July 4: Library Closed
The library will be closed on Independence Day.
July 5: Stories on the Porch
At 2:00, every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in July and August, join us on our side porch for stories for all ages. We will read picture books and chapter books and poetry and more. Listen, imagine, and be transported, all on a summer afternoon.
July 5: Classics Reading Group
At 6:00 pm, the Classics Reading Group will meet to discuss The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho. This is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the markets of Tangiers and across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with the alchemist. The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, above all, following our dreams.
July 11: Environmental Literature Reading Group
At 6:00 pm, the Environmental Literature Reading Group will meet to discuss Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. The author vividly captures the essence of his life during three seasons as a park ranger in southeastern Utah. This is a rare view of a quest to experience nature in its purest form–the silence, the struggle, the overwhelming beauty. But this is also the gripping, anguished cry of a man of character who challenges the growing exploitation of the wilderness by oil and mining interests, as well as by the tourist industry. Abbey’s observations and challenges remain as relevant now as the day he wrote them.
July 12: Havana Book Club
At 6:00 pm, the Havana Book Club will meet to discuss The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. This novel is much more than the story of a runaway slave, Cora, who fights her way to the North; it is also a phantasmagorical look at race in America. In this instance the railroad is literal–a train roaring through tunnels constructed like a subway, leading Cora to several unlikely destinations. Like the travels of Gulliver, each of Cora’s stops on the railroad is a different version of America, displaying the varied ways in which Americans view race and manifest destiny.
July 18: Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Club
At 6:00 pm, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Club will meet to discuss The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel. In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomas discovers an old journal. It hints at the existence of an extraordinary artifact that if he can find it would redefine history. Traveling in one of Europe’s earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this strange treasure. 35 years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the center of a mystery of his own and drawn into the consequences of Tomas’s quest. 50 years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he arrives with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. And there the century-old quest will come to an unexpected conclusion.
July 19: The Futurists: Next Generation Readers
At 5:00 pm, our young adult book group will meet to discuss Dime by E. R. Frank. Dime is 14, loves books, and turns tricks. After her foster mother kicked her out, living with Daddy is like something out of a dream. When Daddy needs Dime to make some money, she starts having sex for coin. The arrival of a new girl, Lollipop, just 11, makes Dime realize she doesn’t love Daddy anymore–and she doesn’t want this life. It’s only when they realize Lollipop is pregnant that Dime knows what she’ll do. If she writes a note that explains everything, people will take care of Lollipop’s baby. But what she’ll do to protect Lollipop and her baby can only end one way for Dime herself–and it’s a sacrifice she’s ready to make.
July 22: Walk through History
At 9:00 am, meet on the library steps and walk through historic Havana along the Chemung Canal with historian Gary Emerson.
July 22: Essential Oils
At 10:00 am, learn about essential oils from local educator Keri Greenberger. Essential oils, volatile liquids and aromatic compounds that are distilled or pressed from plants, have been used for thousands of years for cosmetic purposes, as well as for their spiritual and emotionally uplifting properties. Every fourth Saturday at 10:00.
July 25: Library Board Meeting
At 6:00 pm, the library trustees will be at the library for their monthly board meeting.
July 26: Storytelling Circle
At 6:00 pm, the Storytelling Circle will meet, led by And Two Makes Three storytellers. Bring a story to share with others, and listen to what they have to share!
Ongoing:
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays:
At 2:00, every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in July and August, join us on our side porch for stories for all ages. We will read picture books and chapter books and poetry and more. Listen, imagine, and be transported, all on a summer afternoon.
Sundays:
The library will be closed on Sundays during June, July, August, and September.
Mondays:
The library is closed on Mondays.
Tuesdays:
8:00 is Yoga for Health at the Montour Falls Library. Anyone can practice and benefit from Yoga. One hour of instruction in yoga poses, breathing, and meditation. Care will be taken to provide safe practice for those who may have physical limitations. Please bring a mat and a small blanket to class. A donation to Selah Yoga and Music is needed to attend these classes. sue@selahyogaandmusic.com. (607) 703-0010. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:00 AM at the Montour Falls Library.
10:30 is Blankets and Books at Havana Glen Park, in June, July, and August. We welcome all ages to come share in storytelling, nature, and play.
Wednesdays:
1:00 is the Handcrafters Circle at the Montour Falls Library. Bring your needlecrafts, beading, carving, coloring, sketching, or any other library-friendly handcrafts. Share ideas and techniques with other community crafters.
