Books

Award-winning Vermont author Katherine Paterson will consider the importance and many benefits of reading in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on October 1 at 7:00 pm. Her talk, “Reading for the Life of the World,” is part of the Vermont Humanities Council’s First Wednesdays lecture series and is free and open to the public. 

Paterson has twice won both the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award. She received the 1998 Hans Christian Andersen Medal as well as the 2006 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for her work. Her books include Bridge to Terabithia, Jacob I Have Loved, The Great Gilly Hopkins, and The Day of the Pelican. An active promoter of reading and literacy, Paterson lives in Barre, Vermont.

Alzheimer’s educator and author Patti Kerr will speak at the Brooks Memorial Library on Wednesday, September 10th at 2 PM in the Library’s Meeting Room on the 2nd Floor. She will also repeat her talk at 7 PM. Kerr, a Certified Alzheimer’s Educator, is also author of  “I Love You…Who Are You?”, Loving and Caring for a Parent with Alzheimer’s”.

She will discuss Alzheimer’s, her family’s journey with the disease, and how to care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s. She will also provide information and hands-on tips for everyone regarding the disease. 

Want to read this summer? Want to win a prize? Start reading now until August 9, and track your reading online. Share what you are reading with your fellow teens at .

Check out books, magazine, or audiobooks from the Brooks Memorial Library’s Teen Collection on the Main Floor. We also have a display of graphic novels and audiobooks. Those count too!

Brown Bag lunch at the River Garden: BuildingGreen Suite, Monday 23 June 2014, Noon – 1 pm. 

BuildingGreen, Inc. is a local company that serves architects and building professionals nationwide with a well-respected online resource, BuildingGreen Suite. This subscription-based website keeps building professionals up-to-date on progressive building strategies and developments in the constantly changing world of green building materials.

The 13th edition of the Friends of Library Strolling of the Heifers Booksale will take place in the Main Room of the Library on Friday, June 6, 10 AM to 6 PM, and Saturday, June 7, 8 AM to 2 PM. The Giant June book sale is the Friends’ biggest sale of the year. There will be approximately 5,000 items for sale including hardback, paperback and coffee-table books.

Book prices will range from 25 cents to $3.00 with some special interest and coffee-table books priced higher. Titles cover a wide range of subject areas as well as a good selection of fiction. All books have been donated to the Library by community members. The books are screened for good quality and sorted by subject area by Library volunteers.

The Friends of the Brooks Memorial Library Giant June book sale will be held on Friday, June 6 from 10AM to 6PM and Saturday, June 7 from 8AM to 2PM.  The sale coincides with the Strolling of the Heifers weekend festivities.

The Giant June book sale is the Friends’ biggest sale of the year.  There will be approximately 5,000 items for sale including hardback, paperback and coffee-table books. A fine collection of Celtic and medieval history books will be on sale.

Be the first to know what new titles are coming into the Brooks Library collection. Click HERE for the current online edition of Brooks Memorial Library New Book Alerts. It’s easy and it’s free.

For more information contact the Brooks Memorial Library at brookslibraryvt.org. Click HERE to sign up for New Book Alerts. Happy reading! 

Please join Marlboro scholar and Professor of Religious Studies Amer Latif, in a journey through the literature of Islam. The discussion for Wednesday, May 28, 7 pm will be Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissi.

Books are available at the Library’s circulation desk. Islam has long provided a source of inspiration through which Muslims experience, understand, and guide their everyday lives. The readings for this theme can be seen as literary reflections on Muslim piety and communal concepts such as ethics, governance, knowledge, and identity. Each one reveals transformations in faith and identity, as Muslims living at different times and in different places have interpreted Islamic traditions to meet their distinctive cultural realities and spiritual needs.

Join clinical psychologist Tracey Allysson in a talk about her book, Dying & Living in the Arms of Love; One Woman’s Journey around Mount Kailash, at Brooks Memorial Library on Wednesday, April 30, 7 PM in the meeting room on the 2nd floor. Alysson circumambulates Mt. Kailash through prostrations and records her life-altering sojourn at the center of the spiritual universe. Tracey Alysson has a  Ph.D.  and is a clinical psychologist with a passion for the spiritual in human experience and the human in spiritual experience, records her pilgrimage to Tibet in her book.

Alysson’s work is an autobiographical travel book reminiscent of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer’s bestseller “Seven Years in Tibet.”“I was not aware that circumambulating Mt. Kailash is called khora, and that a very small number of pilgrims will do khora with prostrations,” Alysson recollects.  “It was from within my heart that there arose a fierce longing and devotion to go to Kailash, to lie on the land of Tibet with my heart open wide.

Muslim Journey: Literary Reflections on Islam: The Conference of the Birds by Farid al-Din Attar, translated by Dick Davis and Afkham Darbandi. Wednesday 23 April 2014, 7 – 9 pm. Please join Marlboro scholar and Professor of Religious Studies, Amer Latif, in a journey through the literature of Islam. Islam has long provided a source of inspiration through which Muslims experience, understand, and guide their everyday lives.

