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.
These books will share some of the most popular and photogenic locations on the peninsula while also giving you a little bit of knowledge on how to capture these locations in beautiful and awe-inspiring photographs.
Don't miss this wonderful event for Cape Codders,
travelers, and photographers alike.
To register, please contact Christy at youth.adult@sturgislibrary.org
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October Collectible Book, Art, and Ephemera Sale | |
Mark your calendars for a special book, art, and ephemera sale to be held October 2nd through the 14th, 2023. The sale will feature Cape Cod books, books by Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Lincoln, Mary Oliver, Robert Finch, and other Cape authors. There are hundreds of 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, art, poetry, history, literature, biography, and much more.
Do you have special, collectible, or antiquarian books to donate to the sale? Contact Library Director Lucy Loomis at director@sturgislibrary.org 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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Saltworks and the Cape Cod Economy | |
Tuesday, September 19, 2023 at 6:00pm
Join historian Robert Kelley, in partnership with the Barnstable Land Trust, for a special talk on Cape Cod's saltworks, a major industry at one time. Learn about the dynamics of salt exports to America in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the development, expansion and decline of the industry in Barnstable County.
Register by clicking here or visit blt.org/events
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News Literacy Workshop with Veteran Journalists |
Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at 6:00pm
Three in four Americans overestimate their ability to distinguish between legitimate and false news headlines.
Do you?
News literacy is the ability to judge the credibility of our daily onslaught of information, including its source and how it was obtained. Come learn from two veteran journalists – Susan Moeller and Alicia Blaisdell-Bannon — how you can see behind the curtain and become a smarter and more discerning consumer of news, no matter your political stance.
Tune into WCAI's "The Point" to listen to Susan and Alicia discuss this topic on September 21st at 9:00am and again at 7:00pm.
Click here for details.
Email reference@sturgislibrary.org to register
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Author Talk with Kelvin Chin | |
September 30, 2023 at 10:30am-11:30am
Join author, meditation teacher, and life after life expert, Kelvin Chin for a discussion about his latest book After the Afterlife: Memories of my Past Lives. Kelvin will also be discussing his bestselling first book, Overcoming the Fear of Death: Through Each of the 4 Main Belief Systems, and his second book, Marcus Aurelius Updated: 21st Century Meditations on Living Life.
Kelvin is Executive Director and Founder of the Turning Within Meditation and Overcoming the Fear of Death Foundations. He is an internationally-recognized meditation teacher featured in Business Insider, Newsweek, and Kaiser Health News.
Registration is requested. Email Christy at youth.adult@sturgislibrary.org to register.
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Friday, September 15, 2023 at 12:30pm
Adults are encouraged to join Children's Librarian Christy Munier for a monthly gathering honoring the brilliance of picture books and picture book art.
Each month a different children's book author and/or artist will be discussed. Drawing inspiration from the month's featured picture book, gatherers will partake in a casual art session after the discussion.
First up, we'll be discussing author/illustrator Jon Klassen.
Registration is requested. Please email Christy at youth.adult@sturgislibrary.org
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Barnstable Council on Aging:
Finding Anchors in Our Community
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September 19, 2023 at 10:00am
Join Stacey Cullen as she discusses the community resources available in Barnstable.
Questions? Contact Stacey Cullen at
stacey.cullen@town.barnstable.ma.us
or call 508-862-4765
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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 youth.adult@sturgislibrary.org
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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 youth.adult@sturgislibrary.org
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Special Edition Doxie Day Storytime | |
Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 10:30am
In honor of the upcoming Doxie Day celebration, join us for an extra special Storytime this week! We'll be reading Hot Dog by Doug Salati and saying hello to a very special pup named Winnie! Information about Doxie Day can be found below.
Happening on Saturday, September 30th from 12:00pm-3:00pm, Doxie Day is a Cape Cod tradition celebrating everything dachshund in historic Barnstable Village. Join the Wiener Waddle and Waggin’ Parade, and cheer on your favorite doxie in the Doxie Dash. Think you have the longest dachshund or teeniest weenie? Enter contests to win prizes and bragging rights. Come on out and sing the official Dachs-Song, mingle and meet other doxies to benefit local animal organizations.
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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 youth.adult@sturgislibrary.org
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The Sprightly Bright Book Club | |
Held on the third Wednesday of every month at 4:00pm
Are you between the ages of 9-ish 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 thirdWednesday of every month at 4:00pm.
Registration is required.
For more information and to register, please email Christy at youth.adult@sturgislibrary.org
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Adult Fiction to Check Out This Month | |
Citizen Orlove
by Jonathan Payne
Set in an unnamed central European kingdom at the end of WWI, Payne’s stellar debut pokes hilarious fun at spy fiction through the exploits of a fishmonger named Orlov. Taking a shortcut through an alley one day, Orlov becomes concerned that the phone he hears ringing in a government office remains unanswered. He enters the building through an open window, picks up the call, and gets a cryptic “life and death” message he’s told to convey to someone named Agent Kosek. When Orlov sets off through the building to look for Kosek, he’s mistaken for a potential operative himself and, despite being wholly clueless, is paired up with another agent on a covert assignment to protect the king from assassins. As their mission progresses, the well-meaning but bumbling Orlov finds himself enmeshed deeper and deeper in plots he doesn’t understand. Through a blend of action and picaresque buffoonery this auspicious debut announces a bright new voice in comic suspense.
