Centuries

Residents can order a book created for Pembroke's 300th anniversary celebration this year. The coffee table book features numerous stories about the town's three centuries of history penned by more than 11 writers, as well as many photographs. The book is expected to be available sometime next month, but residents can order a copy now. To do so, stop by the public library or go to the website of the 300th Anniversary Committee, www.Pembroke300.com. Meanwhile, the library is holding a résumé-writing workshop this Thursday at 7 p.m. Gary Gekow, an employment specialist with 24 years of recruiting experience,...

Argentinean-born author Andrés Neuman has been racking up accolades in his adopted Spain since the tender age of 22, and "Traveler of the Century," the first of his novels to be translated into English, reveals why the late Roberto Bolaño described the young writer as being "touched by grace. " Set in the early 19th century, the story follows Hans, an itinerant philologist who stumbles into the German town of Wandernburg and finds it harder to leave than he expected. The streets of the little village have a peculiar, shifting quality that makes getting around difficult.

Trio Mediaeval, the Oslo-based vocal ensemble, made a rare local visit on Sunday afternoon for a hypnotically beautiful sold-out performance at the Gardner Museum. These stars of the early music movement combine exquisite, pure-voiced ensemble singing with a vital and freshly contemporary approach to music of the distant past. The repertoire may be ancient but nothing about Sunday’s program had the slightest whiff of the curatorial; the trio’s coolly radiant singing has a way of short-circuiting the centuries.

Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens By Andrea Wulf (Knopf, $26.95) Unlikely saga traces the harrowing adventures of an 18th century global team tracking Venus Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama By Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $22) Private diary made public in the form of a graphic novel. Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power By Steve Coll (Penguin, $36) An investigatory book that...

GRASMERE, England - Most people come to this tiny village in the Lake District to see Dove Cottage, where William Wordsworth lived and wrote, or the graves of the poet and several of his family members in the cemetery of St. Oswald's Church. But Grasmere is also the home of a gingerbread so popular there's always a line outside the small shop and so revered its recipe is stored in the NatWest Bank in Ambleside. Sarah Nelson's Grasmere gingerbread is more cookie than cake, rich in the butter that makes shortbread melt on the tongue and loaded with ginger so sharp it takes your breath away.

UDAIPUR, India - The young puppeteer insists it's easy. With outstretched hands, he pulls the strings on the foot-tall man at his feet. The puppet shakes its head coquettishly; wood and cloth suddenly seem human. "Try," says the puppeteer, offering me the strings. I shake my head, imagining the knots I would make; I'm content to watch him work his magic. A few nights before, I had seen Vijay Jaga, 26, perform at a folk arts show in the courtyard of an 18th-century haveli, a traditional Indian mansion.

GHADAMES, Libya -- The heat of an early summer sun bakes dust and reddish sand into a fine powder. The desert wind known as "al ghibli" whips it along sizzling asphalt streets and piles it in perfect miniatures of the enormous Saharan dunes that begin a few miles away. As the season progresses, high temperatures rise to 100, 110, even past 120 degrees. Not even mad dogs or Englishmen venture out between midday and evening. But on the streets and in the public spaces of the old city of Ghadames, a whitewashed marvel of mud-brick and palm-wood architecture, the temperature never rises above 86....

There's no better remedy for the winter blues than a visit to a Colonial tavern. For centuries, travelers who have stepped out of the cold and into a tavern have found not only hearty Yankee fare, but also a feast for the senses: the warmth of a roaring fire, the creaking of uneven plank floors, the intoxicating incense of a smoky hearth and mulled apple cider, the taste of a cocktail chased by a swig of history. Centuries ago, taverns offered respites for weary wayfarers on horseback.

Alas, the gloriously succinct title of "F--," Steve Anderson's documentary about the history of obscenity is unfit for publication in a family newspaper. And one of the unanswered questions in this entertaining and well-researched cultural-linguistic profile is why, exactly. No one knows the word's precise etymology or how it has held on to its vulgar charm for all these centuries, but the term has definitely been dirty since its first appearance in the late 15th century. The film considers its titular four-letter word's ancient and modern histories and its appearance...

SALEM -- Pardoning those who were persecuted during the witch hysteria in this city in the 17th century "sounds like a good idea," the mayor said. Stanley Usovicz was intrigued by a Scottish township's plan to pardon 81 people who were executed for witchcraft there, The Salem News reported. The township of Prestonpans will pardon people and their cats who were executed during a wave of hysteria and religious ferment in the 16th and 17th centuries. The pardons were expected to be granted under ancient feudal powers due to be abolished within weeks.

