Join us for these upcoming book discussions at Wilmette Public Library.
CLASSICS & CONTEMPORARY
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry Tuesday, January 11th, 10:30am
Thomas McNulty, aged barely seventeen and having fled the Great Famine in Ireland, signs up for the U.S. Army in the 1850s. With his brother in arms, John Cole, Thomas goes on to fight in the Indian Wars—against the Sioux and the Yurok—and, ultimately, the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, the men find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in. An intensely poignant story of two men and the makeshift family they create with a young Sioux girl, Winona, Days Without End is a fresh and haunting portrait of the most fateful years in American history and is a novel never to be forgotten. Costa Book of the Year award winner and longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize. (From the publisher)
Copies of the book are available here. Ebook and eaudiobook copies are available through Digital Library of Illinois or the Libby app.
Registration will close two hours before the program begins and registrants will receive a link to join shortly thereafter.
NOVELS @ NIGHT: NONFICTION EDITION!
Smile: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl Wednesday, January 19th, 7:00pm
In celebration of Wilmette's 150th anniversary, we will be discussing Smile: The Story of a Face by Wilmette-native Sarah Ruhl. With a play opening on Broadway, and every reason to smile, Sarah Ruhl has just survived a high-risk pregnancy when she discovers the left side of her face is completely paralyzed. She is assured that 90 percent of Bell’s palsy patients see spontaneous improvement and experience a full recovery. Like Ruhl’s own mother. But Sarah is in the unlucky ten percent. And for a woman, wife, mother, and artist working in theater, the paralysis and the disconnect between the interior and exterior brings significant and specific challenges. So Ruhl begins an intense decade-long search for a cure while simultaneously grappling with the reality of her new face—one that, while recognizably her own—is incapable of accurately communicating feelings or intentions.(From the publisher)
Copies of the book are available here. Ebook and eaudiobook copies are available through Digital Library of Illinois or the Libby app.
Registration will close two hours before the program begins and registrants will receive a link to join shortly thereafter.
LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS/WPL BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP
Refugee High: Coming of Age in America by Elly Fishman Wednesday, January 26th, 11:00am
For a century, Chicago’s Roger C. Sullivan High School has been a home to immigrant and refugee students. In 2017, during the worst global refugee crisis in history, its immigrant population numbered close to three hundred—or nearly half the school—and many were refugees new to the country. These young people came from thirty-five different countries, speaking among themselves more than thirty-eight different languages. For these refugee teens, life in Chicago is hardly easy. They have experienced the world at its worst and carry the trauma of the horrific violence they fled. In America, they face poverty, racism, and xenophobia, but they are still teenagers—flirting, dreaming, and working as they navigate their new life in America. (From the publisher)
Find a copy of the book here. Ebook copies are available through Digital Library of Illinois or the Libby app and are always available through Hoopla.
Registration will close two hours before the program begins and registrants will receive a link to join shortly thereafter.
