Adult and Young Adult Read Around the World Summer Reading Challenge | |
June 15—August 31
This summer, explore new places and see the world through the eyes of people from other cultures by reading ANY four books set in different continents.
Visit the library to pick up a reading log to enter our summer reading raffle. The prize is a Sturgis Library hat, mug, and a $25 gift certificate to Nirvana Coffee Company!
For more information email Gabrielle at [email protected]
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Fall Collectible Book Sale | |
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Mark your calendars for a special book sale to be held October 2nd through the 14th, 2023. The sale will feature many natural history books, including collectible titles on birds, snakes, reptiles, mammals, wildflowers, orchids, and wild plants. Also included are a number of first editions, antiquarian books, books with decorated bindings, history, literature, biography, Cape Cod titles, and much more.
Do you have special, collectible, or antiquarian books to donate to the sale? Contact Library Director Lucy Loomis at [email protected] or call her at 508-362-8448.
Don't forget to stop by during regular hours throughout the year to shop our everyday book sale featuring hard and softcover books for adults, young adults and children, as well as jigsaw puzzles and specialty items.
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Tuesday, August 1, 2023 at 6:00pm
At the start of 1963, The Beatles were a successful local Liverpool band with one hit single; twelve months, two albums, and the arrival of Beatlemania later, they were on the cusp of world domination.
Join author Dafydd Rees for a talk about his book, The Beatles 1963—the meticulously researched, definitive account of the momentous year that sent John, Paul, George, and Ringo to stratospheric heights.
To register email [email protected] or call (508)362-6636
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The Notorious Edward Low: Pursuing the Last Great Villain of Piracy's Golden Age | |
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Tuesday, August 8, 2023 at 6:00pm
Join historian Len Travers for a talk about his new book, The Notorious Edward Low: Pursuing the Last Great Villain of Piracy's Golden Age.
1723: Were pirates the ruthless, seafaring ninjas of fantasy, or the inevitable losers in a squalid "Golden Age of Piracy?" The career of The Notorious Edward Low of Boston, reportedly one of the worst of the breed, offers some correctives to popular beliefs about this era. Low's eventual battle with HMS Greyhound, and its aftermath, tell us more about piracy's reality than centuries of swashbuckling fiction.
To register email [email protected] or call (508)362-6636
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Law and Crime in Barnstable Village Walking Tour | |
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Saturday, August 12, 2023 at 9:00am
Join retired judge Gregory Williams for a walking tour of locations in Barnstable Village associated with historic crimes.
Stories of murder, suicide and more in a picturesque half-mile walk from Barnstable’s second courthouse to the 17th -century jail.
For more information click here.
To register email [email protected] or call (508)362-6636
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Sturgis Library's jigsaw puzzle collection began in 2018, well before the pandemic made us all into puzzle fanatics. We offer a great selection of traditional jigsaw puzzles, but our special wooden puzzle collection is noteworthy! We have over 130 high quality handcrafted wooden puzzles by puzzle makers like Artifact, Nautilus, Liberty, and our newest favorite, Stumpcraft. We've worked with Artifact from the beginning, and they generously gave us a great discount that allowed us to start our puzzle collection. Our latest puzzle partner, Stumpcraft, recently donated four of their puzzles to the Library and also offer us an institutional discount so we can grow our collection even more.
We welcome donations of wooden and regular jigsaw puzzles throughout the year. as long as they are in nearly new condition and all pieces are present. Contact Lucy at [email protected] for more information.
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Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 5:30pm
All skill levels are welcome at the Tiny Tiny Studio! Join us as we create miniature still life paintings.
The tiny tins provide a space for paint and canvas!
All participants will be able to take home their tiny tins to use for their future creations.
All materials are provided by the library.
Intended for adults and young adults.
Registration is required.
Email Christy at [email protected]
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Tea & Sketch: Final Session | |
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10:00am until 11:00am on:
Join us at Sturgis Library for the final session of this five-part series that combines tea and art. Artists of all ages and skill levels are invited to gather, sip tea, and sketch.
Different blends of tea represent different moods and evoke different feelings. The featured tea during the sketch session will be used as inspiration for the sketch prompt.
Basic materials will be provided by the library but participants are welcome to bring their own art supplies if they prefer.
Registration is not required. Space is ample but not limitless; first come first serve. Questions? email Christy at [email protected]
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Barnstable Council on Aging:
I Want to Stay Home- What Do I Need to Do?
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August 15, 2023 from 10:00am-11:00am
Planning is hard because you never know how your needs might change. The first step is thinking about the kinds of help you might want in the near future. Everyone has a different situation. This program will discuss options according to the National Institute on Aging
Questions? Contact Stacey Cullen at
[email protected]
or call 508-862-4765
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Saturday at 9:30am-10:30am
August 12th & August 26th
September 9th & September 23rd
Join Yoga Neighborhood at Sturgis Library for Yoga at Sturgis Library
Yoga Neighborhood fosters health and wellness across the community through compassionate and empowering yoga that is available to all regardless of fitness level.
