Nancy Cobb At Hickory Stick, May 27

WASHINGTON DEPOT — An essayist for New York Times Sunday Magazine and an interviewer familiar to audiences on National Public Radio, Nancy Cobb will sign copies of her newest book, In Lieu of Flowers: A Conversation For The Living (Pantheon Books, $19.95 cloth), on Saturday, May 27, at The Hickory Stick Book Shop. Ms Cobb will be at the store from 3 to 5 pm.

Ms Cobb writes with the curiosity of a child and the wry, practical wisdom of an unjaded old soul. In her book she invites the reader to look fearlessly at surely the most difficult — and ordinary — experience that life has to offer: its ending. In urging us to trust that what saddens can also enlighten us, she discovers a highly personal way in which to examine this darkest of subjects with candor, warmth and an unexpected, unmorbid wit.

Hickory Stick Book Shop, on Route 47 in Washington Depot, can be reached at 860/868-0525.