Thursdays:
8:00 is Yoga for Health at the Montour Falls Library. Anyone can practice and benefit from Yoga. One hour of instruction in yoga poses, breathing, and meditation. Care will be taken to provide safe practice for those who may have physical limitations. Please bring a mat and a small blanket to class. A donation to Selah Yoga and Music is needed to attend these classes. sue@selahyogaandmusic.com. (607) 703-0010. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:00 AM at the Montour Falls Library.
9:00 is Baby Cafe at the Montour Falls Library. Baby Café is a free resource for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers to get support from specifically-trained staff and to share experiences with other moms.
10:30 is Infant Lap Time at the Montour Falls Library. This is a program designed for newborns to preschoolers and includes music, stories, and sharing of information and resources for parents.
1:00 is the Brain Games at the Montour Falls Library. Play games, be clever, be thoughtful, have fun. Laugh and wrap your brain around amusing, convoluted puzzles. Word games, board games, card games, logic games, and more.
4:00-7:00 is the Montour Falls Farmers Market at 300 West Main Street, May through October. It is an agriculture-based market, providing our community with healthy, fresh, local, and affordable food. Local farmers will offer vegetables, fruits, meats, cheeses, and more. Food trucks will provide hot meals and treats. Entertainment including live music and story time for the children will be scheduled. https://montourfallsfarmersmarket.com/
Fridays:
10:30 is Preschool Story Time at the Montour Falls Library. This program is open to all. We encourage older and younger siblings to choose books to have read to them, and to read to each other.
3:30 is What Are You Reading? at the Montour Falls Library. All ages are welcome to meet and discuss what you are reading. Share a favorite book, recommend a new author, discover another story.
Saturdays:
10:00 is the Upcycle Society at the Montour Falls Library. Reinvent books, bags, clothing, and other materials to make unique creations from discarded household items. Appropriate for ages 8 and up. Upcycle: To process used goods or scrap material in order to produce something that is often better than the original.
At 3:30, every Friday, all ages are welcome to meet and discuss what you are reading. Share a favorite book, recommend a new author, discover another story.
At 10:30 am, meet at Havana Glen Park for the first Blankets and Books story hour of the season. Tanglewood Nature Center will give a special presentation on What To Wear and How To Get There, about how animals move in the wild, and why animals are covered with so many different kinds of “outfits.”
At 6:00 pm, the Classics Reading Group will meet to discuss Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. This brilliant novel explores the hidden springs of thought and action in one day of a woman’s life. Direct and vivid in her account of the details of Clarissa Dalloway’s preparations for a party she is to give that evening, Woolf ultimately managed to reveal much more; for it is the feeling behind these daily events that gives Mrs. Dalloway its texture and richness and makes it so memorable.
At 10:30 am, meet at Havana Glen Park for an hour of stories, nature, and play. Every Tuesday in June, July, and August.
At 6:00 pm, the Environmental Literature Reading Group will meet to discuss The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Bailey. The author watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand, and she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own place in the world. Intrigued by the snail’s molluscan anatomy, cryptic defenses, clear decision making, hydraulic locomotion, and courtship activities, Bailey becomes an astute and amused observer, offering a candid and engaging look into the curious life of this underappreciated small animal.
At 6:00 pm, the Havana Book Club will meet to discuss In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner. Ratner’s remarkable debut novel transforms her childhood experiences living through the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia into the finest of literary fiction. The story is narrated by the precocious Raami, whose privileged life is shattered when soldiers ravage Phnom Penh and send her aristocratic family to work camps in the countryside. The powerful writing sweeps you along like the broad Mekong River through the years of heartbreaking loss, hard labor, and starvation, and yet somehow, like Raami, you emerge from the book sobered, but with spirit unbroken. A powerful testament to the tenacity of love and family in the face of unspeakable inhumanity.
At 6:00 pm, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Club will meet to discuss Shadow and Claw by Gene Wolfe. Young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, is exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession–showing mercy toward his victim. Later, Severian, banished from his home, undertakes a mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic, and learn the truth about his hidden destiny.
At 5:00 pm, our young adult book group will meet to discuss Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future by A. S. King. Glory O’Brien graduates from high school and then begins to experience an astonishing new power to see a person’s infinite past and future. From ancient ancestors to many generations forward, Glory is bombarded with visions–and what she sees ahead of her is terrifying: A tyrannical new leader raises an army; women’s rights disappear; a violent second civil war breaks out; and young girls vanish daily, sold off or interned in camps. Glory makes it her mission to record everything she sees, hoping her notes will somehow make a difference. She may not see a future for herself, but she’ll do anything to make sure this one doesn’t come to pass.
