WASHINGTON – Michael Connelly was a cops reporter for about a dozen years, most notably with the Los Angeles Times. He has sold 43 million of his 23 crime-based novels around the world since hanging up his press card nearly 20 years ago. Still, he has found some journalistic habits hard to break, such as […]

Art “Little Elegies: The Art of Nineteenth-Century Mourning,” paintings, texts, and objects created to assuage grief, memorialize the dead, and remind viewers of religious truths drawn from the museum’s collections, Colby College (Museum of Art), Waterville. www.colby.edu. Noon to 5 p.m. today; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. “The Lay of the Land,” […]

Shonna Milliken Humphrey grew up in Aroostook County without a writer for a role model. When she was 11, she signed up for a writing workshop for smart kids. It was then, for the first time, she thought to herself, “Maybe I can do this.” Now, at age 37, she has written her first novel. […]

Some books pull you into their orbit, taking you to another world. Susan Conley’s vivid memoir, “The Foremost Good Fortune,” is a case in point. It chronicles her family’s move in 2007 from Portland to Beijing, China, where her husband, Tony, has accepted a job. It also records Conley’s firsthand encounter with breast cancer in […]

When I saw the pair of shows now on view at Elizabeth Moss Galleries, I was struck by the contrast. John Andrews makes abstract paintings very much in the vein of mainstream Abstract Expressionism: frolicking brushwork devoid of described form or rendered volumes that rides color, rhythm and mark-making through well-balanced compositions. He is a […]

The American Irish Repertory Ensemble returns to the stage for its spring show, “Brendan,” by Boston playwright Ronan Noone. The show opens Thursday and runs through April 16 in the studio theater at Portland Stage Company, 25A Forest Ave. “Brendan” is a comedy about the life of an Irish immigrant in Boston. The title character […]

JAMES L. NELSON Maine-based historian and novelist James L. Nelson will talk about the Battle of Bunker Hill, one of the subjects of his recent book “With Fire and Sword.” The book is about the early days of the American Revolution, culminating in the Battle of Bunker Hill. The talk and signing is being held […]

That could be the title of Caitlin Shetterly’s memoir — except she came away from a move west with a baby, closer ties and a deeper understanding of the American notion of ‘doing well.’