Classics & Contemporary Book Discussion: Autumn by Ali Smith
Tuesday, January 9, 10:30-11:30am, Adults, Auditorium
Autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Two old friends—Daniel, a centenarian, and Elisabeth, born in 1984—look to both the future and the past as the United Kingdom stands divided by a historic, once-in-a-generation summer. Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand-in-hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever. A luminous meditation on the meaning of richness and harvest and worth, Autumn is the first installment of Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet, and it casts an eye over our own time: Who are we? What are we made of? Shakespearean jeu d’esprit, Keatsian melancholy, the sheer bright energy of 1960s pop art. Autumn is wide-ranging in time-scale and light-footed through histories. (From the publisher)
Copies of the book are available here. Ebook and audiobook copies are available through Digital Library of Illinois or the Libby app. The audiobook is always available through Hoopla.
For those who would like to purchase a copy of Autumn, please support our local independent bookstore, The Book Stall at 811 Elm Street in Winnetka.
Wilmette Reads Book Chat
Wednesday, January 10, 10:30-11:30am, Adults, Auditorium
Come share your latest favorite books and media with a librarian and your fellow bibliophiles. Get ideas for your TBR list and chat all things bookish.
This event is part of Wilmette Reads, a new reading series for adults and teens. Learn more and take part!
Wilmette Reads Book Discussion: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Tuesday, January 16, 10:30-11:30am, Adults, Auditorium
Wilmette Reads is spotlighting The Sentence by Louise Erdrich.
A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading "with murderous attention", must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.
The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written. (From the publisher)
This event is part of Wilmette Reads, a new reading series for adults and teens. Learn more and take part!
Wilmette Reads is funded by the Friends of the Wilmette Public Library.
Memento Mori Book Discussion: Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality by Christine Montross
Tuesday, January 23, 6-7pm, Adults, Auditorium
Join senior services librarian Jill M. in discussing "Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab," written by Christine Montross, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
When Christine Montross was a medical student, she felt nervous standing outside the anatomy lab on her first day of class. Entering a room with stainless-steel tables topped by corpses in body bags was initially unnerving, though once Montross met her cadaver, she found herself intrigued by the person the woman once was and fascinated by the strange, unsettling beauty of the human form. They called her Eve. The story of Montross and Eve is a tender and surprising examination of the mysteries of the human body, and a remarkable look at our relationship with both the living and the dead. Her disturbing, often entertaining anecdotes enrich this exquisitely crafted memoir, endowing an eerie beauty to the world of a doctor-in-training. (From the publisher)
To obtain a copy of the book in your favorite format, please visit the library catalog.
This discussion will be held in the library's Auditorium; the author will not be present.
Read Around the World Book Discussion: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Thursday, January 25, 2-3pm, Adults, Auditorium
Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals from its war wounds, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer's son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julian Carax. But when he sets out to find the author's other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax's books in existence. Soon Daniel's seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love. (From the publisher.)
Find a copy of the book here. Ebook copies are available through Digital Library of Illinois or the Libby app.
For those who would like to purchase a copy of The Shadow of the Wind, please support our local independent bookstore, The Book Stall at 811 Elm Street in Winnetka.
