Arts Fuse critics select the best in film, dance, visual arts, theater, music, and author events for the coming weeks.

By The Arts Fuse Staff

Film

Wonderstruck
January 7 at 2 p.m., 7 p.m.
Dawson City: Frozen Time
January 7 at a 4:30 & 9:30 p.m.
At the Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA

The Brattle kicks off its Best of 2017 Series with a worthwhile double feature. Wonderstruck is Todd Hayne’s rambling but visually stunning film based on the graphic novel by Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret) with exquisite cinematography by Edward Lachman.

Dawson City won the Boston Film Critics award for best documentary. Director Bill Morrison (Decasia) uses footage from 533 nitrate silent films and newsreels recovered from a horde of film cans that were unearthed in Dawson City, just south of the Arctic Circle, in 1978. He pairs these with archival footage, interviews, and historical photographs to chronicle the history of Dawson City as well as the Canadian Gold Rush, which brought 100,000 prospectors to the area. This remarkable achievement also explores early the 20th century history and lost moments of film history.

The series will also screen Get Out, Columbus, After the Storm, Ornithologist, Girls Trip, mother!, Good Time, Florida Project, Wonder Women, Dunkirk, The Beguiled and Lady MacBeth, Logan, A Quiet Passion, and the Villainess. All of these entries were on lists of the year’s best films.
Full Schedule

Boston Festival of Films from Iran
January 4 – 17
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

Iran is producing some of the world’s most elegant films. Here is a chance to take in movies that haven’t received traditional distribution. Full Schedule

— Tim Jackson

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Dance

Soaring Wings
January 11 & 12 at 8 p.m.
Boch Center Shubert Theatre
Boston, MA

Shanghai Dance Theatre’s Soaring Wings: Journey of the Crested Ibis tells the story of the crested ibis, returning first to a time when ibises freely nested across Asia, then following the story of their near extinction due to man-made urbanization, and their ultimate return to the wild. The production aims to raise awareness of the interdependence between human beings and nature. With traditional Chinese music, ornate costumes, and expressive choreography, Soaring Wings stars two of China’s most respected dancers, Zhu Jiejing and Wang Jiajun; a storyline by playwright Luo Huaizhen; music composition by Guo Sida; and direction and choreography by one of China’s most notable figures in dance, Tong Ruirui. Since its premiere in 2014, the show has been presented via nearly 200 performances around the world.

Compagnie Herve Koubi
January 12 & 13 at 8 p.m.
Institute of Contemporary Art
Boston, MA

Compagnie Herve Koubi returns to Boston since its 2016 performance, bringing two different productions to the ICA. Ce que le jour doit a la nuit (What the Day Owes the Night) will be performed on Friday, January 12, while the Boston premiere of Les nuits barbares ou les premiers matins du monde (The Barbarian Nights or the First Dawns of the World) will take place on Saturday, January 13. Free preperformance talks will be held with Boston Dance Alliance Executive Director Debra Cash 30 minutes prior to curtain in the ICA Café. Presented by World Music/CRASHarts.

Megan Bascom & Dancers
January 13 at 8 p.m. and January 14 at 7 p.m.
The Dance Complex
Cambridge, MA

Megan Bascom & Dancers bring two works to Boston. The company will show excerpts of SAID.I.MEANT—an “insightful, complex, and curious” work developed from the concept of what gets left behind during transition and change—alongside For Whom—MB&D’s intimate and current work, which was originally created during the company’s residency at the Dance Complex the previous winter.

— Merli V. Guerra

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Visual Arts

Screens: Virtual Material
Through March 18, 2018
3rd Floor Galleries, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, 51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln, MA

Thoughtfully curated by Associate Curator Sarah Montross, this exhibit explores the virtual screens that have come to dominate our daily lives. We are asked to put them away and engage with large scale works from six very talented contemporary artists. Upon first entering the show, you would expect to walk in upon a large projection; instead, you find a sinister, glittering fence-like sculpture – “Maximum Security” by Liza Lou. A comment on the conditions at Guantanamo Bay, this arresting screen-inspired work has been meticulously covered in tiny glass beads by a team of women (employed by the artist) in South Africa.

