Friday, September 20 at noon

Do you enjoy cooking and love good food? If so, join our new Cookbook Club! This is a combination of a book club and a potluck lunch. Each month, we will choose a cookbook (or a small selection of related cookbooks) which each of the participants will select a recipe and prepare it for the group to taste. We are looking to hold nice discussions and enjoy good food and company! If you are a food enthusiast, please register early as the number of participants is limited.

Copies of the book are available for registered participants at the Circulation Desk. In order to facilitate a range of courses, you will be assigned to prepare either an entree, an appetizer or side, or dessert. Plates, utensils and water will be provided; please bring serving utensils for your dish.

September’s cookbook is: Jacques Pépin Cooking My Way: Recipes and Techniques for Economical Cooking by Jacques Pepin. 

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

May 13 – This Other Eden

Join us for a lively discussion of This Other Eden by Paul Harding! Monday May 13 at 6:30 p.m. Copies of the book will be available to be checked out at the circulation desk.

Registration required.

About This Other Eden

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Tinkers, a novel inspired by the true story of Malaga Island, an isolated island off the coast of Maine that became one of the first racially integrated towns in the Northeast.

In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island where they can make a life together. Over a century later, the Honeys’ descendants and a diverse group of neighbors are desperately poor, isolated, and often hungry, but nevertheless protected from the hostility awaiting them on the mainland.

During the tumultuous summer of 1912, Matthew Diamond, a retired, idealistic but prejudiced schoolteacher-turned-missionary, disrupts the community’s fragile balance through his efforts to educate its children. His presence attracts the attention of authorities on the mainland who, under the influence of the eugenics-thinking popular among progressives of the day, decide to forcibly evacuate the island, institutionalize its residents, and develop the island as a vacation destination. Beginning with a hurricane flood reminiscent of the story of Noah’s Ark, the novel ends with yet another Ark.

In prose of breathtaking beauty and power, Paul Harding brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters: Iris and Violet McDermott, sisters raising three orphaned Penobscot children; Theophilus and Candace Larks and their brood of vagabond children; the prophetic Zachary Hand to God Proverbs, a Civil War veteran who lives in a hollow tree; and more. A spellbinding story of resistance and survival, This Other Eden is an enduring testament to the struggle to preserve human dignity in the face of intolerance and injustice.

Intro to Confucianism

A talk by Wesleyan professor Stephen Angle

Thursday, September 29 at 6 PM

At its core, Confucianism describes a way for us to live and grow together in our world—a way characterized at its best by joy, beauty, and harmony. By drawing on the greats of the Confucian tradition as well as modern feminists, psychologists, and even Jimi Hendrix, Growing Moral explains what Confucianism is and makes a case that it is worth trying out today. Author Stephen C. Angle will chat about the book, share a few passages, and looks forward to your questions and comments.

Registration required. Click here to register.

The Poison Squad

Now meeting on the third Tuesday of the month. Join us on Tuesday, Sept. 21 at 7:00 p.m. to discuss The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the 20th Century by Deborah Blum. Copies of the book will be available at the checkout desk beginning August 1. This book discussion is open to all and registration is required. You will receive a link to the zoom meeting by 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept 21. Register here.

Archer Mayor & Friends

New-England based authors have new books out this fall! Join us for a virtual author event  featuring New York Times bestselling author Archer Mayor in conversation with fellow New England mystery writers Sarah Stewart Taylor, Paula Munier, and Julia Spencer-Fleming. In partnership with RJ Julia, who will be making books available for sale during the program. Learn more about the authors’ new books here!

We’ll be discussing new releases and answering your questions!  A link to the event will be emailed to all registrants. 

Tuesday November 10 7 PM

Registration required. Please register here.

Hoopla Book Club Hub

Join us for an online book discussion using Zoom software! We’re reading News of the World by Paulette Jiles

In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.

In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.

Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forming a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.


Download a copy of the e-book or e-audiobook immediately on Hoopla (with your Durham Library card) here.  No holds and no waiting. Registration and email address required to receive a zoom link. We will email a Zoom link to all registered participants prior to the meeting. Please register here.

Online discussion (from the comfort of your own home!) will take place on Tuesday October 20 at 7:00 PM. See you then!