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September Art Exhibit
Karen Rossi
During the month of September, the Library will showcase the work of Karen Rossi. Karen Rossi began her professional fine art career in 1987 by winning several public sculpture commissions, which she created in the shop of her family's specialty welding business. Born in Connecticut, Karen believes her fascination with "Yankee yarns" and early New England folk art inspired her narrative and whimsical designs. Highly regarded for her original metal sculptures, she also licenses her flying characters of hobbies and professions. The growing brand now encompasses over fifteen licenses. The smallest versions of her sculptures are adorned with buttons and charms, which help to create a visual story portrait. Karen's designs are internationally collected and dramatic 6ft – 30 ft versions have found their way into entry halls of banks, restaurants, hospitals and shopping malls.
The opening reception for the artist is Sunday, September 5 from 4:00 to 6:00 pm.
Events Calendar
Reservations: Please call the library (860-542-5075) to make reservations for programs or to request additional information.
Summer Fun at the Norfolk Library
Photos From the Library Auction and Children's Summer Programs
Solar Energy Program
The Norfolk Library will host an informational presentation on Solar Hot Water Rebate Programs offered by the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund. Also covered will be the federal 30% tax credit allowed for solar installations, and how tax credits combined with rebates can cover over 40% of the cost of an inexpensive hot water system that will pay for itself in a very short time. The program will be on Monday, September 13, at 6:00 PM. Please call the Norfolk Library for additional information.
Friday Brown Bag and Books
After a glorious summer talking about books at the library, we’re passing on to the autumn and early winter. Here’s a great chance to hunker down with a good book as we fire up the furnaces and prepare for our winter in-keeping. Come join us on select Fridays at noon for a collection of novels that also turn inward, that explore the choices life offers. We’ll beat back the impending chill in the best way: together with books.
Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson
Friday, September 17th, 12:00pm – 2:00pm
What happens when a persnickety, up-tight, maybe-gay, self-important British writer takes up permanent residence in bucolic Italy next door to the hard-scrabble, no-nonsense, refugee daughter of a former Soviet satellite strongman? What happens is a ridiculously funny novel about cultural misunderstandings—a book stuffed full of some of the worst recipes you’ll ever see. Mortadella icing on a cake, anyone?
Old Filth by Jane Gardam
Friday, October 1st, 12:00pm – 2:00pm
Sir Edward Feathers is an old-school barrister who has taken on the nickname of everyone who went east to seek their fortunes: "Failed In London, Try Hong Kong." Now retired in Dorset, he looks back over his lackluster life which was nonetheless richly rewarded, all told in jarring juxtapositions of colonial sumptuousness and chaos.
Solar by Ian McEwan
Friday, October 15th, 12:00pm – 2:00pm
Nobel-Prize winning physicist Michael Beard is doing a fat lot of nothing—except running around the globe, giving high-paying lectures about his decades-old theory, the one built on Einstein's shoulders, a trailblazing piece of work that's mostly come to nothing. Maybe that's because Beard is himself a hustler who willy-nilly commits serious breaches of scientific, sexual, and academic ethics—and is also perhaps the savior of mankind.
Washinton Square by Henry James
Friday, October 29th, 12:00pm – 2:00pm
After reading this novel, will you even be able to say the name of the heroine, Catherine Sloper, without a sigh? Caught between her domineering father and the (perhaps) worthless man she loves, Catherine comes to terms with life's choices in a townhouse on the famous New York park. Her father's wealth insulates her—and perhaps addles her. Her aunt's advice is patently ridiculous. Is Catherine truly "slow" as her father repeatedly tells her? Or is she "just" ground up in the mill of her father's convention? Or is he right all along?
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
Friday, December 3rd, 12:00pm – 2:00pm
In 1974, Philippe Petit strung a line between the towers of the World Trade Center and walked across the empty void. This crazy feat links together ten separate stories in this gorgeous novel about the possibilities of life in the densely-packed city. The stories continue apace, briefly intersect, touch each other at the margins—and finally come together in a brilliant ending that is like the city itself: "bigger than its buildings, bigger than its inhabitants."
The Literature of the Civil War Lecture Series
With Dr. James Kraft
The Civil War can be considered the most significant single aspect of American history. Even more than the Revolution that created our nation, the Civil War has deeply preoccupied us, and it continues to do so. It was an internal battle between our family of states; the single greatest destroyer of our people – more than all our other wars combined; the creator of the wealth and power of the nation in the North and for many years a condition of loss and poverty in the South; and the event that attempted to shape the nation's relationship with its Black population, and its other minorities. It also can be seen as our great turning point: from a nation greatly shaped by the European experience to a nation now taking a new exploratory direction, one that is still not resolved.