Seeking Stillness
Through July 1, 2018
At the Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA

Adjacent to the new Rothko exhibit, the Linde Family contemporary wing hosts a new series of installations that invites a slow and contemplative passage across three galleries. The display includes a broad range of contemporary work placed next to material carefully selected from the museum’s rich collection, such as Chinese paintings and fake rocks. For over a 1000 years, Chinese thinkers have considered the mountains a place of meditation and self-improvement. Large rocks were brought into the cities that inspired artists, new and old. Other enticing works in this show include Hiroshi Sugimoto’s haunting imagery of empty movie theaters and the abstract cave inspired paintings of Indian painter and poet Gulam Rasool Santosh.

Paige Jiyoung Moon – Recent Paintings
Steven Zevitas Gallery
450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA
Through January 13, 2018

These dreamlike, playful depictions of the everyday will resonate with viewers long after they have left the small and trendy South End gallery. The artist’s perspective is one of someone gently floating above their daily existence: a family feast of Korean fare served on a living room coffee table, a dutiful visit to the city laundromat, and the time spent patiently waiting at the airport. These experiences are colorfully rendered in fine detail by this up and coming Korean artist, born in Seoul now living in California.

Rose Video 11: John Akomfrah
Rose Video Gallery
Through January 21, 2018
At the Rose Art Museum, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA

The eleventh iteration of the museum’s video series features John Akomfrah’s “Auto Da Fé” (2016), which, in translation, means “Acts of Faith.” The poignant lyrical imagery contained in this two-channel video investigates eight historic migrations driven by religious persecution – Sephardic Jews from Catholic Brazil to Barbados in 1654 to present-day jihadist-driven migrations from Mosul, Iraq, and Hombori, Mali. This will be his first solo show in New England; Akromfrah, a highly revered Ghanaian artist based out of Britain, was the winner of the 2017 Artes Mundi, the UK’s most prestigious award for contemporary art.

A Dangerous Woman: The Art of Honoré Sharrer
Through January 7
At the Smith College Museum of Art, 20 Elm Street at Bedford Terrace, Northampton, MA

In 1949, the representational painter Honoré Sharrer (1920-2009) was declared “Woman Artist of the Year” by Mademoiselle and by the age of 31 was represented by a prestigious New York gallery. She garnered her fame quickly; her renown was overwhelmed by the powerful, male-driven whirlwind of abstraction that took over after World War II. Upholding marginalized progressive ideals, her surrealist poetic subversions wittily respond to an oppressive social and political climate. This timely exhibition is the first substantial showing of her life’s work, in which she uses equal parts of “wit, seduction, and bite.”

Lines of Thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to Now
Through January 7
RISD Museum, 20 North Main Street, Providence, RI

Drawing is the most immediate and effective medium an artist can make use of to, instantaneously, explore ideas in each and every line. This show focuses on selected works from the British Museum’s expansive Print and Drawings collection: the chosen artists span from the contemporary to fifteenth and sixteenth century masters, such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The result is a rare and curious delight, an exhibition that is distinctively arranged — not by period or style, but a display of varying types of thought processes, drawing records, and stimulating ideas.

Nicholas Nixon: Persistence of Vision
Through April 22
Fotene Demoulas Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA

“Maybe you remember a few years ago when a series of photos took the internet by storm: four sisters, rendered in black and white, aging incrementally…” Artist Nicholas Nixon has been taking pictures of people since 1976. The Brown Sisters is a series of 41 photographs of the artist’s wife and three sisters standing in the same order, taken every year with the same camera for 41 years. His groundbreaking work revels in the transformations of physicality and intimacy witnessed over the passing of time.

Laurie Anderson
Robert W. Wilson Building, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA
Through 2018

“I believe it is possible that language is a virus, as William S. Burroughs claims. But to believe that language is a disease,” responded Laurie Anderson, “first you must believe that it is alive.” One of America’s premier multimedia artists, known for her ground breaking use of technologies, uses the new space at MASS MoCA to display several unforgettable installations that break the rules and generate creative thinking. In 2017’s The Chalkroom, a work co-created with Hsin-Chien Huang, visitors (wearing virtual reality goggles) walk through darkened rooms that are frenetically coated, floor to ceiling, with language and gestural drawings. The work received the award for best VR experience at the 74th Venice International Film Festival.

