Shelf Life

Colony on the Cape
The late Norman Mailer wrote many of his major works in Provincetown. After being discharged from the US Army, he holed up on the Cape in 1946 to begin "The Naked and the Dead," the war novel that put him on the map. He continually returned to Provincetown to write, becoming a year-round resident in 1990.

Now a writers' colony to be based at his seaside home will honor his prodigious career and nurture a new generation of writers. Tomorrow night the establishment of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony will be announced at a reception in his home on the east end of town. Beginning next June, the program will offer a balance of solitary work and discussion. Students, from college age on up, will stay at nearby inns, while the distinguished writers serving as teachers will stay at Mailer's four-bedroom house at 627 Commercial St.

Lawrence Schiller, who collaborated with Mailer on "The Executioner's Song" and other books, as well as Günter Grass, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Joan Didion, are advisers to the colony. Schiller, who met Mailer in 1972, said he wants the colony to be as diverse as Mailer's writing. Up on the third floor of Mailer's home, his study will remain as he left it, strewn with books and notes for his continuing exploration of Adolf Hitler.

What lies beneath
A new children's book explains New England's geology with inventive images and bold strokes of color.

Geologist Charles Ferguson Barker is the author and illustrator of "Under New England: The Story of New England's Rocks and Fossils" (University Press of New England). He credits Maurice Sendak, Robert McCloskey, and geologists at Boston University for providing inspiration and technical advice.

In explaining complex processes that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago, Barker compares continents embedded in plates of rock to the peanuts in peanut brittle. And using the example of a pileup of groceries on a checkout belt, he finds a way to explain plate tectonics.

Boston in Bloom
Next Monday's Bloomsday celebration at Boston College focuses on love across boundaries. At 7 p.m., costumed actors and Boston personalities will read passages about love from the James Joyce novel "Ulysses," set in Dublin on June 16, 1904. At 8 p.m., three local couples in gay or mixed-faith marriages will participate in a panel discussion.

The festivities at BC's Bapst Art Library, 140 Commonwealth Ave., Chestnut Hill, begin at 12:30 p.m. with a screening of "Bloom," Sean Walsh's two-hour adaptation of "Ulysses." Beginning at 4:30 p.m., Irish music, food, and drink will add to the merriment. The finale, at 9 p.m., will feature Molly Bloom's soliloquy. Details at ncacboston.org.

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