I had no idea that some of these well known authors were or currently are Newton residents. I think all of us in book clubs, both adult and child, could get some great ideas from these local authors (and I bet if you ask really nicely, you just might be able to get them to come to your book club. Personally, I have had Mitali Perkins and Karen Day come to my daughter’s book clubs and both were FABULOUS!!! And gracious, and charming, not to mention wonderful with children!!). If you are reading this and you don’t live in Newton, there is always Skype!

Feel free to leave a comment to talk about your favorite author or book below (or missing from list). I am quite sure that I have accidentally left off some Newton authors. If you know of any, please leave a comment and I’ll add to the list. If I didn’t include a particular book for an author, please leave a comment about that too. I didn’t do the entire body of work for prolific authors (it’s a prevent-carpal-tunnel-thing). Thank you!

p.s. Thank you to Capability:Mom for the assist on this post!

 Click on any image of book to examine or purchase at Amazon. 

Picture Books (Emilie Boon, author and illustrator)

Just Illustration (Emilie Boon, author and illustrator)

Picture Books (Virginia Lee Burton)

Children’s Non Fiction (Don Lessem)

Picture Book for Adults (Adam Mansbach, illustrated by Ricardo Cortés)

3rd-4th Grade (Mitali Perkins)

Middle Grade (Karen Day)

Children’s (Howard Zinn)

Young Adult (Mitali Perkins)

Adult (Tom Ashbrook)

Adult Science Fiction (Isaac Asimov)

Adult (Russell Banks)

Adult (Alex Beam)

Adult (Christopher Boucher)

Adult (Thomas  Bulfinch)

Adult (Anita Diamant)

Adult (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Adult (Atul Gawande)

Adult (Angela Gerst)

Politics, money, love . . . what could go wrong?

Susan Callisto is pushing thirty and taking stock. Before she traded financial security at a Boston law firm for sandals and jeans in Waltham, she specialized in real estate law. Now she has reinvented herself as a political consultant for ordinary people seeking low-level office. Her income may be dicey, but Susan loves her new life—until her sometime boyfriend, Detective Lieutenant Michael Benedict, dumps her without a goodbye. Not one to mope, Susan uses humor and perpetual motion to push away the pain.

Susan’s new world is one where politics can turn deadly and even love may not survive. So when local high roller Charles Renfrow offers her a huge retainer to advise his political campaign, Susan is wary. Why would a scientist stalking the human genome want to be mayor of a small Massachusetts town? Finding the answer takes Susan through a maze of toxic secrets including those floating around Renfrow’s biotech company. On her way to confront him, Susan instead finds the body of his beautiful assistant. Assigned to the case, Michael reenters Susan’s life.

When Michael’s suspicions settle on Roddie Baird, yet another, and favorite, of Susan’s clients, Susan elbows her way into the investigation. She hopes to prove Michael wrong. As she probes—and lays her own life on the line—Susan uncovers a crack in everything….

Adult (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

Adult (Nate Kenyon)

Adult (Raymond Kurzweil)

Adult (Elizabeth McCracken)

Adult (Tova Mirvis)

Adult History (Diana Muir)

Adult (Michael Novak)

Adult (Mitali Perkins)

Poet (Robert Pinsky)

Poet (Anne Sexton)

Playwright (Samuel Shem)

Adult (Harriet Beecher Stowe)

Collaborative Memoirist (Andrew Szanton)

Poet and Adult (Celia Thaxter)

Adult (Catharine Utzschneider)

Adult (Ben Ames Williams)

Adult (Jonathan Wilson)

Adult (Saul Wisnia)

Adult (Howard Zinn)

p.s. Adult Medical Advice/Advocacy  (Jerome Groopman)

Technically Dr. Groopman lives one town over in Brookline, but my Mom Friend Nancy works for him and raves about what a nice guy he is so I snuck him in. How Doctors Think is supposed to be a wonderful book.

To view any book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book.