monday, May 12th at 10:30 a.m.

The Vero Beach Book Center Bookies Bookgroup meets in the Second Story Bargain Books to discuss Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

HENRY WINKLER presents HANK ZIPZER: The World's Greatest Underacheiver #14 ~ The Life of Me (Enter at Your Own Risk)

Wednesday, May 14th at 6 p.m. (autograph line ticket w/book purchase)

When Ms. Adolf hurts her back in a tango contest and goes on longterm leave, Mr. Rock (the music teacher) is called in as the sub. Hank is psyched . . . until Mr. Rock suggests that Hank attend an after-school reading program, which means he’ll miss tae kwon do. But when Hank gets a crush on a girl in the reading program, and when Mr. Rock says that instead of writing his autobiography (a class assignment), Hank can present his life in scrapbook form, well . . . life’s looking good. Then Hank finds out that his crush is actually the cousin of his nemesis, McKelty!

Readers will love Hank’s newest adventure, plus they will adore reading Hank’s scrapbook, which includes black-and-white photos of his school and neighborhood, newspaper clippings, memorabilia, and more!

PRIOLEAU ALEXANDER presents You Want Fries With That? A White-Collar Burnout Experiences Life at Minimum Wage

Thursday, May 22nd at 7 p.m.

The American Dream used to include a white picket fence, 2.2 kids, and a dog. In today's frantic world, it's . . . well, let's be honest-it's quite different. But what would happen if you did have the nerve to quit your white-collar job? Prioleau Alexander can tell you:He walked away from a lucrative career as an advertising executive, seeking a life +like that dude on Kung Fu.+ Over the next year he worked minimum-wage jobs as a pizza deliveryman, ice cream scooper, construction worker, ER tech, fast food jockey, and even cowboy on a Montana dude ranch. In YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?, Prioleau explores life at minimum wage and proves unequivocally that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

DEBBIE MACOMBER presents Twenty Wishes

Saturday, May 24th at 1 p.m.

Anne Marie Roche wants to find happiness again. At thirty-eight, her life's not what she'd expected - she's childless, a recent widow, alone. She owns a successful bookstore on Seattle's Blossom Street, but despite her accomplishments, there's a feeling of emptiness.

On Valentine's Day, Anne Marie and several other widows get together to celebrate . . . what? Hope, possibility, the future. They each begin a list of twenty wishes, things they always wanted to do but never did.

Anne Marie's list starts with: Find one good thing about life. It includes learning to knit, doing good for someone else, falling in love again. She begins to act on her wishes, and when she volunteers at a local school, an eight-year-old girl named Ellen enters her life. It's a relationship that becomes far more involving than Anne Marie intended. It also becomes far more important than she ever imagined.

As Ellen helps Anne Marie complete her list of twenty wishes, they both learn that wishes can come true - but not necessarily in the way you expect.

PATTI CALLAHAN HENRY presents The Art of Keeping Secrets

Monday, June 9th at 7 p.m.

Annabelle has finally made peace with the loss of her beloved husband. Until she finds out he wasn’t alone when he died.

Since a plane crash killed her husband two years ago, Annabelle Murphy has found solace in raising her two children. Just when she thinks the grief is behind her, she receives the news that the wreckage of the small plane has been discovered—and that her husband did not die alone. He was with another woman. Suddenly, Annabelle is forced to question everything she once held true.

Sophie Parker knows the woman who was on that plane. A dolphin researcher who has lived a quiet life, Sophie has never let anyone get too close. But when Annabelle shows up on Sophie’s doorstep full of painful questions, both women must confront their intertwining pasts—and find the courage to face the truth.

DOUGHNUTS WITH DAD ~ Celebrate Dad, Grandpa or Your Favorite Guy! Stories, Crafts, Refreshments.

Saturday, June 14th at 11 a.m. (in the Children's Store)

ANDRE DUBUS III presents The Garden of Last Days

Wednesday, June 18th at 7 p.m.

One early September night in Florida, a stripper brings her daughter to work. April's usual babysitter is in the hospital, so she decides it's best to have her three-year-old daughter close by, watching children's videos in the office, while she works.

Except that April works at the Puma Club for Men. And tonight she has an unusual client, a foreigner both remote and too personal, and free with his money. Lots of it, all cash. His name is Bassam. Meanwhile, another man, AJ, has been thrown out of the club for holding hands with his favorite stripper, and he's drunk and angry and lonely.

From these explosive elements comes a relentless, raw, searing, passionate, page-turning narrative, a big-hearted and painful novel about sex and parenthood and honor and masculinity. Set in the seamy underside of American life at the moment before the world changed, it juxtaposes lust for domination with hunger for connection, sexual violence with family love. It seizes the reader by the throat with the same psychological tension, depth, and realism that characterized Andre Dubus's #1 bestseller, House of Sand and Fog—and an even greater sense of the dark and anguished places in the human heart.

ANNUAL BUBBLEWRAP EXPLOSION & 4TH OF JULY CELEBRATION

Saturday, June 28th at 11 a.m.