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Reader
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 Programs
for Readers
Royal Women on Screen
The Queen (2006) 103 minutes PG-13
Saturday March 13, 2:00pm
Main Library, Costin Room
Discussion Leader: Dr. Claudia Springer, Assistant Professor of English & Film Studies, Framingham State College.
A stoic Queen Elizabeth II is unprepared for the grieving public's demands on her following the death of Princess Diana. Helen Mirren delivers a brilliant Oscar-winning performance as a queen who is torn between tradition and a new, media-driven age.
The public fascination with the lives of monarchs has made them a popular subject for films from the silent era to the present. This mini-series looks at two masterful films about British queens. We will consider how the films represent women in power, the institution of royalty (which Mark Twain called "an insult to the human race"), the tension between duty and prerogative, and the repercussions of social norms.
The series will conclude on May 1.
Book Discussion
Wednesday March 17, 7:00pm or
Thursday March 18, 10:00am
McAuliffe Branch Library
Please join us for a discussion of the novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.
In a perilous future era, the governments of Earth have founded an international military force as a defense against interstellar attacks. It is for training in this military that Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, a brilliant child of six, is chosen. Removed from his home, sent to the Battle School space station, and groomed to become humankind’s greatest war hero, the reluctant and sensitive Ender struggles to find the morality in his destiny.
Copies of the book are available at the McAuliffe Library circulation desk. Discussion led by Emily Donnelly. Refreshments.
Scholar Led Book Discussion
The Power of Ideas: High Achievers
Wednesday March 24, 7:00pm
Main Library, Costin Room
Guest Speaker: Prof. Jon Huibregste, Chair, Dept. of History, Framingham State College
Moderator: Dr. Mary Murphy, past president of the History Center
Title:
The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience by Kirstin Downey
In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt named Frances Perkins as the first female Secretary of Labor. She worked tirelessly to improve the working lives of Americans, while juggling personal and family responsibilities. Her ideas became the cornerstones of historic changes in social welfare, including unemployment compensation, child labor laws, and the forty-hour workweek. Copies of the book available at both libraries. Refreshments.
Literature Sessions: Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Thursdays March 25 & April 1, 10:00am–12:00noon
Main Library, Costin Room
Guest speaker: Dr. Helen Heineman, past President of Framingham State College
No other writer in the language has so penetrated our common knowledge and vocabulary as has William Shakespeare. Over the centuries, he still depicts and reveals the dilemmas of mankind and provides materials that help us to judge and evaluate our own lives. In these sessions, participants will read the comedy,
Twelfth Night, and join a group of shipwrecked characters that will pursue their passions in a charmed, timeless land and discover the true nature of love without the interference of real life. Participants may use any edition of the plays. Refreshments.
You Must Read This!
Saturday April 3, 10:00am
Main Library, Costin Room
Want to share your favorite titles with other readers and get some tips
on what to read next? Come to this monthly Saturday morning coffee hour.
Bring books or titles others may enjoy, and gather suggestions for great
reads you may have missed.
View a list of books recommended at previous book chats.
Main Library Book Club
Tuesday April 6, 7:00pm
Main Library, Costin Room
Birds in Fall: A Novel by Brad Kessler
An innkeeper witnesses an airplane crash into the Atlantic off the coast of Nova Scotia, and braces for the arrival of the victims’ families and search crew members. Kessler’s “entrancingly beautiful and psychologically incisive second novel” (Booklist) is a study in grief and survival and was named by the Los Angeles Times as one of the ten best books of the year in 2006. Led by Andrea Taylor. Refreshments
Main Library Book Club
Tuesday May 4, 7:00pm
Main Library, Costin Room
Out Stealing Horses: A Novel by Per Petterson
Trond Sander is a widower nearing seventy when he moves to remote eastern Norway. A chance meeting with the brother of his childhood friend Jon causes him to reminisce about the summer of 1948 when he and Jon set out to steal horses from a nearby farm, an afternoon which ended abruptly in an act of unexpected cruelty. “A gripping account of such originality as to expand the reader’s own experience of life.” (New York Times Book Review). Led by Ruth Evans. Refreshments
You Must Read This!
Saturday May 8, 10:00am
Main Library, Costin Room
Want to share your favorite titles with other readers and get some tips
on what to read next? Come to this monthly Saturday morning coffee hour.
Bring books or titles others may enjoy, and gather suggestions for great
reads you may have missed.
View a list of books recommended at previous book chats.
