Festival of Books

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED. Nancy Castaldo turns her own fascination with the natural world into science-themed books that inform and engage children, sometimes calling them to action. Her topics range from saving animals from extinction to the biology of their brains, and from how farms feed us to the vital need to save seeds. […]

Ann Gainer, storyteller and librarian at New Lebanon and Altamont Libraries, will read and discuss with children Peter Sís’s Nicky and Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued. Nicky was a young Englishman who went to Prague to help refugees from the Nazis; Vera, one of the children he saved. […]

Two historians and authors whose books focus on remarkable women and their roles in WWII will discuss their works with David Highfill, Festival co-chair. A Woman of No Importance tells of an American heiress, injured in an accident, who broke disability and gender barriers to spy for the British and help lead a core unit […]

A comic artist-author turned serious for the first time with his All the Answers, also the Festival’s first graphic book. It’s a son’s search to understand his father, a child prodigy-turned reserved professor, before dementia robbed the memories. Joel Kupperman was the most celebrated “Quiz Kid,” appearing on the radio and TV series weekly in […]

This event was originally scheduled for Saturday, March 12, but due to the unpleasant weather forecast, we have rescheduled it for the following day, Sunday, March 13. The time is […]

Spencertown Academy Arts Center, in collaboration with Chatham Bookstore, presents Dinitia Smith in an event celebrating her new book, The Prince: a Novel. She will be joined in conversation with author Ruth Reichl. In this retelling of The Golden Bowl by Henry James, Smith uses the modern equivalent of the glittering high society setting of the […]

Online ticket sales have closed.  Tickets will be available at the  door. The Spencertown Academy in collaboration with The Chatham Bookstore presents Jana Laiz and Alex Portillo for a reading and discussion of their new book, Thirty-Five Days To Baltimore. In 2004, seventeen-year-old Alexis Portillo embarked on a harrowing journey from Honduras to Baltimore in […]

Labor Day Weekend - September 2-5 Donations accepted July 25-August 21 Waiting to donate books or buy more? Listen to author talks in the tent? The doors will open again at the Academy for the beloved extravaganza of all things literary. The Festival of Books opens Friday with a Book Sale Preview for members, and […]

The Spencertown Academy, in collaboration with the Chatham Bookstore, welcomes Emily Flitter in conversation with William D. Cohan on her new book, The White Wall: How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America, an explosive and deeply reported look at the systemic racism inside the American financial services industry. Emily Flitter covers banking and Wall Street for […]

Spencertown Academy Arts Center, in collaboration with The Chatham Bookstore, presents journalist and historian Jonathan Darman on his new book, Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis that Made a President. He will be joined in conversation with political reporter for The New York Times Jeremy W. Peters. Advance reservations are recommended. Tickets ($10) are now available. […]

All Write Columbia, now in its second year, is a four-day intensive writing conference focused on the craft and the business of writing fiction. The conference is open to all levels of fiction writers, from beginners who are just starting to write short stories to more advanced writers with a novel manuscript. Open to writers […]