List Projects: Adam Pendleton
Bakalar Gallery, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA
January 3 through February 11

Part of an ongoing filmic portrait series, Just Back from Los Angeles: A Portrait of Yvonne Rainer, 2016-17 depicts a meeting of two widely different creative minds talking over a shared meal in a small NYC diner. The conversation is sometimes scripted, sometimes not. The result is a powerfully layered discourse between a young conceptual artist, born in Virginia and working out of NYC, and the aging writer, filmmaker, and icon of the American experimental contemporary dance scene. The work stages “an inter-generational dialogue across lines of sexual and racial difference that provoke critical inquiry into the artists’ shared questions of poetics and politics.”

Mark Tobey: Threading Light
Addison Gallery of American Art, 180 Main Street, Andover, MA
Through March 11

Showcasing the continuous development of this vanguard figure, this expansive survey consists of over 70 paintings – a collection that reveals the artist’s widely unsung contribution to mid-century modernism. Emerging onto the scene in the 1940’s, Tobey’s delicately nuanced “white writing” delivers a quiet eerie beauty and anticipates Jackson Pollock’s famed drip paintings. The show is one that is well worth a snowy afternoon visit.

Technologies of the Image: Art in 19th – Century Iran
University Research Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
Through January 7.

Image making in Iran flourished during the 19th century. The new Qajar dynasty was attempting to reunify a culture that had been torn asunder by civil war. Stimulated by Western influences, as well as by Iran’s own internal challenges, Persian artists drew on fresh image making technologies to infuse new life into their richly imaginative and intricately detailed work.  The exhibit merges the art forms of lacquer, lithography, photography, painting, and drawing on paper. The show contains nearly 80 works, most of which have never been formally exhibited.

– Aimee Cotnoir

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Theater

Bedlam’s Sense and Sensibility By Kate Hamill. Based on the novel by Jane Austen. Directed by Eric Tucker. Presented by The American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, MA, through January 14, 2018.

This no doubt wild staging of Jane Austen’s classic novel follows the adventures (and misadventures) of the Dashwood sisters—sensible Elinor and hypersensitive Marianne—after their sudden loss of fortune. Review

Unveiled, written and performed by Rohina Malik. A co-presentation between New Repertory Theatre and the Greater Boston Stage Company in the blackbox theater at the Mosesian Center of the Arts, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown, MA, January 10 through 28.

A one-woman show starring Rohina Malik: “Racism. Hate crimes. Love. Islam. Culture. Language. Life. Five Muslim women in a post-9/11 world serve tea and uncover what lies beneath the veil.”

Lost Girls by John Pollono. Directed by Melanie Garber. Staged by Take Your Pick Productions at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts (Deane Hall), Boston, MA, January 12 through 21.

“Set in New Hampshire,” this script (receiving its New England premiere production), “is a darkly comedic drama about the strength of the women in a dysfunctional blue-collar New England family. When Erica, their sixteen-year-old daughter, goes missing during a winter storm, Maggie and Lou—former high school sweethearts, now divorced—are forced to confront the legacy of their past decisions.”

KNYUM, written and performed by Vichet Chum. Directed by KJ Sanchez. Staged by the Merrimack Repertory Theatre at the Nancy L. Donahue Theatre located at 50 East Merrimack Street in Lowell, MA, January 10 through February 4.

The world premiere of a one-man show follows “the story of Guy, a hotel night clerk who spends the quiet hours of the night shift studying Khmer, the language of his family’s home of Cambodia, in preparation for his first visit to the country his parents fled from decades before. Guy stumbles awkwardly towards fluency to awaken to parts of his heritage, both beautiful and excruciating, which shine through in his wildly luminous dreams.”

Winter Panto, written and performed by Matthew Woods & The Ensemble. Directed by Woods. Staged by imaginary beasts at the Charlestown Working Theater, 442 Bunker Hill Street, Charlestown, MA, January 13 through February 4.

The group’s tongue-in-cheek take on Jules Verne’s classic work of science fiction 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A beloved tradition in the United Kingdom dating back to the Victorian Age, Pantomimes are produced yearly in every county in the UK around the holidays. imaginary beasts has been producing the form annually for nearly a decade in the Greater Boston Area and has become a new year tradition for Boston theatre-goers—especially those with children.

