Nonfiction Book Discussion:
18 Tiny Deaths : The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics by Bruce Goldfarb
Tuesday March 9th at 7:30 p.m.
Please join us for a discussion of 18 Tiny Deaths : The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics by Bruce Goldfarb on Tuesday March 9th at 7:30 p.m.
Frances Glessner Lee, born a socialite to a wealthy and influential Chicago family in the 1870s, was never meant to have a career, let alone one steeped in death and depravity. Yet she developed a fascination with the investigation of violent crimes and made it her life’s work. Best known for creating the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of dioramas that appear charming-until you notice the macabre little details: an overturned chair, a blood-spattered comforter. And then, of course, there are the bodies-splayed out on the floor, draped over chairs-clothed in garments that Lee lovingly knit with sewing pins. Lee developed a system that used the Nutshells dioramas to train law enforcement officers to investigate violent crimes, and her methods are still used today. 18 Tiny Deaths is the story of a woman who overcame the limitations and expectations imposed by her social status and pushed forward an entirely new branch of science that we still use today.
Copies of the book are available on Libby and Hoopla and may also be reserved for curbside pickup at the library.
Click HERE to connect or dial in by your location 1 646 558 8656
Meeting ID: 839 5813 6218
Passcode: 447504
Please join us for a discussion of The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett on Tuesday March 23rd at 7:30 p.m.
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern Black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her Black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation when their own daughters’ storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. The Vanishing Half is the 2021 Long Island Reads selection.
Copies of the book are available on Libby and may also be reserved for curbside pickup at the library.
Click HERE to connect or dial in by your location 1 646 558 8656
Meeting ID: 814 4718 5993
Passcode: 773283
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