At 10:00 am, learn about essential oils from local educator Keri Greenberger. Essential oils, volatile liquids and aromatic compounds that are distilled or pressed from plants, have been used for thousands of years for cosmetic purposes, as well as for their spiritual and emotionally uplifting properties. Every fourth Saturday at 10:00.
From 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm, the Finger Lakes Toy Library will host an evening of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). The centerpiece activity will be creating mazes for robotic Hexbugs with Duplos, Magna-Tiles, and paper towel rolls, and there will be many other toys available to teach and entertain curious children.
At 6:00 pm, the Classics Reading Group will meet to discuss A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. Britain’s 300-year relationship with the Indian subcontinent produced much fiction of interest but only one indisputable masterpiece: E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, published in 1924, at the height of the Indian independence movement. Centering on an ambiguous incident between a young Englishwoman of uncertain stability and an Indian doctor eager to know his conquerors better, the author explores both the historical chasm between races and the eternal one between individuals struggling to ease their isolation and make sense of their humanity.
The Village of Montour Falls is pleased to announce the 2017 season of the farmers market in the village, to benefit our community. It is an agriculture-based market, providing our community with healthy, fresh, local, and affordable food. It will take place at 300 West Main Street in Montour Falls, on Thursdays from 4 to 7 p.m., May 4 through October 5. Local farmers will offer vegetables, fruits, meats, and cheeses. Food trucks will provide hot meals and treats. Entertainment including live music and story time for the children will be scheduled. 
At 6:00 pm, join us for an evening of blues and country. What sets Hardin Burns apart from the crowd is their ability to combine traditional musical styles such as blues and country with visionary, modern lyrical ideas. Their sound brings to mind such acts as Raising Sand or CivilWars. Influences include Johnny Cash, Howlin’ Wolf, Lucinda Williams, Warren Zevon, Al Green, the Rolling Stones, and George Harrison. We ask a $10 donation to support the library and the musicians.
At 1:00 pm, local author Fred Wilcox will be reading from his books and answering questions. Waiting for an Army to Die is about the tragedy of Agent Orange, and it broke the story of chemical warfare in Vietnam.
At 6:00 pm, the Environmental Literature Reading Group will meet to discuss Half-Earth by E. O. Wilson. In order to stave off the mass extinction of species, including our own, we must move swiftly to preserve the biodiversity of our planet. Wilson argues that the situation facing us is too large to be solved piecemeal and proposes that we dedicate fully half the surface of the Earth to nature. If we are to undertake such an ambitious endeavor, we first must understand just what the biosphere is, why it’s essential to our survival, and the manifold threats now facing it.
At 6:00 pm, the Havana Book Club will meet to discuss Jimmy Bluefeather by Kim Heacox. Old Keb Wisting, the last living canoe carver in the village of Jinkaat, Alaska, is in constant pain and thinks he wants to die. When his grandson, a promising basketball player, ruins his leg in a logging accident and tells his grandpa that he has nothing left to live for, Old Keb comes alive and finishes his last canoe, with help from his grandson. Together they embark on a great canoe journey, and suddenly all of Old Keb’s senses come into play, so clever and wise in how he reads the currents, tides, and storms.
At 10:30 am, Lisa Fernandez, local musician and founder of Compost Theatre, will be bringing her blue ukulele for an hour of silly songs. Children of all ages are welcome.
At 6:00 pm, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Club will meet to discuss Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay. A young woman sets out to find vengeance; a young artist travels to the dangerous east to paint the grand khalif; and a fiercely intelligent, angry woman, posing as a doctor’s wife, is a spy. The son of a merchant family is ambivalent about the life he’s been born to live; and a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif. As these lives entwine, their fates–and those of many others–will hang in the balance, when the khalif sends out a massive army to take the great fortress that is the gateway to the western world.
At 5:00 pm, our young adult book group will meet to discuss Fig by Sarah Schantz. Love and sacrifice intertwine in this brilliant debut of rare beauty about a girl dealing with her mother’s schizophrenia and her own mental illness. Fig’s world lies somewhere between reality and fantasy. But as she watches Mama slowly come undone, it becomes hard to tell what is real and what is not, what is fun and what is frightening. This is an acutely honest and often painful portrayal of life with mental illness and the lengths to which a young woman must go to handle the ordeals–real or imaginary–thrown her way.
