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By STEVE PFARRER

Since opening in the spring of 2022, The Drake has featured a wide range of music, from blues to rock to folk (and various combinations thereof), to jazz and more.“More” includes the Amherst club’s periodic forays into classical music, with concerts...

By STEVE PFARRER

If you’re like me, counting the days to spring, it’s a little over three weeks to the official first day, March 19.Yet that’s just a date on the calendar, and the weather in mid-March can still spell winter. But one antidote to that is to hit the Back...

By STEVE PFARRER

What’s New, Daniel?Written and illustrated by Micha Archer;Penguin/Random HouseIn the last several years, Leverett illustrator and children’s book author Micha Archer has been gaining increasing attention for her eye-catching art and for stories that...

By STEVE PFARRER

Amherst College has sent many a successful writer into the world, or brought them in to teach: David Foster Wallace, Robert Frost, Richard Wilbur, Robert Stone, Lauren Groff, Chris Bohjalian, Charles Mann and many others.That legacy will be celebrated...

By STEVE PFARRER

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art has no shortage of material to draw on for exhibits.Aside from highlighting work from traveling exhibits, or showcasing illustrations of specific artists drawn from various sources, the Amherst museum can...

By STEVE PFARRER

AMHERST — Closed since 2019 for extensive preservation efforts and infrastructure improvements, The Evergreens, a key property at the Emily Dickinson Museum, will reopen for visitors March 1.The 19th century house was built in 1856 for Austin...

By STEVE PFARRER

The Parlor Room features a steady stream of singer-songwriters, given the Northampton club’s intimate setting is ideal for acoustic music.The vast majority of those performers come bearing acoustic guitars. But Abbie Gardner will bring her dobro, or...

By STEVE PFARRER

The Sacred DogBy Joan Livingston; Darkstroke Books Franklin County author Joan Livingston, a former reporter and editor who once covered the Hilltowns for the Gazette, has used her experience to create a series of mystery novels set in similar towns,...

By STEVE PFARRER

Dr. Khama Ennis had come a long way in her medical career.Until 2022, the Amherst resident had spent about two decades in emergency medicine, including a number of years as chief of emergency medicine at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, as...

By STEVE PFARRER

In my last column, I mentioned that The Parlor Room in Northampton and the Marigold Theater are maintaining busy schedules right through these early, dead-of-winter days.Another area venue that keeps pumping up the music is The Drake in Amherst, and...

By STEVE PFARRER

KindlingBy Kathleen JenningsSmall Beer Press Kathleen Jennings had already made a name for herself as a talented illustrator of fantasy books when she began writing her own stories some years back — and it turns out she can spin some magical tales of...

By STEVE PFARRER

Though it had only an initial limited theatrical release, and did not appear until December, “American Fiction” has already popped up on a number of critics’ “best films of 2023” lists, and the movie has been nominated for a slew of awards.The buzz is...

By STEVE PFARRER

The conventional story of World War II in the United States is the one about how the country, shrugging off the hardships brought on by the Great Depression, rolled up its sleeves to defeat the fascist forces of Nazi Germany and Japan and make the...

By STEVE PFARRER

Early January, just after the holidays and New Year’s Eve have run their course, can be a quiet time for a lot of music venues.But The Parlor Room in Northampton has put together a pretty jam-packed schedule right through this month, starting with a...

By STEVE PFARRER

On the U.S.-Mexican border, a desperate mother sends her young daughter alone across a bridge over the Rio Grande to try make it into Texas. In New York City, a Jewish woman confronts the hole in her heart when she thinks of her former Muslim husband,...

By STEVE PFARRER

Finding Home: Words From Kids Seeking SanctuaryBy Gwen Agna and Shelley Rotner; Clarion Books Headlines inform us every day of the crises many people face around the world — war, climate disasters, violent crime — that force them to flee their homes....

By STEVE PFARRER

He’s one of the most famous and beloved children’s book authors ever, and he grew about 20 miles south of here. So the work of Theodor Seuss Geisel — better known, or course, as Dr. Seuss — seemed like a natural fit for the new musical by Amherst...

By STEVE PFARRER

Like father, like son: Tim Buckley and his son, Jeff, both became musicians at a young age, and both died well before their time — Tim of a heroin overdose at age 28 in 1975, and Jeff from drowning at age 30 in 1997.Tim Buckley became a pretty...

By STEVE PFARRER

Noche Trist: A Memoir of AnorexiaBy Robert RadinIbidem/Columbia University Press A few years ago, Robert Radin, the the director of citizenship and immigration services for Jewish Family Service in Springfield, wrote a memoir about his experience...

By STEVE PFARRER

The 1980s were a brutal time in South Africa. Decades of apartheid, the ironbound racial segregation system that relegated a majority Black population to second-class citizenship under white rule, led to increasing Black resistance, followed by severe...