Current Fiction Book Group

Saturday, January 14, 2023⋅4:00 – 5:00pm

Led by Claudia Cayne

"Bewilderment" by Richard Powers

The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain…

In person in the Oak Room for those who are vaccinated and comfortable.

Registration link - register once for all book groups

Screening of the film "The Vow from Hiroshima" at The Moviehouse in Millerton

Jan 15, 2023

10:30 a.m.

The Salisbury Forum presents a free screening of the film The Vow from Hiroshima at the Millerton Moviehouse on Sunday, January 15 at 10:30 am. Doors open at 10 am. The film is an intimate portrait of Setsuko Thurlow, who was pulled from a fiery building after the bomb was dropped in 1945. The experience shaped her future life as she kept a pledge she made to her classmates who perished that no one would experience such a fate again. She led the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.

This moving story is told through the lens of her friendship with a second generation survivor, Mitchie Takeuchi. The screening will be followed by Q and A with the producer and director, Susan Strickler, a resident of the Northwest Corner of Connecticut.

A Literary Seminar by Mark Scarbrough

Scoville Memorial Library

Salisbury Connecticut

Tuesdays, January 24 - March 14, 2023

In person in the Wardell Community Room and on Zoom

I Think, Therefore I Talk: Stein, Freud, Proust, And Modern Identity

24 January 2023 through 14 March 2023

10:30 a.m. to about 12:30 both in person and via zoom

Who am I? It’s a psychological question, sure. But also a historical question. And a political, cultural one. Today in European and North American society, we answer that question based on the work of writers and thinkers who toiled in the looming wreckage of the nineteenth century, as the great ideals came apart and they struggled to make meaning in an increasingly fragmented world. In this literary seminar, we’ll read three “personal” narratives—or attempts to come at what a person is—by three of the formative thinkers of the beginnings of our world: Gertrude Stein, Sigmund Freud, and Marcel Proust. Prepare for lively discussions, challenging readings, great camaraderie, and mind-resetting narratives as we delve into the heart of the modernist question of exactly who we are.

Registration required

Readings will be from Stein's Three Lives (1909), Proust's Swann's Way (1913), and Freud's A Case of Hysteria (Dora) (1905).

Some copies of these books will be available through SML. For information about the specific editions recommended by Scarbrough and the books available for purchase at Oblong Books, Millerton, please visit Oblong Books Landing Page (oblongbooks.com/scovillelibrary)

Upcoming, late January

Beginning Bookbinding Workshop with Lily Rand

Date and time in late January to be announced

For adults and teens 15 or above

If you may be interested in participating, please write :

[email protected]

Ongoing Weeklies with SML

Meditation Kathy Voldstad *

Sundays, 9:00 a.m

*While Kathy Voldstad is traveling in December, Mary Therese Wright is kindly holding Zoom classes in Kathy's stead. The Zoom link for Mary Therese's class, which changes each week, is announced the day before the class on an email coming directly from Wright. If you are not on Wright's mailing list and would like to be, please write: [email protected] and we will forward your address.

Kathy Voldstad's class resumes when she returns in January.

Bridge with John Dippel at SML

Classes meet on Wednesdays, 2:00 - 4:00 pm

Local resident John Dippel is offering a course on “Bridge Basics," held in the main circulation room of SML. The course will cover evaluating your cards, bidding fundamentals, and playing the hand. It will run through the fall. If you want to join, send an email to [email protected]. Please include your phone and email address, as well as the level of bridge you’re interested in. Couples and singles are both welcome. Dippel, a historian, and author returned to playing bridge when he moved to Salisbury ten years ago and took a similar course. He has been playing regularly in town ever since.