At 9:00 am, meet on the library steps and walk through historic Havana along the Chemung Canal with historian Gary Emerson.
At 1:00 pm, local author Alexi Zentner will be reading from his books and answering questions. The Lobster Kings, inspired by Shakespeare’s King Lear, is the story of Cordelia’s struggle to maintain her island’s way of life in the face of danger from offshore.
At 6:00 pm, the Classics Reading Group will meet to discuss Nickel Mountain by John Gardner. The beauty of this novel is the gradual revelation of the bond that develops as an unlikely couple experiences courtship and marriage, the birth of a son, isolation, forgiveness, work, and death in a small Catskill community in the 1950s. The plot turns on tragic events–they might be accidents or they might be acts of will–involving a cast of rural eccentrics that includes a lonely amputee veteran, a religious hysteric (thought by some to be the devil himself) and an itinerant “Goat Lady.” Questions of guilt, innocence, and even murder are eclipsed by deeds of compassion, humility, and redemption, and ultimately by Henry Soames’ quiet discovery of grace.
At 6:00 pm, join us for an evening of middle eastern music. CUMEME performs traditional Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Greek, and other music from the Middle East (aka Near East). Instruments played include oud, saz, qanun, nay, violin, viola, cello, bass, keman, mandolin, guitar, voice, many percussion instruments such as tabla, riq, darbouka, djembe, and duf, as well as Arabic accordion, saxophone, and clarinet. We ask a $10 donation to support the library and the musicians.
At 6:00 pm, we will hold the drawing for the winners of our fundraising gift baskets. These baskets are full of gifts and gift certificates donated by local businesses. Buy your tickets before the drawing for a chance to take home some special items.
At 6:00 am, hop on the bus to Philadelphia and spend the day exploring the city. There are dozens of museums of science, history, and culture, and you can visit them all. The city has the great Philly Phlash Center City Shuttle, which costs $5 for a day pass (seniors and children under 4 are free) and takes you right to many great museums. Call the library soon to reserve your spot. The bus costs $75 per person. Bring the whole family!
At 12:00, meet on the library steps for the first community walk of the season. Join your neighbors and walk along the beautiful, historic Catharine Valley Trail. We will be walking every second Sunday at noon.
At 6:00 pm, the Environmental Literature Reading Group will meet to discuss Coyote America by Dan Flores. Legends don’t come close to capturing the incredible story of the coyote. In the face of centuries of campaigns of annihilation employing gases, helicopters, and engineered epidemics, coyotes didn’t just survive, they thrived, expanding across the continent from Alaska to New York. In the war between humans and coyotes, coyotes have won, hands-down. Coyote America is the illuminating five-million-year biography of this extraordinary animal, from its origins to its apotheosis. It is one of the great epics of our time.
At 6:00 pm, the Havana Book Club will meet to discuss The Theoretical Foot by M. F. K. Fisher. This novel tells of a late-summer idyll at the Swiss farmhouse of Tim and Sara, where guests have gathered at ease on the terrace next to the burbling fountain in which baby lettuces are being washed, there to enjoy the food and wine served them by this stylish American couple. But all around these seemingly fortunate people, the forces of darkness are gathering: The year is 1939; World War Two approaches. And the paradise Tim and Sara have made is being besieged from within as Tim — closely based on Parrish — is about to suffer the first of the circulatory attacks that will cause him to lose his leg to amputation.
At 6:00 pm, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Club will meet to discuss Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.
At 5:00 pm, our young adult book group will meet to discuss I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson. At first, Jude and her twin brother are NoahandJude; inseparable. Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude wears red-red lipstick, cliff-dives, and does all the talking for both of them. Years later, they are barely speaking. Something has happened to change the twins in different yet equally devastating ways… but then Jude meets an intriguing, irresistible boy and a mysterious new mentor.
At 10:30 am, the Corning Science and Discovery Center will present an hour of science and stories. The topic will be a mathematical one, Identifying Shapes. All ages are welcome.
At 6:00 pm, the Storytelling Circle will meet, led by And Two Makes Three storytellers. Bring a story to share with others, and listen to what they have to share! The topic will be your choice of ‘Joy’ or ‘Forgiveness.’
At 10:00 am, the middle school reading group will meet to discuss Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. This Newbery Honor-winning, New York Times bestselling, hilarious Floridian adventure involves new kids, bullies, alligators, eco-warriors, pancakes, pint-sized owls, and more. Everybody loves Mother Paula’s pancakes. Everybody, that is, except the colony of cute but endangered owls that live on the building site of the new restaurant. Can the awkward new kid and his feral friend prank the pancake people out of town? Or is the owls’ fate cemented in pancake batter?
