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• January 2: Mystery Book Club

  The Thomaston Public Library Mystery Book Club will meet on Thursday, January 2 at 11 am to discuss David Downing's Jack McColl series, beginning with Jack of Spies.

   

  From the publisher:

   

  “Set on the eve of the First World War, across oceans and continents, steamliners and cross-country trains, David Downing’s complex and thrilling new espionage novel takes us all the way back to the dawn of that most fascinating of 20th century characters—the spy.

   

  "It is 1913, and those who follow the news closely can see the world is teetering on the brink of war. Jack McColl, a Scottish car salesman with an uncanny ear for languages, has always hoped to make a job for himself as a spy. As his sales calls take him from city to great city—Hong Kong to Shanghai to San Francisco to New York—he moonlights collecting intelligence for His Majesty’s Secret Service, but British espionage is in its infancy and Jack has nothing but a shoestring budget and the very tenuous protection of a boss in far-away London. He knows, though, that a geopolitical catastrophe is brewing, and now is both the moment to prove himself and the moment his country needs him most.

   

  "Unfortunately, this is also the moment he begins to realize what his aspiration might cost him. He understands his life is at stake when activities in China suddenly escalate from innocent data-gathering and casual strolls along German military concessions to arrest warrants and knife attacks. Meanwhile, a sharp, vivacious American suffragette journalist has wiled her way deep into his affections, and it is not long before he realizes that her Irish-American family might be embroiled in the Irish Republican movement Jack’s bosses are fighting against. How can he choose between his country and the woman he loves? And would he even be able to make such a choice without losing both?"

   

  The Thomaston Public Library Mystery Book Club meets the first Thursday of every month at 11 am. February's selection will be decided at January's meeting. For more information, please contact the library at (207) 354-2453.

   

• January 6: Author Talk with John Bragg

  Midcoast author John Bragg will be at Thomaston Public Library on January 6 at 5 pm to discuss his recently published book, Exit 8.

   

  Exit 8 was just selected as winner of the 2019 BookLife Fiction Prize by Publishers Weekly! The judges praised it as a “poignant and beautifully written” and a “deeply impactful work.” In Bragg’s novel, construction of the nation’s massive Interstate Highway System is underway, heading north, tearing through the bucolic Connecticut River Valley. Unstoppable. In its path, sits the small Vermont hill farm that Roland Tuttle’s ancestors settled generations ago, where Roland has spent his entire life—caring for his animals, plowing with his team of horses, harvesting by hand, walking to town. Living in the past. Exit 8 tells the history of the Tuttle family and Roland's place in that history. It is a story of personal choice, nature’s dark beauty, and the often unremarked costs of progress, but most of all it is the story of Roland Tuttle, a man confronted with the loss of the only world he knows and loves.

   

  The event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided. For more information, please contact Thomaston Public Library at (207) 354-2453 or at programs@thomaston.lib.me.us.

   

• January 13: Family Movie & Pizza Night

  Join us Monday, January 13 at 5:00 pm for our Family Movie & Pizza Night! Free and open to all, and pajamas are welcome. We're thrilled to show Abominable this month!

   

  When teenage Yi (Chloe Bennet) encounters a young Yeti on the roof of her apartment building, she and her friends, Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) and Peng (Albert Tsai), name him "Everest" and embark on an epic quest to reunite the magical creature with his family at the highest point on Earth. But the trio of friends will have to stay one step ahead of Burnish (Eddie Izzard, a wealthy man intent on capturing a Yeti, and zoologist Dr. Zara (Sarah Paulson) to help Everest get home.

   

  Abominable is rated PG for "some action and mild rude humor" by the MPAA. The runtime is 97 minutes.

   

  All films for Family Movie & Pizza Night are shown with closed captioning. To RSVP or for more information, please visit our Facebook page, or contact us at (207) 354-2453 or at programs@thomaston.lib.me.us.

   

   

   

• January 14: Let's Talk About It Book Club

  The Let's Talk About It book group, facilitated by author and mentor Lee Heffner, will meet Tuesday, January 14, at 11 a.m. at Thomaston Public Library to continue the series entitled "So Near & So Far: An Exploration of Cuban Literature" with Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina García.

   

  From the publisher:

   

  “Impressive . . . [Cristina García’s] story is about three generations of Cuban women and their separate responses to the revolution. Her special feat is to tell it in a style as warm and gentle as the ‘sustaining aromas of vanilla and almond,’ as rhythmic as the music of Beny Moré.”—Time

   

  Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times).

   

  These discussions are always thought-provoking and lively, and we welcome anyone to join for one book or the whole series! Light refreshments are served.

   

  Next month, the group will wrap up the discussion of Cuban literature with Havana Red by Leonardo Padura. Copies are available to borrow at the library. For more information, please contact the library at (207) 354-2453 or at programs@thomaston.lib.me.us.

   

   

• January 17: Communi-TEA!

  Join us for afternoon tea on January 17 from 3 to 4:30 PM! Delicious treats and hot tea will be served, and all are welcome in the community living room at Thomaston Public Library.

   

  We are doing a special food drive in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this month. Food stamp funding has been significantly cut and many of our neighbors are struggling. If you are able, please help support our community by bringing to a non-perishable food, pet care, or personal care item to donate to the food pantry!

   

• January 21: Intergenerational Book Club

  On Tuesday, January 21 at 2:30 PM, the Thomaston Intergenerational Book Club will discuss The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler.

   

  From the publisher:

   

  "In California’s central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen’s novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships.

   

  "Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy."

   

  On the third Tuesday of every month, the Intergenerational Book Club, a group of men and women of all ages, comes together at the library to share their opinions and ideas about the selected book. All are welcome at the Thomaston Public Library on November 19 at 2:30 PM. If you live in Thomaston and would like to attend but need a ride, please call the library at (207) 354-2453 a week before the discussion date.

   

  In February, the book club will discuss Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini. Copies will be available to borrow at the library and through interlibrary loan. Please make sure to let the library know if you would like to request a copy through interlibrary loan - it can take a week or more for a book to arrive. For more information, please contact the library at (207) 354-2453 or email Caroline at caroline.wardnesbit@thomaston.lib.me.us

   

• January 27: Silent Book Club

  Need an excuse to set aside some time to read? Or perhaps you haven't joined a traditional book club because it feels too much like the assigned reading in high school? Check out Thomaston Public Library's Silent Book Club!

   

  Join us for a half hour of low-key (and completely optional! Introverts welcome!) socializing and light snacks, followed by an hour of reading in companionable silence. There is no required reading, so bring your own book or ask the librarians or the fellow book club members for a recommendation to borrow when you arrive. We typically will meet at the library on the evening of the third Monday of every month, but due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, our next meeting will be Monday, January 27 from 5:30 to 7:00 pm. Learn more about Silent Book Clubs here!