Open to all persons interested in practicing their Spanish, this group meets weekly in the Vermont Room. Participants should have a comfortable level of speaking, as all conversation will be in Spanish. For more information, ask at the Adult Circulation desk.
An Address in Amsterdam Mary Fillmore Wednesday, November 30 at 7 p.m.
Mary Fillmore will talk about the 13-year-long creation of An Address in Amsterdam, an historical novel about a young Jewish woman who joins the underground. Fictional Rachel Klein must grow up fast when she decides to take a stand against the Nazi occupiers, alongside an artist who became a forger, a librarian who is an underground leader, and a former student who assassinates betrayers of the resistance. How did Mary, a non-Dutch Gentile born after the war, become haunted by this subject? What research was needed to reconstruct the world of 1940-43 for the modern reader? Amsterdam was once a sanctuary for Jewish people for centuries, but the highest percentage of its Jewish population was murdered compared to the rest of Western Europe. How did that happen, and how does it bear on our own times? An Address in Amsterdam both carries the warning of how fast an open, liberal society can change, and offers the example of an ordinary young woman who decides to take courageous action again and again, even when she is tired and afraid.
Wednesday, December 7th at 7 p.m. Wallace Stevens and the Art of the Empty Mind
Yale Professor of English and Dean of humanities Amy Hungerford demonstrates how, in the early 20th century, Wallace Stevens set out to clear away a Romantic view of nature and see the world freshly in his distinctly modern poetry.
Thursday, December 8
7 - 8:30 p.m. Local mechanical engineer Paul Kenyon will demonstrate and lead a workshop in all stages of physical design with the free version of SketchUp. If you plan on using your own laptop for the workshop, please install the latest version of the software in advance. Free, but registration is required. Register at 388-4095.