Shakespeare in Love, Based on the screenplay by Marc Norman & Tom Stoppard. Adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. Directed by Scott Edmiston. Staged by SpeakEasy Stage at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, January 12 through February 10.

“Based on the Academy Award-winning film, Shakespeare in Love tells the story of young Will Shakespeare, who is suffering a severe case of writer’s block as the deadline fast approaches to deliver his new play, “Romeo and Ethel, The Pirate’s Daughter.” Enter Viola, a headstrong noblewoman and admirer of Will’s, who disguises herself as a boy so she can skirt the law and appear (as a girl) in his play. But when the playwright and his muse fall in love, the plot undergoes some surprising rewrites. Mistaken identities, courtly intrigue, and backstage bickering are all part of the fun in this raucous romantic comedy of errors that reminds us that all the world’s a stage and love is unrehearsed.”

Mala, written and performed by Melinda Lopez. Directed by David Dower. The ArtsEmerson production presented by the Huntington Theatre Company the Calderwood Pavilion, South End, Boston, MA, January 6 through 28.

Mala won the 2016 Elliot Norton Award for Best New Script. This HTC engagement brings the production back by popular demand. The play, runs the PR, “is funny, brutally honest, and ultimately cathartic.” The one-woman show “puts a sharp focus on what it means to put our loved ones first, right to the very end, and what happens when we strive to be good but don’t always succeed.”

Road Show, Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by John Weidman Directed by Spiro Veloudos.Co-directed and choreographed by Ilyse Robbins. Music direction by Jonathan Goldberg. Staged by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, MA, January 12 through February 11.

A revival of Stephen Sondheim’s latest work, “the true boom-and-bust story of two of the most colorful and outrageous fortune-seekers in American history. From the Alaskan Gold Rush to the Florida real estate boom in the 1930s, entrepreneur Addison Mizner and his fast-talking brother Wilson were proof positive that the road to the American Dream is often a seductive, treacherous tightrope walk.”

Ada/Ava, written and performed by Manual Cinema. Directed by Drew Dir. Score and Sound Design by Kyle Vegter and Ben Kauffman. The Manual Cinema staging presented by Arts Emerson at Emerson Paramount Center’s Robert J. Orchard Stage, 559 Washington Street, Boston, MA, January 10 through 14.

“Delightfully gothic, beautiful and emotionally complex,” this show “utilizes special effect techniques from the early age of cinema — shadow puppetry, live-action silhouettes and overhead projection — to conjure a magic spell of multimedia storytelling, complete with a live musical score. We are told by ArtsEmerson that the Chicago-based Manual Cinema “is one of the hottest rising ensembles in America, with audiences marveling at their creations even as their methods are plainly revealed.”

— Bill Marx

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Jazz

Bert Seager’s Tetraptych
January 3 at 7:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, MA.

Pianist and composer Seager returns to the Lilypad for his band Tetraptych’s monthly residency. The band — with saxophonist Hery Paz, bassist Max Ridley, and drummer Dor Herskovits — starts with Seager’s lyrical, varied-groove compositions, but they could end up anywhere, depending on what they each hear.

Marcus Strickland
January 6 at 8 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA.

Saxophonist Marcus Strickland earned his stripes working with Roy Haynes, but the syrupy flow of his own music has as much to do with hip-hop-inflected collaborators like Robert Glasper and Chris Dave. And, for what it’s worth, I hear a bit of Wayne Shorter’s crafty minimalism in his tunes. His saxlines likewise combine an appealing sense of economic deliberation with earthiness and heft. Strickland’s Blue Note debut was produced by Meshell N’Degeocello, another hint at whereof he speaks.

Russ Gershon Trio
January 13 at 8 p.m.
Third Life Studio, Somerville, MA.

Saxophonist and flutist Russ Gershon, leader of the venerable Either/Orchestra, steps out for some small-group action with bassist Blake Newman and drummer Phil Neighbors. Gershon is promising originals as well as covers of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, and others.

Jason Marsalis
January 13 at 8 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA.

The drummer/vibist comes to Scullers with his 21st-Century Trad Band, which in previous outings, live and on record, has included bassist Will Goble, pianist Austin Johnson, and drummer David Potter. Call it Marsalis’s version of the Modern Jazz Quartet – precisely balanced, crafty, vibes-based post-bop swing, with a dash of New Orleans second line.

