From Myanmar to Francestown, two authors are bringing their books to The Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough on Saturday, Oct. 5.
Alyson Curro has spent her career elevating overlooked stories of women and girls, through journalism, policy design, and advocacy. Her work spans Turkey, the United States, and most recently Myanmar where she spent 18 months in Yangon supporting a local women’s organization. She has just published the book “Girl Power In Myanmar”, a children’s book that celebrates the lives of 14 unruly women who were not afraid to be bold and to use whatever they had to make change. Curro will be at the Toadstool at 11 a.m. to sign and discuss the book. For this book, she did original reporting, and brought on board a team of historians, artists, writers, and women’s rights organizers to research, write, and illustrate it. The U.S. market for her book has allowed Curro and team to sell the book nearly at cost in Myanmar. A percentage of all U.S. sales from the book goes back to the local artists who illustrated it.
At 2 p.m., Dr. Mahmoud Rashidi will return to discuss the ideas in his book “Mind Medicine: Use Your Thoughts To Heal”. He was at the store in May and offered a well attended presentation on the highlights of the book. With this discussion, Rashidi will focus on how to live a peaceful life by discussing the different kinds of stress, what happens in our brain and body in stressful situations, the effect of chronic stress on mental, emotional and physical health and healing, ways to stay at peace, and that peace of mind is more from inside than outside.
Rashidi completed neurosurgery training at the University of Toronto, and spent many years in academic and private neurosurgery practice. In 2014, he founded Mind Medicine LLC, a company dedicated to researching, teaching, and promoting the compelling answers to this question: How do our thoughts and emotions affect our health and ability to heal? Rashidi currently lives in Francestown.
Both events are free and all are welcome. For more information, call the bookstore at 924-3543.