Registration is not required.
Suggested donation: $5.00
Questions? Email Christy at [email protected]
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Meets every Tuesday at 6:00pm
Adults and young adults of all skill levels are invited to Sturgis Library to share their writing!
Writers will gather, share their writing, and be sent home with a writing prompt to work on to share at the next gathering.
Registration is requested. Please email Christy at [email protected]
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Outdoor Music Series in September
Bring your own chair or blanket to Sturgis Library's front lawn and enjoy great music, sip a brew, and treat yourself to a delicious cookie from Kayak Cookies! This event is family friendly and free!
2:00-3:30 Saturday,
September 9th Mike Machaby
September 16th Greg Loftus
September 23rd Willie J. Laws
September 30th Molly Parmenter and Dave Ellis
Author Talk with Christopher Setterlund
Tuesday, September 5, 2023 at 6:00pm
Join author and 12th generation Cape Codder, Christopher Setterlund, as he discusses his new books In My Footsteps: A Cape Cod Travel Guide (2nd edition) and Photographer's America: Cape Cod Beyond the Dunes
Tuesday, September 19, 2023 at 6:00pm
Join Local historian Bob Kelley for a talk about the history of saltworks on Cape Cod. This program is brought to you in partnership with The Barnstable Land Trust.
Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at 6:00pm
Join journalists Susan Moeller and Alicia Blaisdell-Bannon for a news literacy workshop and a timely discussion about the current state of American news media.
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Cryptid Creatures Summer Reading Program | |
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Tuesday June 20, 2023 through Friday August 18, 2023
All ages are encouraged to read and earn button pins all Summer long! Earn a Cryptid Creature* button pin for each genre you read! (*Cryptid Creatures are animals that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild, but are not recognized by science.)
When you complete a genre, come into the library, tell a librarian, and you will be granted the Cryptid Creature button pin that represents the completed genre! If there's a better way to decorate your backpack for the upcoming school year, we haven't heard of it!
Questions? Email Christy at [email protected]
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Friday, August 18. 2023 at 10:30am
Learn the basics of Comic book writing! Kiddos will be guided in character creation and storyline construction. Each participant will be given their own blank comic book to fill in with their comic creation.
Ages 7 and up.
Space is limited. Registration is required. Email Christy at
[email protected]
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Intergenerational Storytime | |
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Friday, August 11, 2023 at 10:30am
Join the Barnstable Council on Aging for an extraordinary storytime about love, family, and memory loss. Stacey Cullen will be reading The Remember Balloons by Jessie Oliveros with illustrations by Dana Wulfekotte. This poignant story gives a sense of value to those with memory impairment and provides a connection for the family members affected.
The Friends of Barnstable Council on Aging have generously donated a copy of The Remember Balloons to the library's collection.
Registration is not required. Questions? Email Christy at [email protected]
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YMCA Free Lunch Program at Sturgis Library | |
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Every Wednesday at 11:00am-12:30pm
June 21, 2023 through August 30, 2023
The Y's Summer Food Program will provide nutritious meals and snacks to kids 18 years old and younger throughout the Summer at Sturgis Library.
No registration or identification necessary.
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Wednesdays at 10:30am
Swing by to read a story, illustrate a picture, talk with friends, and learn about nature at Sturgis Library's Storytime!
Geared to ages 2-4 but all are welcome to attend.
Registration is not required.
Questions? Email Christy at [email protected]
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The Sprightly Bright Book Club | |
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Held in-person on the second Wednesday of every month at 4:00pm
Are you between the ages of 8ish to 12ish years old? Do you love to read? If you answered yes to these questions, then The Sprightly Bright Book Club is the place for you.
Let's choose, read, and discuss books together.
The discussion will take place on the first Wednesday of every month at 4:00pm.
Registration is required.
For more information and to register, please email Christy at [email protected]
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Adult Fiction to Check Out This Month | |
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The Stolen Coast
by Dwyer Murphy
Jack might be a polished, Harvard-educated lawyer on paper, but everyone in the down-at-the-heels, if picturesque, village of Onset, Massachusetts, knows his real job: moving people on the run from powerful enemies. The family business—co-managed with his father, a retired spy—is smooth sailing, as they fill up Onset’s holiday homes during the town’s long, drowsy off-season and help clients shed their identities in preparation for fresh starts.
But when Elena, Jack’s former flame—a dedicated hustler who's no stranger to the fugitive life—makes an unexpected return to town, her arrival upends Jack’s routine existence. Elena, after all, doesn’t go anywhere without a scheme in mind, and it isn’t long before Jack finds himself enmeshed in her latest project: intercepting millions of dollars’ worth of raw diamonds before they’re shipped overseas.
