I had been waiting for years for a show like Elizabeth Jabar’s “Kindred” at Waterville’s Common Street Gallery. The reason is that Waterville has been home to a significant Lebanese population since the 19th century — a fact known by far too few Mainers who aren’t themselves of Lebanese descent. While I wish it were […]

No matter how, Bruce Brown vowed to make better use of his time this winter. Last winter, he barely left the house. “I was pathetic,” he lamented over a cup of strong coffee last week at Arabica. “Last year, I didn’t have anything to do all winter. I just wasted away.” He need not worry […]

The brief poems of today’s column were written by Edward Nobles of Bangor about his father, who abandoned Nobles’ family. The absence his father left behind was “silent and ominous,” Nobles says, adding: “These two poems are aftershocks.”   Sentences The sledgehammer cracks like my father’s heavy shouts until the stone starts to break. The […]

SEARSPORT – Children’s author-illustrator Chris Van Dusen will appear from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Penobscot Marine Museum for an event highlighting the opening of its winter exhibit “The Circus Comes to Town.” Van Dusen will read and sign his book “The Circus Ship,” and the museum will engage children with circus-themed […]

Art “Madeleine de Sinety: Photographs,” Portland Museum of Art. 775-6148; portlandmuseum.org. Through Dec. 31. “Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection,” Shaker works, Portland Museum of Art. 775-6148; portlandmuseum.org. Through Feb. 5. “Paul Caponigro: The Hidden Presence of Places,” photography, Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland. 596-6457; farnsworthmuseum.org. Through Jan. 5. “Focus on India,” photos by […]

• A new theater company in Portland offers its first show this week. Snowlion Repertory Company presents “The Christmas Bride” at 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m. Dec. 18; and 8 p.m. Dec. 20-21 at Lucid Stage, 29 Baxter Blvd., Portland. The story, written by MK Wolfe with music […]

The Bates College Museum of Art is in many ways the most favored of our principal museums. Because of its size — bright and tidy — and a supportive administration, it is able to pursue interests that are unusual. They tend to be eclectic, provocative and beyond what is offered for general stimulation. In short, […]

KRISTINE BERTINI

Partygoers celebrate the inauguration of Portland Mayor Michael Brennan at a gala event Monday at Ocean Gateway.

Set in Maine, John Connolly’s latest is a thriller that marries crime fiction with elements of the supernatural.