At 6:00 pm, the Classics Reading Group will meet to discuss Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Emma Bovary is the original desperate housewife. Beautiful but bored, she spends lavishly on clothes and on her home and embarks on two disappointing affairs in an effort to make her life everything she believes it should be. Soon heartbroken and crippled by debts, she takes drastic action, with tragic consequences for her husband and daughter.
At 1:00, join us for a meeting of the Brain Games group. Play games, be clever, be thoughtful, have fun. Laugh and wrap your brain around amusing, convoluted puzzles. Word games, board games, card games, logic games, and more. Meet at the library, every Thursday at 1:00.
At 6:00 pm, join us for an evening of cinematic guitar poetry. Eclectic, immersive and mesmerizing. Internationally acclaimed guitarist and songwriter Hiroya Tsukamoto takes us on an innovative, impressionistic journey filled with earthy, organic soundscapes that impart a mood of peace and tranquility. We ask a $10 donation to support the library and the musicians.
At 6:00 pm, the Havana Book Club will meet to discuss Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper. Eighty-three-year-old Etta Vogel quietly sets out one day to walk 3,200 kilometers to the coast of Canada for her first view of the ocean. As Etta travels, author Hooper gently and poignantly reveals a lifetime of morally charged events that shaped Etta as well as her husband, Otto, and her lifelong friend, Russell. This is a beautiful and sometimes hauntingly stark portrait of three WWII-generation lives, sprinkled with the wise counsel of a loyal coyote named James.
At 6:00 pm, the Environmental Literature Reading Group will meet to discuss The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, the author has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities–gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food.
At 5:00 pm, our young adult book group will meet to discuss How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather. Sam discovers that she is at the center of a centuries-old curse affecting anyone with ties to the Salem Witch Trials. Sam must come to terms with a ghost and find a way to work with the Descendants to stop a deadly cycle that has been going on since the first accused witch was hanged. If any town should have learned its lesson, it’s Salem. But history may be about to repeat itself.
At 6:00 pm, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Club will meet to discuss Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn. Zoe has been chosen to become the king’s fifth wife. Forced to go to the royal city, she manages to slip away and hide on the shores of the mighty river, where she realizes she is a coru prime ruled by the elemental sign of water. She must return to the palace, not as an unwilling bride for the king, but as a woman with power in her own right. But as Zoe unlocks more of the mysteries of her blood and the secrets of the royal family she must decide how to use her great power to rise above the deceptions and intrigue of the royal court.
At 3:30 pm, the middle school reading group will meet to discuss Runny Babbit by Shel Silverstein. Welcome to the world of Runny Babbit and his friends Toe Jurtle, Skertie Gunk, Rirty Dat, Dungry Hog, Snerry Jake, and many others who speak a topsy-turvy language all their own. “Runny Babbit lent to wunch/And heard the saitress way, ‘We have some lovely stabbit rew — Our Special for today.’ So if you say, ‘Let’s bead a rook That’s billy as can se,’ You’re talkin’ Runny Babbit talk, Just like mim and he.”
At 10:00, learn about essential oils from local educator Keri Greenberger.
At 6:00 pm, the Classics Reading Group will meet to discuss The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter van Tilburg Clark. Set in 1885, this novel focuses on the lynching of three potentially innocent men and the tragedy that can ensue if law and order are abandoned. The result is an emotionally powerful, vivid, and universal story about good and evil, individuals and community, justice, and human nature. Clark’s theme was civilization, and he recorded, indelibly, its first steps in a new country. A society might be built on justice, but justice stands upon those who hope and anger and wonder, and they can be turned by a word, an unintended meaning, or a question.
At 6:00 pm, join us for an evening of jazz. The Neal Massa Trio features Neal on piano, Ted Overstreet on guitar, and John Lavin on drums. The trio plays original and jazz standards, and can be found at Berta’s Cafe in Burdett on Sunday mornings. We as a $10 donation to support the library and the musicians.
At 6:00 pm, the Havana Book Club will meet to discuss When the Moon is Down by Nadia Hashimi. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba has one hope to survive: she must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister’s family in England. With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba and her family make impossible choices as they struggle across the continent, ultimately hoping to find a place where they can begin to reconstruct their lives.