Old advertising slogans and images, such as Esso's "Put a tiger in your tank" and Maidenform's "I dreamed I was …" campaign, tell a powerful story of the way we were. The sexy sense of possibility trumpeted by ads in the 1950s and '60s is the animating force of a new large-format boxed set. "Mid-Century Ads: Advertising from the ‘Mad Men' Era" (Taschen), a trippy two-volume time capsule edited by Jim Heimann, is a special treat for fans of the popular HBO series. Each volume opens with a timeline of advertising milestones.

"Art in the 21st Century" is an excellent PBS series on contemporary art now entering its sixth season. It has found a winning formula, which it sticks to here. Each episode features three segments on individual contemporary artists. In this new season, the first episode begins with a piece about the prominent Los Angeles-based photographer Catherine Opie. It moves on to a piece about one of the world's most acclaimed living artists, El Anatsui, a Ghanaian based in Nigeria, and concludes with a piece on an even bigger name, the Chinese artist and...

The Boston Athletic Association's Boston Marathon charity program began in 1989. Today, marathon runners raise well over $10 million every year to support the 36 charities in the program. But people have been running for good causes much longer than that, starting more than 100 years ago with a marathon sponsored by the Boston American. On Dec. 28, 1908, a major earthquake hit Italy, centered on the Sicilian city of Messina. The quake and the subsequent tsunami devastated Sicily and the nearby Italian mainland, spreading destruction across a circle over 300 kilometers...

UDAIPUR, India - The young puppeteer insists it's easy. With outstretched hands, he pulls the strings on the foot-tall man at his feet. The puppet shakes its head coquettishly; wood and cloth suddenly seem human. "Try," says the puppeteer, offering me the strings. I shake my head, imagining the knots I would make; I'm content to watch him work his magic. A few nights before, I had seen Vijay Jaga, 26, perform at a folk arts show in the courtyard of an 18th-century haveli, a traditional Indian mansion.

NEW YORK - A listless late shift dragged on that night in the newsroom of the Associated Press and, across town, at The New York Times. Feet up on the AP city desk, an editor named Charles Crane read an H.G. Wells novel to while away the news-free night. "Telegraph instruments clicked desultorily," he said later, "and occasionally one could hear the heartbeat of the clocks. " At The Times, the managing editor, Carr Van Anda, had returned from his usual late supper to an office where a forgettable story about a political feud was being readied for the front page.

The Berlin Art & Historical Society will host a forum Saturday covering the area's growth and history between the years of 1862 and 1912. The forum covers local residents' involvement in the Civil War, and some large fires that broke out in town. The forum begins at 7:30 p.m. in the 1870 Town Hall. - Matt Gunderson

What could be more traditional than the words we use for pairing off? Not everyone, of course, goes as far as William and Kate, the new-wedded duke and duchess of Cambridge, with their “wilt thou” and “who giveth,” but everyone’s wedding vocabulary includes helpmate and bridegroom and witticisms on wedlock. A plain-looking word, however, may have a convoluted past. Over centuries of use, some familiar wedding words have disguised their earlier selves, often morphing into shapes that look more logical to their users.

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras has painted the initial portion of the green stripe that will mark the route of a three-mile trail of historical sites downtown. The Independence Trail includes about 75 historical sites and covers more than four centuries of state history, culture, architecture and folklore. Taveras said he envisions it becoming a national tourist destination like similar walking trails in Philadelphia and Boston. The first walking tour is scheduled for July 30.

WASHINGTON - The pink and white cherry blossoms that color the nation's capital and draw a million visitors each spring began with trees that have survived for a century. It was 100 years ago this month when Helen Taft, wife of President William Howard Taft, and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted two Yoshino cherry trees on the bank of Washington's Tidal Basin. They were the first of 3,000 planted as part of a gift from the city of Tokyo as a symbol of friendship.

There's no better remedy for the winter blues than a visit to a Colonial tavern. For centuries, travelers who have stepped out of the cold and into a tavern have found not only hearty Yankee fare, but also a feast for the senses: the warmth of a roaring fire, the creaking of uneven plank floors, the intoxicating incense of a smoky hearth and mulled apple cider, the taste of a cocktail chased by a swig of history. Centuries ago, taverns offered respites for weary wayfarers on horseback.