WETHERSFIELD PUBLIC LIBRARY’S

1^ST TUESDAY BOOK DISCUSSIONS

September 2007-June 2008

 

During Library renovation, discussions are held at the
Eleanor Buck Wolf Nature Center, 156 Prospect Street, Wethersfield unless otherwise noted on the schedule.

The discussions are at 7:00 p.m. All sessions are free and open to the public.  The Wethersfield Public Library is at 860-529-BOOK (2665).

December 4, 2007—The Chosen, by Chaim Potok.  Two unlikely friends, one the son of an Hasidic Rabbi the other of an Orthodox Jew with Zionist leanings, grow through adolescence together in 1940’s Brooklyn.  As they face faith, loyalty, the Holocaust, and the strains between fathers and sons, Potok unfolds a warm and wise story familiar to families of all faiths and nations.

January 8, 2008—The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. (2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)—A man and his young son traverse a post-apocalypse America.  The man can still remember the time before; the boy knows only this time.  All that is left them is survival, hope, and their love for each other.  Fierce and haunting, The Road is a masterpiece.

February 5, 2008—Letters from Yellowstone, by Diane Smith--Told entirely through correspondence, this is a fascinating and often funny story of a scientific expedition to Yellowstone in 1899 to collect samples of its flora and fauna.  Cornell student A.E.Bartram arrives to join the expedition, and thoroughly unsettles the leader who expected her to be a man. She lights up the novel with intelligence, wit and honest desire to learn.  The collage of letters and telegrams to and from all the parties tells the story from many perspectives, making it as true to psychology as it is to history and botany.  

March 4, 2008—When the Emperor Was Divine, by Julie Otsuka—(NYTimes Notable Book and Cheshire’s One Book read)  A precise and understated gem that tells one Japanese American family’s story of internment in Utah during World War II.  The brother and sister remain nameless, heavily censored letters are all they have of their father who is being held in New Mexico.  Even after their post-war reunion, the family continues to pay for the shape of their eyes.  Told from numerous characters’ perspectives, the voices are a distillation of injustice, anger, and poetry.

April 1, 2008—Night, by Elie Wiesel. This is Elie Wiesel’s masterpiece.  The fictional memoir of a boy who lived through Auschwitz and Buchenwald it is both a short and terrible indictment of 20th Century humanity, as well as a candid and deeply poignant story of survival.  It eloquently addresses the philosophical and personal questions that arise in the face of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is today.

May 6, 2008— One Book 4 Towns title, To Be Announced. The towns of Wethersfield, Berlin, Newington, and Rocky Hill each year in the spring join in a One Book 4 Towns community read program, with discussions and events in all four towns.  The title is chosen in the fall and generally announced in January.

June 3, 2008—The Most Famous Man in America : The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, by Debby Applegate.  (2007 Pulitzer for Biography) Henry Ward Beecher was a fascinating, flawed man, from an illustrious family, whose life was at the center of the key social, political, religious and intellectual dramas of 19th Century America. He was both immensely influential and immensely revered by the public.  His friends included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mark Twain.  His career suffered irretrievably however when charges of adultery were brought against him. After a widely covered trial with six months of testimony, eight days of debate and 52 jury ballots, the jury still could not reach a verdict.  Applegate is a masterful guide through the complex life of a flawed man who made significant contributions to public and religious life in his time.

 

 

The discussions are at 7:00 p.m. All sessions are free and open to the public.  The Wethersfield Public Library is at 860-529-BOOK (2665).