This series of lectures will look principally at four works related to this war and in doing so attempt to consider how the war shaped our culture, what it meant to be an American, and the kind of literature we wrote. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) influenced the very fact of the war and many people's sense of what slavery meant. Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868) was a children's book that became a portrait of how the American experience was changing. Lincoln's writings expressed our ideals in a language and style that have often been seen as our most significant form of expression. Grant's Personal Memoirs (1895) captured the war's vaste and complex influences in one of the best expressions of our writing style.
While the reading will greatly enhance one's awareness, the lectures will stand on their own and can be experienced without the reading. Should you wish, please read half of Uncle Tom's Cabin for the first lecture.
Monday Night Documentary Series
Dead Birds (1965)
Monday, September 27th at 7:00 pm
Introduced by Sam Messer, artist and Associate Dean of the Yale School of Art. A classic, this first-contact portrait of the Dani people of New Guinea enters deeply into the logic of a stone-age culture.
In Search of Pitt Street (2000)
Monday, October 4th at 7:00 pm
Introduced by the filmmaker Nina Rosenblum. A portrait of the life and work of photographer and longtime Norfolk summer resident Walter Rosenblum.
I Like Killing Flies (2004)
Monday, October 18th at 7:00 pm
Introduced by cooks Bill O'Meara and Heidi Forler. A film about a legendary hole-in-the-wall eatery in New York City's Greenwich Village and its quirky owner and cook, Kenny Shopsin.
Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001)
Monday, October 25th at 7:00 pm
Introduced by trial lawyer Mike Sconyers. A determined public-defense lawyer tries to save a black teenager from an improbable murder charge.
Taking Root: The Vision of Wngari Maathai (2008)
Monday, November 1st at 7:00 pm
Introduced by Paul Barten, Associate Professor of Forest Resources at the University of Massachussetts and Executive Director of Great Mountain Forest. The story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights and defend democracy.
Sound & Fury (2001)
Monday, November 8th at 7:00 pm
Introduced by interpreter for the deaf Paul Atkinson. One family's struggle over whether or not to provide deaf children with cochlear implants, the devices that stimulate hearing.
The Journalist and the Jihadi (2006)
Monday, November 15th at 7:00 pm
Introduced by John Costens, recently of the Wall Street Journal, and Anne Garrels, of NPR. This documentary follows the destinies of the charismatic Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, and his eventual kidnapper, London-born Ahmed Omar Sheikh.
Rain in a Dry Land (2006)
Monday, November 22nd at 7:00 pm
Introduced by the filmmaker Anne Makepeace. Two Somali Bantu families leave oppression in Africa to face the challenge of life in the strange new land of America.
Bach & Friends (2010)
Monday, November 29th at 7:00 pm
Introduced by music editor and conductor Charles Fidlar. World-class musicians reflect on the power and genius of Bach's music and perform his greatest masterpieces.
Bending Gravity With Eric Girardi
Corner Club
On Wednesday, September 29 at 3:20 pm, Eric Girardi launches the After School Program at the Norfolk Library with a stellar event. Eric says, "My objective is to provide a one-of-a-kind breathtaking performance of object manipulation choreographed to music… to bring once stagnant objects to life as art in motion. An artist of over 20 skills from being a world-ranked yoyo player, a juggler of knives, a fire-eater, a stilt-walker and much more, I promise a unique show every time. As a role model I can stress the importance of following one's passions in life."
Norfolk Library Rated 5 Stars
The November 15 issue of Library Journal featured the Norfolk Library as a five-star library based on circulation, Internet usage, event attendance and general attendance for the year of 2007. This is an honour that only 85 libraries nation-wide received. For the full story go to: www.libraryjournal.com
Tales Told by an Idiot
Written and Illustrated by Robin Rose Yurán
Robin Yuran, Co-Director of the Norfolk Library, is also known as The Shelfmouse. Her whimsical and often tongue-in-cheek verse has graced the pages of such publications as Library Journal, The Shy Librarian, Norfolk Now and Verbatim Language Quarterly, not to mention every quarterly issue of the Owl Newsletter since 1998. Yuran's first book The Shelf Life of a Mouse and Other Tales was published in 2003 and nearly sold out (a limited edition of 400) at her book signing. Back with more of the same, Robin has penned and illustrated Tales Told by an Idiot, also a limited edition. Read an excerpt of the book featured on Library Journal online by clicking here.