Main Library Book Club
Tuesday June 1, 7:00pm
Main Library, Costin Room
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
In 1962, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan returns to her parents’ cotton farm following graduation and decides to write a book about the black maids that serve the”cake-eating Tab-drinking, cigarette-smoking” white women of her hometown. With the assurance that their names will be disguised, black maids Aibileen and Minny agree to share their stories, which starkly outline the opposite sides of the racial divide. “This heartbreaking story is a stunning debut from a gifted talent.” (Atlanta Journal). Judy Zorfass will lead the discussion. Refreshments
Adult programs are funded in part by the
Friends of the Framingham Library Association.
Top
Ideas
for Readers
Top
Top Ten Requests for the Week: March 10, 2010. Looking for
more ideas? Check out Minuteman's
50 most requested titles for the month and our list of
noteworthy new books.
|
Main Library
|
| 1. |
House rules |
Picoult, Jodi |
| 2. |
Caught |
Coben, Harlan |
| 3. |
Girl who kicked the
hornet's nest |
Larsson, Stieg |
| 4. |
The help |
Stockett, Kathryn |
| 5. |
Split image |
Parker, Robert B. |
| 6. |
61 Hours: A
Reacher novel Due in May |
Child, Lee |
| 7. |
The three Weissmanns
of Westport |
Schine, Cathleen |
| 8. |
Kisser |
Woods, Stuart |
| 9. |
Game change : Obama
and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the race of |
Heilemann, John |
| 10. |
Worst case |
Patterson, James |
|
McAuliffe Branch
|
| 1. |
The help |
Stockett, Kathryn |
| 2. |
Split image |
Parker, Robert B. |
| 3. |
Worst case |
Patterson, James |
| 4. |
House rules |
Picoult, Jodi |
| 5. |
Girl who kicked the
hornet's nest |
Larsson, Stieg |
| 6. |
Caught |
Coben, Harlan |
| 7. |
Game change : Obama
and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the race of |
Heilemann, John |
| 8. |
The shadow of your
smile |
Clark, Mary Higgins |
| 9. |
61 Hours: A
Reacher novel Due in May |
Child, Lee |
| 10. |
Winter garden |
Hannah, Kristin. |
Top
Looking for more ideas?
Check out the library's fiction &
leisure reading lists to find more books on your favorite
themes. Spies or romance, thrillers or friendship - our booklists cover
a range of themes and tastes.
Minuteman Library Network
Visit the Novelist database, where you
can find lists of books with your favorite plots, themes, or settings.
To find out what's hot this month, take a look at the
Minuteman Top Requests List to see what's hot.
The Staff Recommends
page spotlights books library staff have enjoyed.
Looking for information you
can use? Check the library's
resource lists on subjects from home repair to small
businesses.
Find a magazine to inform,
entertain, or intrigue you. Take a look at our
periodicals list.
Top
We
Recommend
Book Talk: We Recommend
Recommended by Laraine Worby, Reference Librarian
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
This gentle coming-of-age novel reminds us of a recent period of painful bigotry, discrimination and fearful suspicion. As Henry Lee, a Chinese American, is mourning the death of his wife in 1986, he discovers that belongings stored by Japanese Americans before they were evacuated to internment camps in the 1940’s are being uncovered in the renovation of Seattle’s Panama Hotel. Seeing these long-lost items takes Henry back to his childhood, and as much as he tries to resist it, the pull of his memories is too strong.
The story then takes us back to the 1940’s, when Henry is the only Chinese student in an all white prep school enduring almost constant torment from his classmates. At the same time, Henry is struggling with conflict and tension in his relationship with his father and his father’s need to adhere to Old World cultural traditions. Henry forms a strong bond with Keiko, a Japanese student, and amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, their friendship and developing young love becomes the heart of the book. After Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and promises made to each other will be kept.
The story succeeds in being told through the eyes of Henry both as a son and alternately as a father. Set among the rich background of the sights, sounds and smells of the streets of Seattle in the 1940’s, the vivid characters aid Henry along his journey to manhood. Ultimately, this poignant novel is one of forgiveness, commitment and enduring hope.
Visit the Staff Recommends page
for further suggestions.
Top
Book
Group Kits
Book Group Kits To Go
We now have book group kits
with everything (except refreshments) you need for your next meeting.
These kits contain 8–10 copies of a popular book group title, reviews,
author information and a guide for discussion. We will continue to add
to this collection and welcome your suggestions.
Do you belong to a book group or have you thought about starting or
joining one? You can check out the kit for four weeks, distribute the copies to members and return the kit for your next month’s choice!
The following titles are available:
- Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
- Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
- The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
- Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
- Run by Ann Patchett
- The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
For other ideas for your next book group pick, see the
Book
Group Choices list.
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