Library News and Views

By Rachel Rawn

This year we’re going to try something new and have a fall reading series in addition to our winter reading series! We’ll be reading contemporary books from around the world, so if you weren’t able to get that exotic vacation yet this year, here’s your chance to travel through reading.

All discussions are Thursday evenings at 7 p.m.

Sept. 10, “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” by Muriel Barbery, discussion leader by Will Rawn;

Sept. 24, “Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi, discussion leader Peggy Safely;

Oct. 8, “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murakami, discussion leader April Snyder;

Oct. 22, “The House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende, discussion leader to be announced.

As always, refreshments will be provided by our wonderful Friends of the Library.

“The Elegance of the Hedgehog” is available to be checked out at the Havre-Hill County Library. This book takes place in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building. The concierge, Renee, is fat, cantankerous, and addicted to television. Unbeknownst to the residents of the apartment building, however, Renee is actually cultured and self-taught, and she adores art, philosophy, music and Japanese culture. Meanwhile, there’s Paloma, a 12-year-old genius living in the apartment building, who has decided to end her life on the day of her 13th birthday. Paloma, like Renee, is hiding her true self and her finest qualities from the rest of the world. They discover they are kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man, Ozu, arrives in the building and befriends them both.

This book discussion series is part of the Havre Hometown Humanities programming. As many of you are probably aware, this year Havre was the recipient of a generous grant through Humanities Montana, called Hometown Humanities. This grant will be used to plan humanities programming in Havre throughout the 2015-16 year. People from all over the area, including Montana State University-Northern, Stone Child College, Aaniiih Nakoda College, the Havre public school system, the Havre-Hill County Library, and many other awesome organizations and individuals are involved in planning Havre programming as part of Hometown Humanities.

If you’re interested in keeping abreast with the humanities programming that will be coming to Havre, or in becoming involved with the planning, the best way is to sign up for the Hometown Humanities Havre newsletter. Go to http://humanitiesmontana.org/programs/hometownhumanities to sign up.