Read below for our tribute to the legendary satirist Mark Twain. 
Index
-Announcements
-Exhibition Connection: Mark Twain the Science Enthusiast
-Featured Upcoming Programs: Dec. 9th Holiday Caroling Party and Open House 
-Recommended Reading: Two Kids' Books Inspired by Twain's Adventures
- Recommended Reading: Twain and Stanley Enter Paradise by Oscar Hijuelos 
- Special Collections: Samuel Clemens' Early Life Fed His Love of Stories
- Community Corner: Scandinavian Club's Christmas Marketplace 
- Shop for Books Online
Did you know - we're now open on Thursday nights until 8 p.m.!

Forthcoming talks with the Library Speakers Consortium feature luminaries like Geraldine Brooks (12/6) and Fredrik Backman (12/10). Click here to register for upcoming events or view recent recordings.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Library Hours
Monday - Friday: 10am - 6pm
NEW! Thursday: Open until 8 p.m.
Saturday: 10am - 4pm
Sunday: closed

You're invited to participate in our anonymous 5-minute survey! You'll directly help us plan educational programs, improve library services, serve as stewards of the Special Collections of rare books, manuscripts, and archives, and maintain our historic building for generations to come

EXHIBITION CONNECTION

Our current exhibition, The Lure of the Garden: The Enduring Desire to Work and Shape the Land, includes texts on beekeeping, animal husbandry, and horticulture; vestiges of Americans' early scientific pursuits. As it turns out, Mark Twain was a self-taught naturalist, as a Scientific America interview with scholar Dr. Michael Pratt explained. For one, as Pratt said, "As a river boat pilot [in his youth], [Twain] had to carefully study the river, remember where the various landmarks and dangers were based on what he saw and the currents and the shores and the shoreline, remember where they were and carefully navigate the river." These same skills of observation served him well as a journalist and novelist.

Twain also kept a robust library of books about natural history and wrote essays on scientific topics such as "Was the World Made for Man?" in 1903, a rebuttal to Alfred Russell Wallace's later-in-life ideas that the universe had been created for humans. Twain drew upon his knowledge of fossils and paleontology and used his signature sly humor in lampooning the scientific community's overuse of jargon and terminology. Click here to read more!

We're hiring! Tap here to view a post for a new position.

UPCOMING PROGRAMS

Holiday Caroling Party and Open House
December 9th, 5 p.m.

Join Pequot Library for our signature winter event, full of festive holiday cheer: crafts, choirs, treats, horse-drawn carriage rides, cocoa with Coco Bunny, surprise visitors from the North Pole, and our first-ever holiday market!

We need helpers! Click here to sign up - there are loads of fun jobs!

Click here to see our full calendar of events.

MORE FOR ADULTS

Twain and Stanley Enter Paradise
by Oscar Hijuelos
A luminous work of fiction inspired by the real-life, 37-year friendship between two towering figures of the late nineteenth century, famed writer and humorist Mark Twain and legendary explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley. Author Oscar Hijuelos was a Pulitzer Prize winner.
>>Check me out

Looking for something special? Sign up for an Adult Book Bundle to receive a curated box of two books and a cozy refreshment, especially for you.

FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS

Mark Twain? What Kind of Name is That?
By Robert Quackenbush 

This delightful book outlines the life of the famous humorist whose numerous occupations included printer's apprentice, steamboat pilot, gold miner, frontiersman, and reporter. 
>> Check me out

The Trouble Begins at 8
By Sid Fleischman

Here, in high style, is the story of a wisecracking adventurer who came of age in the untamed West--a rebel who surprised himself by becoming the most famous American of his time.
>> Check me out

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

Samuel Clemens was born on November 30,1835, in the frontier town of Hannibel, Missouri. His father died when Sam was 11, and he left school to work as a printer's assistant, laying out news stories and whetting his appetite for journalism. At age 18, he headed east to Philadelphia and New York, where he found some success as a reporter. Four years later, he decided to return home to the Mississippi River with the intention of working as a riverboat captain, a career change that came to a halt with the outbreak of the Civil War.

Sam headed west at the behest of his brother, who'd been appointed secretary of the Nevada Territory, and his journey brought him into contact with Native American peoples and later inspired his book Roughing It, shown here from our Special Collections. After trying his hand as a silver prospector, Sam wrote for the Territorial Enterprise‚ a Nevada newspaper. During this time, he began using his pen name‚ Mark Twain. His big break came soon after, in 1865, with the publication of his short story “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” in national papers. 

On a side note, Pequot Library Special Collections has a copy of Tom Sawyer from the Pennyroll Press, which will go on display in next summer's exhibition of private press books!

Roughing It by Mark Twain
New York: Harper & Brothers (1899)
Pequot Library Special Collections

COMMUNITY CORNER

Scandinavian Club: Christmas Market
Saturday, December 3, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
You'll find artisan vendors both inside and outside, Nordic gifts and food, handmade crafts, and entertainment.

PEQUOT BOOK SALES ONLINE

Shop Used Books Online!
Did you know that you can shop a range of new, used, and collectable books through our online storefront? Click the link below to see what's new!
>> Click Here