At 6:00 pm, the Environmental Literature Reading Group will meet to discuss The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant. When a shattered kayak and camping gear are found on an uninhabited island, they reignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest. Five months earlier, logger-turned-activist Grant Hadwin had plunged naked into a river in British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands, towing a chainsaw. When his night’s work was done, a unique Sitka spruce, 165 feet tall and covered with luminous golden needles, teetered on its stump. Two days later it fell.
At 5:00 pm, our young adult book group will meet to discuss Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox. 15-year-old Laura’s world is next to the Place, an unfathomable land that fosters dreams of every kind and is inaccessible to all but a select few, the Dreamhunters. But within the Place lies a horrific secret kept hidden by corrupt members of the government. When Laura’s father, the man who discovered the Place, disappears, she realizes that this secret has the power to destroy everyone she loves. In the midst of a fascinating landscape, Laura’s dreamy childhood is ending and a nightmare is beginning.
At 6:00 pm, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Club will meet to discuss Red Rising by Pierce Brown. Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity reached the surface generations ago; Darrow and Reds like him are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class. Inspired by a longing for justice, Darrow will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies… even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.
At 10:30, Ms. Sarra will lead children of all ages in Song and Dance.
At 10:00 am at St. Paul’s Parish House, the middle school reading group will meet to discuss The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket. Are you made fainthearted by death? Does fire unnerve you? Is a villain something that might crop up in future nightmares of yours? Are you thrilled by nefarious plots? Is cold porridge upsetting to you? Vicious threats? Hooks? Uncomfortable clothing? It is likely that your answers will reveal A Series of Unfortunate Events to be ill-suited for your personal use. A librarian, bookseller, or acquaintance should be able to suggest books more appropriate for your fragile temperament. But to the rarest of readers we say, “Proceed, but cautiously.”
At 6:00 pm, the Classics Reading Group will meet to discuss One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the Buendia family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an accounting of the history of the human race.
At 6:00 pm, the Environmental Literature Reading Group will meet to discuss Rites of Autumn by Dan O’Brien. O’Brien’s reverence for untrammeled spaces and unbounded wildlife is evident in every page of this book, and he has made innumerable personal sacrifices to remain in close proximity to the world of sweeping sky and the roaring stoop of an attacking peregrine falcon. In the course of a reintroduction program following the ban on DDT, a golden eagle abducts two of the three young peregrines, and the survivor is too traumatized to be re-released at a more distant site. The author provides custody and protection to Dolly the falcon as they journey from South Dakota to Montana, then down the Plains through Colorado and Texas, hunting ducks and grouse along the way, to Padre Island, where he hopes to release Dolly among the plentiful shorebirds.
At 6:00 pm, the Havana Book Club will meet to discuss The Strangler Vine by M. J. Carter. India, 1837: William Avery is a young soldier with few prospects except rotting away in campaigns in India; Jeremiah Blake is a secret political agent gone native, a genius at languages and disguises, disenchanted with the whole ethos of British rule, but who cannot resist the challenge of an unresolved mystery. What starts as a wild goose chase for this unlikely pair trying to track down a missing writer who lifts the lid on Calcutta society becomes very much more sinister as Blake and Avery get sucked into the mysterious Thuggee cult and its even more ominous suppression.
At 6:00 pm, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Club will meet to discuss The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, a shadowy organization that collects important works of fiction from all of the different realities. Most recently, she and her enigmatic assistant Kai have been sent to an alternative London. Their mission: Retrieve a particularly dangerous book. The problem: By the time they arrive, it’s already been stolen. London’s underground factions are prepared to fight to the death to find the tome before Irene and Kai do, a problem compounded by the fact that this world is chaos-infested the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic to run rampant. To make matters worse, Kai is hiding something secrets that could be just as volatile as the chaos-filled world itself.
At 5:00 pm, our young adult book group will meet to discuss Paper Towns by John Green. Quentin has loved Margo since they were both nine years old. When Margo beckons Quentin in the middle of the night in the spring of their senior year, dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge, he follows her. Margo’s always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she’s always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q… until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they’re for Q. Both poignant and hysterical, this book is a delightful celebration of smart guys.
At 3:30 pm, the middle school reading group will meet to discuss The Twits by Roald Dahl. Mr. and Mrs. Twit are the smelliest, nastiest, ugliest people in the world. They hate everything except playing mean jokes on each other, catching innocent birds to put in their Bird Pies, and making their caged monkeys, the Muggle-Wumps, stand on their heads all day. But the Muggle-Wumps have had enough. They don’t just want out, they want revenge.