If you’ve ever wanted to be part of the Town Library’s Book Club but couldn’t make it out of the house on Thursday nights to attend, there’s a wonderful new option: the “Second-Friday” Book Club. True to the name, the new club meets on the second Friday of every month at the civilized time of 10:30am in the Library’s program room.
A second club had been talked about for several years, but it required a few things to fall into place, such as funding. That came by way of the gift to the Library in memory of Karin and Ted Mayer, which supports this club and other library programs. Another need was someone to facilitate it – choosing the books, doing research on each book to ensure a lively discussion, and, of course, moderating each meeting. The Library didn’t have to look far, selecting Carol Ipsen, a long-time resident who is also a member of what was rechristened the “After-Dark” Book Club once the second club came along. “The new Book Club fell into place so naturally it was clear that it was waiting to happen,” said Library director Tricia Perito.
Ms. Ipsen—a former journalist for Newsweek, among other publications,—is a true book club aficionado, currently belonging to a total of three. She caught the book-club bug some years ago, when her son was old enough and her career calm enough that she actually had time to read books. As a freelance writer, she recalls, “I was certainly reading a lot, but it was quick grabs of a magazine or research for an article.”
As facilitator of the Second-Friday Book Club, Ms. Ipsen aims to bring eclecticism to what the group reads. The Club’s first two books last fall, Ragtime and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, were written by recently deceased New York authors who were very different: E.L. Doctorow and Oliver Sachs, respectively. The list through June—detailed below—includes fiction and non-fiction, and Ms. Ipsen says she also has plans in the future to introduce some classics. “They’re the kind of titles that people have always been meaning to read but never gotten around to it,” she said.
As with the After-Dark Book Club, the Second-Friday Book Club meets monthly from September to June with the exception of January. At the monthly meetings, participants may pick up the next month’s book for discussion at the Circulation Desk, and new members are welcome to join either Book Club at any time.
And now, without further ado, here are the Second-Friday Book Club selections through June, along with meeting dates:
February 12: Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (2008). This novel—the first of a trilogy completed last year—follows individuals involved in the slave trade from India in the 1800s. According to Gaiutra Bahadur in The New York Times Book Review, “Sea of Poppies is big and baggy, a self-styled epic with colossal themes and almost a dozen major characters, including the son of an American slave (who is passing as white), the orphaned daughter of a French botanist (who is passing as a coolie [an indentured Indian servant]) and an Anglophile raja (who has been wrongly sentenced to a penal colony on Mauritius).”
March 11: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (2001). This novel’s intriguing plot revolves around opera diva Roxane Coss, the “bel canto” of the title, who is taken hostage by terrorists in a Latin American country while performing at the home of a local business man. Bel Canto follows what happens in the ensuing months when the terrorists’ plot unravels and life in the house takes on a different rhythm for both terrorists and hostages. Wrote Alex Clark in The Guardian, “Throughout, allusions to the future cleverly keep individual fates mysterious; we know there will be a ‘later’, but are denied the knowledge of who will live to see it.”
April 8: An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine (2014). An Unnecessary Woman follows the story of Aaliya, a 72-year-old Lebanese woman in Beirut who spends her time mostly alone reading books and doing an annual translation into Arabic of a classic work. If that sounds dull, NPR’s Rosecrans Baldwin said otherwise: “Somehow there’s still room for sex, guns and Gustav Mahler. I can’t remember the last time I was so gripped simply by a novel’s voice. Alameddine makes it clear that a sheltered life is not necessarily a shuttered one. … It’s the drama of daily life, only highly informed.”
May 13: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown (2013). This popular work of non-fiction is about the 1936 eight-oar crew at the University of Washington, who—far from being the elites that dominated the sport on the east coast and Europe—are working class. They go on to compete in Hitler’s Berlin Olympics. According to GoodReads, “The Boys in the Boat is an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate story of nine working-class boys from the American west who, in the depths of the Great Depression, showed the world what true grit really meant.”
June 10: Some Luck by Jane Smiley (2014). The first of a planned trilogy, Some Luck covers a generation growing up on an Iowa farm spanning the years from 1920 to 1953. According to Valerie Sayers, who reviewed the book in The Washington Post: “Over the course of the novel … most of the children will leave the farm just as surely as the rest of the white rural Midwest will pack its bags. Smiley delivers a straightforward, old-fashioned tale of rural family life in changing times. Her no-muss, no-fuss storytelling, if unsurprising, is also frequently subtle, wry and moving.”
Hope to see you at the Library on some second Friday!
CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS
Story Time: Tuesdays for ages 3 – 5, 10:30 a.m. Wednesdays for children ages 2 and under, 10:30 a.m. Attendance is limited to the first 40 people who sign in, children and caregivers included.
Homework Help: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30 – 4:45 p.m. For children in grades 1 – 8. Students must bring their written assignments and accompanying textbooks, and they are free to drop in and leave when they’ve completed their assignments. Different high schoolers help out, depending on the day. Homework Help is also a good opportunity for beginning readers to read aloud to an interested teen. Snacks are provided.
Chess Instruction Returns: Mondays, April 18 and 25; May 2, 16 and 23, 7:00 – 7:45 p.m. The Library is once again offering free chess instruction, taught by John Gallagher. The series is for ages five and up and people of all abilities. Registration is required.
ADULT PROGRAMS
WEBS Career Development Series, “Managing Your Career in Changing Times”: Mondays, February 2 and 23; March, 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29; April 5, 12 and 19, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. This popular eight-week educational series returns to the Library, from WEBS, a service of the Westchester Library System. Attendees will learn how to evaluate their skills, interests and personality; use online career information; explore career alternatives; find out about educational and training programs in Westchester; and learn effective job-seeking strategies. No walk-ins are allowed. To register, call WEBS at 914-674-3612.
After-Dark Book Club: The Club is on its usual January hiatus but resumes with a discussion of We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas on February 4 at 7:30 p.m. This 2014 novel follows the path of Eileen Tumulty, who grows up in Woodside, Queens, during the 1940s, yearning for the American Dream. When she marries Ed Leary, she hopes her dreams will be realized, but discovers Ed doesn’t share her aspirations.
Second-Friday Book Club: The Club resumes on Friday, February 12, at 10:30 a.m. in the Library’s program room with a discussion of Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. See above for more information on this and other Second-Friday Book Club selections through June.
One-to-One Computer and Device Instruction: Call the Library to make an appointment for individualized instruction in popular computer programs, such as Microsoft Word and Excel. You can also bring your smartphone or tablet to the Library and learn how to get started with apps that give library patrons access to free e-books, e-audiobooks, e-music and more.
All Library programs are free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, you can sign up for events that require pre-registration by calling the Library at 914-738-1234. Out of courtesy to fellow attendees, please be on time and if you can’t come, please call to cancel so that someone else can have your seat.
In addition to funding the Second-Friday Book Club, a gift from the Mayers also sponsors the WEBS career program. All other programs are funded by The Friends of the Pelham Public Library.
LIBRARY NOTES
The Library will be closed on Monday, January 18, in observance of Martin Luther King Day.
This story originally appeared on pelhamplus.com on Monday, January 18.
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