Infusing a fast-paced plot with sharp wit and stylish prose, CrimeReads editor-in-chief Dwyer Murphy serves up an irresistible page-turner as full of heart as it is of drama.
Click here to reserve
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The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
by James McBride
From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.
Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.
Click here to reserve
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Tom Lake
by Ann Patchett
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.
Click here to reserve
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The Romantic
by William Boyd
From the award-winning, internationally best-selling author, a beguiling romp of a novel, at once intimate and panoramic, about the adventures and misadventures of a nineteenth-century everyman.
One man, many lives...Cashel Greville Ross experiences more of everything than most, from the rapturous to the devastating, from surprising good luck to unexpected loss. Born in 1799, Cashel seeks his fortune across the turbulence of multiple continents, from County Cork to rural Massachusetts, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, embedded with the East Indian Army in Sri Lanka, sunning himself alongside the Romantic poets in Pisa. He travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, even a father. And he experiences all the vicissitudes of existence, including a once-in-a-lifetime love that will haunt the rest of his days. In the end, his great accomplishment is to discover who he truly is—which is the romance of life itself, and the beating heart of The Romantic.
Click here to reserve
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Adult Nonfiction to Check Out This Month | |
Shapeshifters: The Wondrous World of Jellyfish by Lisa-Ann Gershwin | |
Jellyfish come in a dazzling array of colors, shapes, and sizes, drifting through every ocean, from the surface to the deepest of the deep seas, and are even found in freshwater locations. These ancient creatures, also called sea jellies (they are not, technically, fish), are so otherworldly and luminous that it is no wonder they are often compared to mythical shapeshifters. Some are so delicate that they shatter with the smallest disturbance to the water, while the tenacity of others means they can withstand almost any temperature, any salinity, starvation, and even being dismembered. And some are truly biologically immortal. This visually breathtaking book showcases 100 species of jellyfish within its pages -- from the ubiquitous Aurelia to the enigmatic Velella -- along with astounding facts about these fascinating marine life-forms.
Click here to reserve
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Les Paul 70 Years: The Definitive History of Rock's Greatest Guitar | |
Produced in collaboration with Gibson, this is the ultimate history of the Les Paul, rock's greatest guitar – with unprecedented access to behind-the-scenes stories and unseen photography.
- The greatest Les Paul models
- Stunning photography, including never-before-seen images
- Detailed technical information
- Iconic Les Paul players, songs, albums and concerts
- Other treasures from the Gibson vaults
Celebrating 70 years of a music icon, this is an ode to a magical guitar and the music made with it.
Click here to reserve
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Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks -- A Cool History of a Hot Commodity by Amy Brady | |
Ice is everywhere: in gas stations, in restaurants, in hospitals, in our homes. Americans think nothing of dropping a few ice cubes into tall glasses of tea to ward off the heat of a hot summer day. Most refrigerators owned by Americans feature automatic ice machines. Ice on-demand has so revolutionized modern life that it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t always this way—and to overlook what aspects of society might just melt away as the planet warms.
In Ice, journalist and historian Amy Brady shares the strange and storied two-hundred-year-old history of ice in America: from the introduction of mixed drinks “on the rocks,” to the nation’s first-ever indoor ice rink, to how delicacies like ice creams and iced tea revolutionized our palates, to the ubiquitous ice machine in every motel across the US. But Ice doesn’t end in the past. Brady also explores the surprising present-day uses of ice in sports, medicine, and sustainable energy—including cutting-edge cryotherapy breast-cancer treatments and new refrigerator technologies that may prove to be more energy efficient—underscoring how precious this commodity is, especially in an age of climate change.
Click here to reserve
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Kids' Books to Check Out this Month | |
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The Skull written and illustrated by Jon Klassen
In a big abandoned house, on a barren hill, lives a skull. A brave girl named Otilla has escaped from terrible danger and run away, and when she finds herself lost in the dark forest, the lonely house beckons. Her host, the skull, is afraid of something too, something that comes every night. Can brave Otilla save them both?
Click here to reserve
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My Friend Loonie written by Nina LaCour; illustrated by Lindsay Ashling
With a good friend like Loonie the balloon, anything is possible. From neighborhood walks to dance parties, Loonie makes each activity a little brighter, a little more lit with sunshine. But when it's time for Loonie to flat away home, the sunshine goes, too.
Click here to reserve.
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Sturgis Library
3090 Main Street P.O. Box 606
Barnstable, MA 02630
www.sturgislibrary.org
[email protected]
508-362-6636
Our hours are:
Monday 10-5
Tuesday 10-8
Wednesday 10-5
Thursday 10-5
Friday 10-5
Saturday 10-4
Sundays and holidays CLOSED
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