Hi everyone, our October book club gathering will be next Friday, October 9 at 3:00 p.m.
In recognition of Banned Books Week, October 4–10, our October Read is Ray Bradbury’s classic novel Fahrenheit 451.
The book is set in a future America at a time when books have been outlawed and “firemen” are assigned to burn any books found, not to put out fires.
The main character is Guy Montag who takes quite a journey in the novel, going from a firefighter working to destroy books and all the knowledge, ideas and culture they contain, to a book preservationist who does just the opposite – works to find and safeguard books, preserving them so they may be read in the future.
Looking forward to November, our November Book Club gathering will be held at the library on Friday, November 13 at 3:00 p.m. and we’ll be reading the novel The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon.
The Frozen River is a historical mystery novel based on the life of Martha Ballard (1735 – 1812) who was born and raised in Massachusetts and moved with her husband to the wilds of the Kennebec Valley in what is today Maine in 1777. Ballard and her husband raised their family there and Ballard worked as a midwife in the region for decades, becoming a well-respected member of the local community. She started keeping a diary in 1785; and in her diary she listed the names and maladies of patients, herbs she used in treating patients and other tidbits of daily life – the diary eventually had more than 1,000 entries.
The novel is set in 1789 and opens with Ballard being called to examine a body found in the frozen Kennebec River. The body is determined to be that of Joshua Burgess one of two men recently accused of sexual assault by Rebecca Foster, the wife of the local minister.
Ballard records what she observes in her diary and works to solve the murder and obtain justice for Foster. She encounters many challenges along the way but does discover who murdered Ballard and obtains a bit of justice for Foster.
Copies of both Fahrenheit 451 and Frozen River may be picked up at the Circulation Desk at the library at any time.
And a Zoom option is available for book club gatherings. The Zoom link may be obtained by sending an email request to me at reimerl@stls.org
Have a great weekend everyone!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
