Two authors will visit the Toadstool Bookshop to discuss their new books on Saturday, Aug. 20.
At 11 a.m. Kate Daloz will talk about her book, “We Are As Gods: Back to the Land in the 1970s on the Quest for a New America.”
At the dawn of the 1970s, waves of hopeful idealists abandoned the city and headed for the country, convinced that a better life awaited. They were full of dreams, mostly lacking in practical skills, and soon utterly out of money. But they knew paradise when they saw it. When Loraine, Craig, Pancake, Hershe, and a dozen of their friends came into possession of 116 acres in Vermont, they had big plans: to grow their own food, build their own shelter, and create an enlightened community.
Daloz has written a meticulously researched testament to the dreams of a generation disillusioned by their parent’s lifestyles, scarred by the Vietnam War, and yearning for rural peace.
“We Are As Gods” follows the Myrtle Hill commune as its members enjoy a euphoric Free Love summer.
At 2 p.m. Robin MacArthur will be at the bookstore discussing and signing here new book of short stories “Half Wild.”
Spanning nearly 40 years, the stories in MacArthur’s formidable debut give voice to the hopes, dreams, hungers, and fears of a diverse cast of Vermonters adolescent girls, aging hippies, hardscrabble farmers, disconnected women, and solitary men. Straddling the border between civilization and the wild, they all struggle to make sense of their loneliness and longings in the stark and often isolating enclaves they call home — golden fields and white-veiled woods, dilapidated farmhouses and makeshift trailers, icy rivers and still lakes.
Both events are free and open to the public.
For more information, call the bookstore at 924-3543.