Charlie Kolhhase’s Explorers Club
January 18 at 8 p.m.
Outpost 186, Cambridge, MA.

Multi-reedman (and 2017 Arts Fuse Fuscial Award-winner) Kohlhase and his Explorers Club continue their ambitious mid-winter tear of shows with this gig at cozy Outpost 186. The band this time out includes Kohlhase on alto, tenor, and baritone saxes, tenor saxophonist Seth Meicht, trumpeter and flugelhornist Daniel Rosenthal, trombonist Jeb Bishop, guitarist Eric Hofbauer, bassist Aaron Darrell, and drummer Curt Newton.

— Jon Garelick

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Roots and World Music

East/West Improvisations
January 5
Arts at the Armory Cafe, Somerville, MA

The Journeys in Sound series kicks off 2018 with two duos that include Korean and American members: Gapi and the Jeong/Burik Duo. Pianist Bob Taobe will also perform.

Muscari w/ special guest Mal Barsamian
January 6
Sabur Resturant, Somerville, MA

A fine local trio specializing in Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Greek and Turkish music, Muscari is joined by master virtuoso Mal Barsamian.

Juan De Marcos & the Afro-Cuban All-Stars
January 14
Berklee Performance Center, Boston, MA

World Music/CRASHArts has a particularly strong spring 2018 lineup, starting off with this exciting Cuban big band.

— Noah Schaffer

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Classical Music

Benjamin Grosvenor plays Mozart
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
January 4-9, 8 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA

The British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor makes his BSO debut with Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 21. Francois Xavier-Roth conducts further works by Beethoven and Étienne Méhul.

The Firebird
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
January 11-13, 8 p.m. (1:30 p.m. on Friday)
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA

Francois Xavier-Roth concludes his two-week BSO stint with Stravinsky’s epic ballet paired with early works by Anton Webern and Bartk. Yefim Bronfman is the soloist in the latter’s Piano Concerto no. 1.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Elizabethan Songs of Sadness, Satire, and Seduction
January 2 at 12:15 p.m.
At King’s Chapel, Tremont & School Streets, Boston, MA

A program featuring countertenor and guitarist David William Hughes.

Boston Artists Ensemble
January 5 at 8 p.m.
At Hamilton Hall, 9 Chestnut Street, Salem, MA
January 7 at 3 p.m.
At St. Paul’s Church Brookline, 15 St. Paul Street, Brookline, MA

The program, titled “Art of the Quintet”: Mozart’s String Quintet No. 1 in B-flat, K.174 and
String Quintet No. 3 in C, K.515; Brahms’ String Quintet No. 2 in G, Opus 111.

Boston Chamber Music Society
January 7 at 3 p.m.
At Sanders Theatre/Harvard University, 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA

On the program: Ernst von Dohnányi’s Serenade in C major for String Trio, Op. 10;
Claude Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10; Antonin Dvořák’s String Sextet in A major, Op. 48.

— Susan Miron

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Rock, Pop, & Folk

Nervous Eaters with Watts and David Age & the Regrets
January​ 6​ (doors at 8)
Thunder Road, Somerville, MA

It has been several decades since their late-70s/early 80s salad days at The Rat, but The Nervous Eaters can always count on an enthusiastic local crowd at their occasional area shows. Being a bit longer in the teeth will not stop them from putting on the fiery, down ‘n’ dirty show that the Friday night audience in Union Square will be there for. The younger fellas in Watts and David Age & the Regrets will surely provide ample warm-up energy.

Parlour Bells with Diablogato, Test Meat, and Cujo​​
January 13 (doors at 8, show at 8:30)
ONCE Ballroom, Somerville, MA

Since forming in 2010, Parlour Bells have garnered two Boston Music Award nominations (Video of the Year in 2013 and Live Artist of the Year in 2014), recorded two EPs and an LP (2017’s Waylaid in the ​Melée)​, and won the praise of the Boston Herald, ​The Improper Bostonian, and CBS.​ On January 13, the Goddamn Glenn-fronted quintet will headline a quadruple bill​ of local acts at ONCE Ballroom.

