Talk About Books

Talk About Books meets every third Wednesday of the month at the Guilford Free Library at 6:30.  As we are anticipating a larger than usual turn-out, we will hold the July discussion at the Broad Brook Community Center, next door to the library. Altar to an Erupting Sun  is a near-future story of one community facing climate disruption in the critical decade ahead.   Rae Kelliher is a veteran environmental activist and pioneer in the death-with-dignity movement. Facing a diagnosis of terminal illness, she engages in a shocking suicide murder, taking the life of an oil company CEO for his role in delaying responses to climate disruption. Seven years later, Rae’s friends and family gather at her Vermont farm community to try to understand her violent exit and the rapid social transformations around them.     Chuck Collins  is a Guilford Vermont resident. He is a campaigner and storyteller who has worked for decades on environmental and economic...

Talk About Books meets every third Wednesday of the month at 6:30 at Guilford Free Library. All are welcome to join the discussion. Contact the library if you wish to get a copy of the current book.  Amy Bloom's memoir is an illuminating story of two people whose love leads them to find a courageous way to part--and of a woman's struggle to go forward in the face of loss. Amy Bloom began to notice changes in her husband, Brian: He retired early from a new job he loved; he withdrew from close friendships; he talked mostly about the past. Suddenly, it seemed there was a glass wall between them, and their long walks and talks stopped. Their world was altered forever when an MRI confirmed what they could no longer ignore: Brian had Alzheimer's disease. Forced to confront the truth of the diagnosis and its impact on the future he had envisioned, Brian was determined to die on his feet, not live on his knees. Supporting each other in their last journey together, Brian...

  Talk About Books meets every third Wednesday of the month at 6:30 at the Guilford Free Library.   In Half Broke Horses , Jeannette Walls brings us the story of her grandmother, told in a first-person voice that is authentic, irresistible, and triumphant. "Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls's no nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town -- riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car ("I loved cars even more than I loved horses. They didn't need to be fed if they weren't working, and they didn't leave big piles of manure all over the place") and fly a plane. And, with her husband Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette's memorable moth...

  Talk About Books meets every third Wednesday of the month at 6:30. Our April selection, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia reeks of old houses and family secrets. After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of b...

  Talk About Books meets every third Wednesday of the month at 6:30 at Guilford Free Library. There is a zoom option available, though most people are attending in person. FRIEDRICH ENGELS once said that he learned more about postrevolutionary French society from Balzac than from ''all the professed historians, economists and statisticians of the period together.'' The same might be said of slavery in America and Edward P. Jones who writes about its history not as if it were fixed in time, safely over and done with, but as if anything could happen in the chaos of the moment. The Known World opens with the death of a master of 33 slaves in antebellum Virginia. None of his property grows teary-eyed, though, at the news that Henry Townsend has died. They surely don't know that when he obtained his first slave he wanted to be ''the kind of shepherd master God had intended,'' someone who would provide ''good food for his slaves, no whi...

  Talk About Books meets every third Wednesday of the month at 6:30 at Guilford Free Library; in person or via zoom. What are animals feeling and experiencing? Why do they feel so compelling and close?  Who are you?  Weaving decades of field observations with exciting new discoveries about the brain, Carl Safina's landmark book offers an intimate view of animal behavior to challenge the fixed boundary between humans and nonhuman animals. In Beyond Words, readers travel to Amboseli National Park in the threatened landscape of Kenya and witness struggling elephant families work out how to survive poaching and drought, then to Yellowstone National Park to observe wolves sort out the aftermath of one pack's personal tragedy, and finally plunge into the astonishingly peaceful society of killer whales living in the crystalline waters of the Pacific Northwest. Beyond Words brings forth powerful and illuminating insight into the unique personalities of animals through ...

  Talk About Books meets every third Wednesday of the month at 6:30 at Guilford Free Library. We enjoy meeting in person, but there is always a zoom option available. Books for the following month are selected by those present at the meeting. Louise Erdrich bases this novel on a real person. She uses the letters written by her grandfather which detail his resistance against termination bills meant to assimilate Objiwe people into broader American society through a variety of means, including the end of federal recognition of the sovereignty of indigenous tribes.  Erdrich has referred to the letters as "[...] beautiful, full of humor and storytelling." She based The Night Watchman on his loving personality and commitment to his tribe. This historical fiction provides detailed descriptions of surroundings and relationships between characters. Alongside the political story line, readers follow a variety of other characters through daily life on the reservation, family trage...