Culture

Brooks Memorial Library will be closed Monday, January 20, in observance of  the national Martin Luther King holiday. Make a virtual visit to the library that day as all databases and the online catalog will be available at www.brookslibraryvt.org. 

You may also check out and download eBooks, eAudio, and stream independent movies, with your library card. Click on the “Digital Media” button and follow the link. Book and non-print drops will be open for returns during the hours the library is closed. Contact the library at 802.254.5290, info@brookslibraryvt.org.

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 readings and dates are: 1/9– One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; 1/16–Matryona’s Home;; 2/13 the 1970 Nobel Lecture; and the 1978 Harvard Class Day Address. 

How do heroes and heroines cope with calamity in the very different worlds of the thriller, steampunk, and science fiction? Join a lively discussion with a panel of three authors in the Brooks Memorial Library meeting room on Wednesday, January 15, at 7 PM, and find out.

Travis Hiltz began writing in college, where he had an one act play produced and accumulated a small collection of rejection letters. He has since gone on to have over a dozen short stories published and become a regular contributor to both Blackcoat Press and Pulp Empire.

Betsy Woodman draws upon her vivid memories of growing up in India—playing hide–and-seek in the Mughal tomb behind her house in New Delhi, studying the dance styles of Bharat Natyam, and attending boarding school at the foot of the Himalayas—to write her gleefully charming Jana Bibi Adventure series. Love Potion Number 10 (Henry Holt; on sale August 13, 2013) is the second installment of this series, and Woodman’s hardcover debut, following the success of the beloved Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes.

In her recent book, Jana, her loyal parrot, and the gang at the Jolly Grant House are back as their small town in India is rocked by an espionage scandal and a homemade remedy that has love on everyone’s mind. Jana’s fortune-telling has brought a lot of attention to the small town of Hamara Nagar, and now that the dust has settled and the town is safe from the threat of being flooded by a government dam, all eyes are on the Scottish-born card-reader Jana and her feisty, loose-beaked parrot, Mr. Ganguly. Some people, though, are not to be trusted, and Mr. Ganguly finds himself the target of a potential kidnapping that puts Jana and her household on edge.

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.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: A Reading and Discussion Series, Thursday, January 09, 2014 04:00pm – 05:30pm

The readings and dates  are: 1/9– One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; 1/16–Matryona’s Home;; 2/13  the 1970 Nobel Lecture; and the 1978 Harvard Class Day Address.