Nonfiction Book Club:
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
Thursday September 14th at 1:30 p.m.
Join fellow readers at the library for an engaging discussion of An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong on Thursday September 14th at 1:30 p.m.
The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension–the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires (and fireworks), songbirds that can see the Earth’s magnetic fields, and brainless jellyfish that nonetheless have complex eyes. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, and that even fingernail-sized spiders can make out the craters of the moon. We meet people with unusual senses, from women who can make out extra colors to blind individuals who can navigate using reflected echoes like bats. Yong tells the stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, and also looks ahead at the many mysteries which lie unsolved.
Copies of the book are available on Libby and may also be reserved for pickup at the library.
Click HERE to register.
Fiction Book Club:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Tuesday September 26th at 7:30 p.m.
Join fellow readers at the library for an engaging discussion of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon on Tuesday September 26th at 7:30 p.m.
The hero of Haddon’s debut novel is 15-year-old Christopher Boone, an autistic math genius who has just discovered the dead body of his neighbor’s poodle, Wellington. Wellington was killed with a garden fork, and Christopher decides that, like his idol Sherlock Holmes, he’s going to find the killer. Wellington’s owner, Mrs. Shears, refuses to speak to Christopher about the matter, and his father tells him to stop investigating. But there is another mystery involving Christopher’s mother, who died two years ago. So why does Siobhan, Christopher’s social worker, react with surprise when Christopher mentions her death? And why does Christopher’s father hate Mrs. Shears’ estranged husband? The mystery of Wellington’s death begins to unveil the answers to questions in his own life, and Christopher, who is unable to grasp even the most basic emotions, struggles with the reality of a startling deception.
Copies of the book are available on Libby and may also be reserved for pickup at the library.
Click HERE to register.
Adventures in Classic Readings Sponsored by the FOL’s Ruth D. Bogen Memorial Fund:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Monday September 18th at 6 p.m.
Join fellow readers at the library for an engaging discussion of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen on Monday September 18th at 6 p.m.
For over 150 years, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen herself called this brilliant work her ‘own darling child.’ Pride and Prejudice, the story of Mrs. Bennet’s attempts to marry off her five daughters is one of the best-loved and most enduring classics in English literature. Excitement fizzes through the Bennet household at Longbourn in Hertfordshire when young, eligible Mr. Charles Bingley rents the fine house nearby. He may have sisters, but he also has male friends, and one of these — the haughty, and even wealthier, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy — irks the vivacious Elizabeth Bennet, the second of the Bennet girls. She annoys him. Which is how we know they must one day marry. The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and Darcy is a splendid rendition of civilized sparring. As the characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, Jane Austen’s radiantly caustic wit and keen observation sparkle.
Copies of the book will be available at the Information Desk. All participants will receive a complimentary copy of the book provided by the Friends of the Library’s Ruth D. Bogen Memorial Fund (while supplies last).
Click HERE to register.