Wellesley Books

Holiday Weekend Hours
Friday 10/9 until 8pm
Saturday 10/10 9am to 8pm
Sunday 10/11 11am to 8pm
Monday 10/12 11am to 6pm

Our thanks to local author (and librarian) Kathleen Reidy for stopping by to autograph copies of her debut novel ENGINEERING A LOVE STORY. Boston Globe Columnist Meredith Goldstein called it “A beautiful, grownup love story for people who live in the real world.”

BREAKING NEWS
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the Canadian author Anne Carson, “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.”

Anne Carson was born in 1950 in Toronto, Canada. In 1981, she published her doctoral thesis in Classics entitled ‘Odi et Amo Ergo Sum’, and has, throughout her entire career, combined poetry writing with translation work and teaching at various universities. Almost all her literary production has centred upon the intersection between the philologist’s obsession with words and the poet’s desire for new meaning. She has herself identified the etymology of words as the starting point for all her work. Her translations from Classical Greek may be regarded as independent works in their own right. Among these is her interpretation of Sappho’s poem fragments, ‘If Not, Winter’ (2002), along with tragedies such as Sophocles’s ‘Electra’ (2001) and ‘Antigone’ (2015) and Euripides’s ‘Bakkhai’ (2015).

In the 1990s, Carson published a series of notable works. Among these is ‘The Glass Essay’ in ‘Glass, Irony, and God’ (1995), which demonstrates the potential of the long poem where genre boundaries are seen to blur.

The same decade saw the publication of another work, often heralded as Carson’s greatest, entitled ‘Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse’ (1998). This demonstrates her eminent ability to actualise the classical literary tradition. With a precise feel for contemporary idioms and experiences, she takes as her starting point poem fragments by the sixth century BC Greek poet Stesichoros concerning the winged red monster Geryon.

Throughout her entire authorship, Carson with a light touch explores the possibilities of writing, a process by which the literary sketch has become of particular value to her. Bearing witness to this is ‘Float’ (2016), a work consisting of twenty-two chapbooks on different subjects, capable of being read in any order. Another is ‘Wrong Norma’ from 2024, a diverse combination of texts with a strongly performative aspect in which Carson crosses over into various artistic and academic fields. Her collaborations with visual artists and choreographers and with opera and theatre directors demonstrate the freedom with which she relates to literary expectations and rule systems. It is this that lies behind the outstanding importance her work since the 1990s has had for the international art and literature scene.

Anders Olsson
Chair of the Nobel Committee

Learn more about the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature: https://bit.ly/4hnkhNO

Kristin Hannah's new book THE FIRE-her first book in three years, is a contemporary novel and will be available Tuesday May 4th, 2027. Preorder your copy with us now.

The Fire From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Women comes a powerful novel of contemporary America. Set in our own deeply divided time, The Fire is an exploration of the bonds between women and the transformative power of finding one’s voice. Merritt Locke is a woman you’ve seen before. ...

Happening tomorrow evening! Thursday 10/8. During National Banned Books Week, join Wellesley Books and Prison Book Program executive director Kelly Brotzman, together with Emerson Prison Initiative graduate and PBP board member Charles Rosario, for a discussion of PBP and a celebration of its work to overcome censorship and send books into prisons.
PBP believes in the life-changing power of literature. As such, PBP has spent the past 50 years sending free books and reading materials to incarcerated people that meet their specific needs and interests. Whether you're already familiar with PBP or would like to learn about us, we hope that you'll join us at this special event!

https://wellesleybooks.com/event/PBP-2026

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Ed Burns entertained an appreciative crowd with snippets from his new novel tonight at WellesleyBooks. Everyone enjoyed meeting him personally when he signed their books. Thanks for the great visit Ed!!!

October Events
Tomorrow 10/6 Edward Burns, the writer, director and actor returns to Wellesley Books to discuss his new novel THE MARLBORO ROAD GANG, the follow up to his 2024 debut novel A KID FROM MARLBORO. This is a ticketed event. Details on our website.

Thanks for a great event! Come back and see us again!