The readings for this theme can be seen as literary reflections on Muslim piety and communal concepts such as ethics, governance, knowledge, and identity. Each one reveals transformations in faith and identity, as Muslims living at different times and in different places have interpreted Islamic traditions to meet their distinctive cultural realities and spiritual needs.

Celebrate your library! For National Library Week, April 13-19, 2014, take a selfie in your favorite spot at Brooks Memorial and post it to your social media (or ours) to show the world the truth of the National Library Week slogan: lives change @ your library. Read on for more information on how it works–and to see more fabulous library selfies!

Take a selfie, alone or with friends, in a favorite spot at Brooks Memorial Library. We recommend filling out a National Library Week thought bubble to include in the picture. It will telegraph the important idea to all the friends who spot you on Facebook, Twitter, or your other favorite social media site.

The series will begin on Wednesday, April 9, 7 PM  with a discussion of The Arabian Night , edited by Muhsin Mahdi, translated by Husain Haddawy. Please join Marlboro scholar and Professor of Religious Studies, Amer Latif, in a journey through the literature of Islam.

The evening reading and discussion series will focus on five books. The Arabian Nights (anonymous), edited by Muhsin Mahdi, translated by Husain Haddawy; The Conference of the Birds by Farid al-Din Attar, translated by Dick Davis and Afkham Darbandi; Snow by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Maureen Freely;  Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissi; and Minaret by Leila Aboulela. Islam has long provided a source of inspiration through which Muslims experience, understand, and guide their everyday lives.

This year’s annual Friends of Library Big Book Sale is coming early with Spring flowers. Join your fellow community members and sift through the thousands of  paperbacks, DVD’s, and audio books for the Big Spring Book Sale, to raise funds for the support of the Friends of Brooks Memorial Library.

The sale is scheduled for Friday, April 11, 10 to 6 and Saturday, April 12, 10  to 2. Books and other items are piling up for this important annual event. Come early for the best selection! Remainders will be on sale during the month of April during regular library hours.

April Gallery Walk Book Reading, 7:15 pm on April 4th at Everyone’s Books – discussion and refreshments.

A reading and discussion with the authors of The Risk Of Returning.

An excellent new novel set in Guatemala, a society beset by the legacy of a century of American interventionist policies. Authors Rudy and Shirley Nelson of Amherst MA. will reflect on their time in Guatemala,as well as the art and labor of novel writing.

Join Vermont Humanities scholar Richard Wizansky for this reading and discussion series which features the shorter works by the great Russian writer, dissident, and former Cavendish, Vermont resident and includes his most read and highly regarded novella as well as several of his famous speeches. 

The final reading for the series is the 1970 Nobel Lecture; and the 1978 Harvard Class Day Address. Wednesday 26 March 2014, 4:30pm – 6:00pm. 

Please join us. Conductor and pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn will discuss the writing of his father Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and their family’s life in Cavendish in the 1980s in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library on Friday, March 28, at 7 PM. (This talk was originally scheduled for February 5 at 7:00 pm.)

Solzhenitsyn will recollect his father’s painstaking crafting of the Red Wheel — a history of the Russian Revolution — and his family’s life in Cavendish during Solzhenitsyn’s exile from the Soviet Union. Ignat Solzhenitsyn was born in Moscow in 1972, the middle son of author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Be the first to know what new titles are coming into the Brooks Library collection. It’s easy and it’s free. Click here for the current online edition of Brooks Memorial Library New Book Alerts. Click here to sign up for New Book Alerts. Happy reading! For more information contact the Brooks Memorial Library at brookslibraryvt.org

Please join Marlboro scholar and Professor of Religious Studies, Amer Latif, in a journey through the literature of Islam. The evening reading and discussion series will focus on five books.

The Arabian Nights (anonymous), edited by Muhsin Mahdi, translated by Husain Haddawy; The Conference of the Birds by Farid al-Din Attar, translated by Dick Davis and Afkham Darbandi; Snow by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Maureen Freely;  Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissi; and Minaret by Leila Aboulela. Islam has long provided a source of inspiration through which Muslims experience, understand, and guide their everyday lives.

Because of snow, Federico Garcia Lorca in Vermont was rescheduled to Saturday, Feb. 22, at 3:00 p.m. in the meeting room.

Please join independent scholar, Patricia Billingsley for a richly illustrated slide talk with vintage photos, maps, and other related images about the friendship between Spanish poet Federico García Lorca and Vermont poet Philip Cummings.

Join Vermont Humanities scholar Richard Wizansky for this reading and discussion series which features the shorter works by the great Russian writer, dissident, and former Cavendish, Vermont resident and includes his most read and highly regarded novella as well as several of his famous speeches.

The 1970 Nobel Lecture; and the 1978 Harvard Class Day Address. Thursday 20 February 2014, 04:30pm – 06:00pm

Sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council. Location Brooks Library Meeting Room. Contact Info Jerry Carbone 802-254-5290 jerry@brookslibraryvt.org http://brookslibraryvt.org