Click here to reserve
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North Woods
By Daniel Mason
When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods of western Massachusetts will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave—only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.
This magisterial and highly inventive novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason brims with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature, and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment, to history, and to one another. It is not just an unforgettable novel about secrets and destinies, but a way of looking at the world that asks the timeless question: How do we live on, even after we’re gone?
Click here to reserve
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The Fraud
by Zadie Smith
It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—and cousin by marriage—of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years.
Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.
Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story.
The “Tichborne Trial”—wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title—captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task. . . .
Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity and the mystery of “other people.”
Click here to reserve
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Adult Nonfiction to Check Out This Month | |
Three Roads Back: How Emerson, Thoreau, and William James Responded to the Greatest Losses of Their Lives by Robert D. Richardson |
In Three Roads Back, Robert Richardson, the author of magisterial biographies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James, tells the connected stories of how these foundational American writers and thinkers dealt with personal tragedies early in their careers. For Emerson, it was the death of his young wife and, eleven years later, his five-year-old son; for Thoreau, it was the death of his brother; and for James, it was the death of his beloved cousin Minnie Temple. Filled with rich biographical detail and unforgettable passages from the journals and letters of Emerson, Thoreau, and James, these vivid and moving stories of loss and hard-fought resilience show how the writers' responses to these deaths helped spur them on to their greatest work, influencing the birth and course of American literature and philosophy.
Click here to reserve
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Lawns into Meadows: Growing a Regenerative Landscape by Owen Wormser |
In a world where lawns have wreaked havoc on our natural ecosystems, meadows offer a compelling solution. They establish wildlife and pollinator habitats. They're low-maintenance and low-cost. They have a built-in resilience that helps them weather climate extremes, and they can draw down and store far more carbon dioxide than any manicured lawn. They're also beautiful, all year round. Owen describes how to plant an organic meadow that's right for your site, whether it's a yard, community garden, or tired city lot. He shares advice on preparing your plot, coming up with the right design, and planting--all without using synthetic chemicals. He passes along tips on building support in neighborhoods where a tidy lawn is the standard. Owen also profiles twenty-one starter grasses and flowers for beginning meadow-makers, and offers guidance on how to grow each one.
Click here to reserve
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Bathsheba Spooner: A Revolutionary Murder Conspiracy by Andrew Noone |
PLEASE NOTE that author Andrew Noone will be speaking at Tales of Cape Cod on Monday, September 11th at 7 PM. For more information visit Tales' website at talesofcapecod.org/2023-programs
What possessed a woman from the elite of eighteenth-century New England society to conspire with American and British soldiers to murder her husband at the midpoint of the American Revolution? The story of Bathsheba Spooner has alternately fascinated and baffled residents of Worcester County for centuries. Beyond central Massachusetts, the tale is largely unknown. Many, when first hearing of the scandal, assume it to be the stuff of legend. It was, in fact, the most sensational "true crime" tragedy of the American 1700's.The episode's ingredients included a cold, possibly abusive husband, a handsome, directionless teenager, a pair of roughened British prisoners-of-war, and readily available cash set aflame by social and political isolation, wartime uncertainty and social upheaval. Add to this mixture a haughty, impetuous and (possibly insane) beautiful woman, and what resulted was a brutal homicide whose notoriety was only heightened by the distraction of New Englanders war-weary and economically stressed. The crime was familiar to observers and participants whose names still represent for us the best in Revolutionary Massachusetts: a signer of the Declaration (Robert Treat Paine), Governor John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson's attorney general (Levi Lincoln), Justice Jedediah Foster (shared creator of the Massachusetts constitution, which inspired the national document), one of the colonies' most famed printers (Isaiah Thomas) and, even, obliquely, Abigail Adams.
Click here to reserve
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Kids' Books to Check Out this Month | |
The Book that No One Wanted to Read
Written by Richard Ayoade with illustrations by Tor Freeman
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The life of a book isn't easy, especially when people judge you by your cover. And this narrator should know--it's the book itself, and it has a lot of opinions. It gets irritated when readers bend its pages back, and it finds authors quite annoying. But it does have a story to tell. Multitalented author Richard Ayoade and award-winning illustrator Tor Freeman bring to life a hilariously subversive take on the nature of books and reading, with a heartening theme of finding the courage to tell our own stories. Readers of all ages will be delighted by the myriad bookish references and laughs on every page.
Recommended for kiddos 10-14 years old.
Click here to reserve
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The Hidden World of Gnomes
written and illustrated by Lauren Soloy
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A delightful introduction and collection of facts about the secret lives of gnomes that will charm and fascinate readers of all ages. This book is an introduction to the hidden folk called gnomes, who live in a happy place they call The Pocket. Where is The Pocket, you ask? Well, it’s all around you, all the time. Gnomes are curious little creatures, and they’re very shy. But after reading this book, you will learn to spot the telltale signs that gnomes are around . . . and maybe even meet one!
Recommended for kiddos 3-7 years old
Click here to reserve
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Sturgis Library
3090 Main Street P.O. Box 606
Barnstable, MA 02630
www.sturgislibrary.org
director@sturgislibrary.org
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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