Abby Fabiaschi, an author who splits her time between West Hartford and Utah, will give a free talk about her debut novel, “I Liked My Life” (St. Martin’s Press, $25.99), on Tuesday, Jan. 31, at 6:15 p.m. at West Hartford Public Library, 20 S. Main St. At 7:15 p.m., Fabiaschi will sign copies at Barnes & Noble, 60 Isham Road, West Hartford. The library will validate parking in the nearby Isham Road garage.
Her novel, which some reviewers have compared to “The Lovely Bones,” is about an apparently happy wife and mother whose death is a shocking suicide. But when, from the beyond, she sees her husband and teenage daughter struggling without her, she tries to help, going so far as to find a possible new love for him. Registration: 860-561-6990 or westhartfordlibrary.org.
Reading Russo
Free discussion programs, each focusing on one book by popular and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo, will be held at West Hartford Public Library, 20 S. Main St., West Hartford, before he speaks at West Hartford Town Hall on April 26.
Books by Russo are the focus of 2017’s West Hartford Reads, a community program that encourages the reading of books by one notable author. Russo has published eight novels, two story collections and a memoir. He won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “Empire Falls.” His latest novel is “Everybody’s Fool.”
A discussion of his novel, “The Whore’s Child,” will be held Thursday, Feb. 2, at 7:15 p.m. Copies and film adaptations of some of his books can be borrowed from the library.
Registration: bit.ly/WHREADSrusso. Information: 860-561-6950 or westhartfordlibrary.org.
Authors At R.J. Julia
Prize-winning Connecticut author Kristan Higgins, will give a free talk about her latest book, “On Second Thought” (Harlequin Books, $26.99) on Tuesday, Jan. 31, at 7 p.m. at R.J. Julia Booksellers, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison.
Higgins lives in Durham. The best-selling author of romance novels and other books that appeal to women explores the relationship of half-sisters in the new book. Both have devastating problems: Ainsley’s boyfriend dumps her and writes about it on his blog; Kate has just become a young widow. The women have not been close, but now they have something to share: sorrow and hope for new lives.
On Wednesday, Feb. 1, at 7 p.m., Anthony T. Kronman, of New Haven, author of “Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan” (Yale University Press, $50), will give a free talk at the bookstore.
Kronman, a former dean of the Yale Law School, believes a third way between religion and atheism, based on ancient pagan precepts, can form a new and valid theology for those seeking a vital spirituality. The book explores Western philosophical and scientific thought from Plato and Augustine to Darwin and Freud and offers a contemporary conception of God. Registration is required: 203-245-3959 or rjjulia.com.
Mystery Book Discussion
Carole Shmurak of Farmington who writes the Susan Lombardi mystery novels, will lead a free discussion on Wednesday, Feb. 1, at 3 p.m., for the Wallingford Mystery Group: The Time Machine Series, Part 1, on “Two for the Lions” by Lindsey Davis, at Wallingford Public Library, 200 N. Main St., Wallingford. Information: 203-265-6754. (The snow date is Thursday, Feb. 2.)
UConn Writing Center
Hartford Public Library, 500 Main St., Hartford, hosts the UConn Writing Center on the first Saturday of each month from noon to 4 p.m. A session will be held Saturday, Feb. 4.
Students, graduate students and professors from UConn Hartford work with attendees to help with any kind of writing — school assignments, resumes, cover letters, applications, stories, poetry, nonfiction, letters, memoirs and more — and any stage in the writing process, from choosing content and theme to correct sentence structure, clarity and grammar.
Attendees should sign up upon arrival and can expect about an hour of personal attention to their work. Information: 860-695-6300 or hplct.org.
Welles-Turner Author Talk
Welles-Turner Memorial Library, 2407 Main St., Glastonbury, will present a free talk on Sunday, Jan. 29, at 2 p.m., by local author Susan Harrison Rashid, whose debut novel is “Beneath a Shooting Star” (Mill City Press, $17.99).
Her book is about two girls born in Pakistan in 1971, one to a Shia family and the other to a Sunni family, and how their close friendship suffers during the country’s civil war and is later tested again when they meet as adults.
Rashid, who was a lawyer before retiring, was born in Connecticut and married in 1980 in Pakistan. Reservations are required: wtmlib.com or 860-652-7720.
Black History Month Open Mike
A free Black History Month program with poet and musician Carl Dean, painter Judith Wyer and a special open mike for poets will he held Wednesday, Feb. 1, from 6:30 to 7:40 p.m., at Silas Bronson Library, 267 Grand St., Waterbury.
Open mike participants will present poems that relate to black history and were inspired by the paintings by Wyer, which can be seen at judithwyerart.com. Information: vicblu22@gmail.com.
Award-Winning Book
Trinity College Dean of Academic Affairs and professor of Language and Culture Studies Anne Lambright has won the Modern Language Association of America’s 26th annual Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize for an outstanding book published in English or Spanish on Latin American and Spanish literature and cultures.
Lambright’s book is “Andean Truths: Transitional Justice, Ethnicity, and Cultural Production in Post–Shining Path Peru” (Liverpool University Press, $120).
The selection committee called her book, which explores how literature, drama, film and visual arts contested the peace and reconciliation narrative put forward by Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission concerning Peru’s 20-year civil war, “an excellent study of the complex relations among art, literature, politics, and society.”
Lambright has published books and articles on gender, ethnicity, human rights and national identity in Andean literature and culture.
