What is left the daughter by Howard Norman will be the topic of the next Sunday Book Chat September 26, at 2:00 pm.

 
 All are welcome. Copies of the books will be available at the Main Desk and at Toad Hall Bookstore. The library is handicapped accessible.

Publisher’s Weekly Review:

Set on the Atlantic coast of Canada during WWII, Norman’s latest (after Devotion) is an expertly crafted tale of love during wartime.

Wyatt Hillyer loses both his parents on the same day when they jump from different bridges in Halifax, Nova Scotia, after they discover they are both having affairs with the woman next door. Wyatt’s aunt and uncle take him in, and Wyatt becomes his uncle’s apprentice in his sled and toboggan business and, despite the circumstances, soon falls in love with his adopted cousin, Tilda.

Yet he must resign himself to loving from a distance when Tilda brings home Hans Moehring, a German university student. The two begin a courtship harshly complicated by reports of U-boat attacks on Canadian ships, and Tilda’s father becoming increasingly uneasy about this potential enemy in their midst.

Norman’s writing is effortless, and his plot is grand in scope but studded with moments of tenderness and intimacy that help crystallize the anxiety and weariness of life on the home front. That Norman is able to achieve so much in 250 pages is a testament to his mastery of the craft.

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Publishers Weekly Review:

Karabell . . . delivers a compelling brief on the unlikely convergence of the U.S. and Chinese economies. He begins with an introduction to China’s economic reforms in the post-Mao era and moves on to specific examples of how such American companies as KFC, Avon and Nike used this opportunity to reinvent their businesses to suit the world’s largest market.

Karabell argues that China’s entry into the WTO laid the foundations of “Chimerica”—the symbiotic relationship between China and America that has largely escaped analysis because outmoded quantitative tools examine nation states as closed systems.

He also illustrates why China as a low-cost producer is less important than China’s new role as avid consumer, why nonperforming loans have meant such different things in China and in the West and the possible causes of the “interest rate conundrum” that so puzzled Alan Greenspan.

Essential reading for anyone curious about the increasing economic integration and interdependence between China and America, the public opposition in both nations and the implications for the U.S. as it faces competition from a nation it cannot coerce.

Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information

The History Book Club—now in its eighth year—is a group of people interested in reading about and discussing how events in the past affect our modern world.


The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 29, at 7:30 p.m. in the Trustees Room at the library. The subject will be “Birth of the United States vs. Immigrants, 1778–1828.

The issue of immigration continues to be a controversial subject.

Readers will delve into the history and impact of immigration through the years.

Anyone is welcome to participate. Please read any nonfiction book on the topic and come prepared to relate lessons from your reading to the present day. New members and nonreaders are welcome. William Tobin will lead the discussion.

The club's focus this year is "Immigration to America".

 

Poetry Group   
        
The Poetry Reading Group will resume its monthly meetings on Monday, Sept. 20, at 4:00 p.m. in the Brenner Friends Room at the library. Poems of the Sea, edited by J.D. McClatchy, will be the focus of the afternoon’s discussion. Public welcome. The building is handicapped accessible.

Tentative dates and topics for future meetings are as follows:

October 25 Bright Winter by Virginia Mishnun-Hardman, NYU Press, 1977

November 29 So What: New and Selected Poems by Taha Muhammed Ali, Copper Canyon Press, 2008

December No meeting

January 3What Narcissism Means to Me: Poems by Tony Hoagland, Graywolf Press, 2003

February 7 The Shadow of Sirius by W. S. Merwin, Copper Canyon Press, 2009

March 21 Nox by Anne Carson, New Directions Press, 2010

April 25 Selected Poems: 1934 – 1952 by Dylan Thomas, New Directions Press, 2003

May 23 Selected Poems by W. H. Auden, Vintage Press, 2007

June 20 What the Living Do by Marie Howe, W. H. Norton & Co., 1999

 

 

Shakespeare Readers 

This group will resume its monthly meetings on Monday, September 13, at 3:00 p.m. in the Trustees Room. The topic will be “Hamlet,” copies of which are available at the main desk.  As preparation for that meeting and entertainment for the general public the library will air a video of the play on Sunday, September12, at 2:00 p.m. in the Brenner Friends Room.

Sarah Clark, who leads the group, has been an English teacher, actress, playwright and director. A graduate of Yale Drama School, she also spent a summer in Stratford taking a University of Birmingham course on Shakespeare.

The public is welcome to attend both the film and the book discussion. People who attend the screening are not required to be part of the book group and people in the book group are not expected to attend the film.