Lyres with Paul Collins and Boston Cream
January 13​ (doors at 8)​
Thunder Road, Somerville, MA
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T​he more-or-less co-headlining bill of ​​power pop ​veteran​ ​Paul Collins and Boston legends Lyres worked brilliantly in 2016 (at the Middle East Upstairs) and 2017 (at Starlab Fest), and is sure to do so again on January 13, 2018.​ Beantown quintet Boston Cream will round out this sweet triple bill at Thunder Road.​ (Here is the Arts Fuse interview that I did with ​Paul ​Collins two years ago.)

The Wombats with Blaenavon​ and courtship​.
January 13​ (doors at 7, show at at 8)​
Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA

​The Liverpool trio The Wombats released their ​debut LP–A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation–in 2007, and their fourth full-length recording, Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, comes out next month. If you miss your chance to see them up close at the Paradise on January 13, the next opportunity that you will have to catch them live will be when they open for Weezer and The Pixies at the Xfinity Center in July.

Say Darling
January 13 (door at 7, show at 8)
City Winery (Haymarket Lounge), Boston, MA

The self-described “vintage rock ‘n’ roll” quintet Say Darling was founded in 2016 by Grammy-nominated bluegrass musician Celia Woodsmith and guitarist Chris Hersch, members of the Boston-formed bands Della Mae and Girls Guns and Glory, respectively. They will be performing songs from their 2017 EP and (presumably) its members’ past and present at City Winery’s Haymarket Lounge on the second Saturday of the new year.

Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
January 13​ (doors at 8)​
Middle East Downstairs, Cambridge, MA

​If it’s mid-January, it must be Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven at the Middle East Downstairs. Once again, David Lowery will be fronting his two bands in Central​ Square for what I think is the ninth consecutive year. (Here is Brett Milano’s Arts Fuse review of the 2015 show.)

– Blake Maddux

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Author Events

Caroline Preston
The War Bride’s Scrapbook: A Novel in Pictures
January 3 at 7 p.m.
Porter Square Books, Cambridge MA
Free

Preston’s novel takes an innovative approach to traditional narrative. Protagonist Lila Jerome is a woman who has never been lucky in love; then she finds a charismatic army engineer to elope with, though the specter of WWII looms over their relationship. What makes the novel interesting is that it tells its story through vintage memorabilia and real-life artifacts (including photographs and images from the period) to tell its story.

Sam Graham- Felsen
Green: A Novel
January 4 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

The highly acclaimed debut novel tells a painful but hilarious story of adolescence set in early ’90s Boston. The storyline pits an optimistic but underachieving white kid into conflict with his laid-back black best friend, who reminds him that not everyone’s ambitions are meant to be fulfilled.

22nd Annual Moby Dick Marathon Reading
January 5-7
New Bedford Whaling Museum, 18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford MA
Pre-Reading Dinner is $50 for non-members, $40 for members, reading is free to attend

Herman Melville’s magnum opus is widely considered to be the Great American Novel, which only partly makes up for the fact it bewildered the reading public back in 1851, selling little and bitterly disappointing its once-popular author. The tale of the Pequod’s ill-starred voyage under Ahab, the ship’s mad, one-legged captain is always worth hearing, and the New Bedford Whaling Museum is tossing an epic reading, stem to stern, not far from where the fictional ship left port. The list of readers is already full, but all are free to listen, chat with Melville scholars, and enjoy some local chowder over the day and half’s worth of festivities.

Rachel Herz
Why You Eat What You Eat: The Science Behind Our Relationship with Food
January 11 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

I’ll be the first to admit that I’d pretty much eat a boot if it was covered in the appropriate amount of cheese — but only, I affirm, the right kind of cheese, maybe some Feta or a nice sharp cheddar, none of that filthy Swiss nonsense. Why do my tastebuds delight so much in what is essentially just curdled milk? Is it genetic? Psychological? Environmental? Herz is a neuroscientist, author, and teacher whose new book examines the sensory, psychological, neuroscientific, and physiological aspects of our eating habits.

Art Levine
Mental Health, Inc
January 16 at 7 p.m.
Brookline Booksmith, Coolidge Corner MA
Free

“A no-holds-barred call to action for America’s broken mental health system, by a prize-winning investigative journalist. This is a comprehensive look at mental health abuses and dangerous, ineffective practices, pointing toward a system for effective and compassionate care.”

— Matt Hanson