The Hickory Stick Bookshop is delighted to welcome author Gina Barreca, who will be here to discuss her new book “Gina School” with illustrator John Guillemette on Saturday, November 22th at 4:30 pm. The talk will be followed by a book signing.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Dr. Gina Barreca has made millions of readers laugh, think, and feel seen. Now, in “Gina School”, Gina Barreca opens the doors to her most personal, provocative, and laugh-out-loud collection yet. Whether you’re an anxious applicant, a lifelong learner, a book club rebel, or just someone looking for a little reassurance and a lot of sass—you belong here.

Beautifully illustrated and endlessly comforting, Gina School is the book we all need now. It offers open, early, and rolling admissions to perpetual latecomers, mature students, speed readers, book groups, gloriously erudite librarians, writers in need of prompts, and gift givers. Provocative, reassuring, and witty, Gina School is virtually impossible to resist as an emotional support book, a motivating tome, and a daily inspiration source.

Reassuring readers that they’re not alone, they’re not nuts, and that laughing together is as close as you can get to another person without hugging them, Gina School is a book you’ll return to with delight. You never have to graduate, and it pairs just as well with coffee and cake, cheese and fruit, espresso and champagne—and, if you wish, a cap and gown.

With eight million readers of her Psychology Today blog-column, Dr. Gina Barreca has been praised widely: People magazine called her “smart and funny.” Wally Lamb says, “Barreca’s prose, in equal measures, is hilarious and humane.” Ms. Magazine notes her “characteristic wit and wisdom.” The Chicago Tribune raves, “Barreca learned to do what any sassy smarty-pants would: challenge stale ideas and press buttons.” The L.A. Times applauds that “Barreca writes with intelligence and wit.” Booklist says she “gets it just right,” while Publishers Weekly praises her as “an unfailingly winning narrator” who provides readers with “humor along with serious insight.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gina Barreca’s classic on women’s humor, “They Used to Call Me Snow White, But I Drifted”, was followed by “Perfect Husbands (And Other Fairy Tales)”, “Sweet Revenge, Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Coeducation in the Ivy League”, and “It’s Not That I’m Bitter, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World”. Author of eleven books, she’s also the editor of seventeen others, including “Don’t Tell Mama: The Penguin Book of Italian American Writing”, and the “Fast Women” series for Woodhall Press. Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English Literature at the University of Connecticut, Gina has appeared on “American Masters,” “This American Life,” the TODAY show, CNN, the BBC, and Oprah. Barreca’s been published by the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, Cosmopolitan, Forbes, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the Harvard Business Review. Her blog for Psychology Today has more than 8 million views. You can find her in the Library of Congress or the make-up aisle at Walgreens.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

John Guillemette is a writer and artist who enjoys hikes, houseplants, and disparaging mankind. He reads monks and drunks; if a monk wrote it, or a drunk wrote it, then he’s probably read it. His satire has appeared in Little Old Lady Comedy, and his stories have been published in The Wild Word, Book of Matches, and Long River Review, where he received the Edwin Way Teale Award for nature writing. He lives in New Haven, CT.

This event is free and open to the public. If you are unable to attend, you may reserve signed copies of “Gina School” by calling The Hickory Stick Bookshop at (860) 868 0525, or shop our website 24/7 at www.hickorystickbookshop.com.

Hickory Stick Bookshop
2 Green Hill Road
Washington Depot, CT
https://hickorystickbookshop.com/event/2025-11-22/author-talk-book-signing-gina-barreca