Award-winning author L. Annette Binder will read from her new memoir, Child of Earth and Starry Heaven, an account of her mother Helena’s struggle with dementia. The author turns to mythology, poetry, science, and history in her quest to find meaning, community, and beauty as her mother’s cognition declines.

Scheduled in conjunction with the Upper Valley Walk to End Alzheimer’s, which will take place on October 26, this event will provide a forum and a sense of community for those whose lives have been touched by dementia. There will be opportunities for interactive discussion and a short Memory Board activity honoring loved ones living with dementia. A list of curated books and other resources will be available.

L. Annette Binder was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States as a child. She holds degrees in Classics and law from Harvard, an MA in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley and an MFA from the Programs in Writing at UC Irvine. Her short story collection Rise (Sarabande) received the Mary McCarthy Prize, and her stories have been included in the Pushcart and O. Henry Prize Anthologies. Her debut novel The Vanishing Sky (Bloomsbury) was a New York Times Book Review Selection for Summer and received the Eyelands International Book Award. She lives in New Hampshire with her family.

James Brown, author of Apology to the Young Addict, calls the book “a hauntingly powerful work of the sort only the very best of writers may hope to achieve in a lifetime,” while Harvard neuroscientist Daniel L. Schacter finds it “an essential book that both moves and informs.”

The Yankee Bookshop will be on hand with copies of Child of Earth and Starry Heaven for purchase and signing.