The Rye Free Reading has great books going on...
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Spinning Straw Into Gold by Joan Gould
Thursday, January 6, 1:15pm - 2:15pm in the Mystery Room
The group will meet one Thursday each month (usually the first Thursday) at 1:15 pm. All comers welcome. Join this new afternoon book group for friendly and pithy conversation. Open to one and all. Copies of the book will be available at the 1st floor circulation desk. Please read it before the meeting.
From Booklist
The virginal princess, the ugly stepsister, the wicked witch: through timeless fairy tales and their contemporary adaptations in films and novels, such caricatures have become deeply embedded in the collective consciousness and have helped shape society’s standards for feminine beauty and behavior. Assigning them real-life counterparts, Gould examines how such stereotypes influence a woman’s life as she moves from maiden to matron to crone through a comprehensive analysis of these familiar storybook characters. If Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty represent a young girl’s confrontation of parental authority and cultural expectations, then Rapunzel, Jane Eyre, and Scarlett O’Hara symbolize her coming-of-age, and the tales of Hansel and Gretel and Demeter and Persephone explore ways in which elderly women face their final years and eventual death. In an engaging and erudite analysis of how these metamorphoses have been informed by or reflected in our ancient myths and contemporary mores, Gould reevaluates the personas women adopt in real life and in literature. Carol Haggas
This event sponsored by the Rye Free Reading Room.
Book Cafe Book Group
Friday, January 7, 9:30am - 11:00am in the Mystery Room
A monthly meeting of this long-running and lively book group. Gather with interesting, thoughtful people to discuss this month’s book selection and snack on coffee and cake. To keep the titles timely and meaningful, each month’s choice is agreed upon at the previous meeting and all books are available at the library prior to the meeting. Great fun.
From Publishers Weekly
In Swedish novelist Olsson’s somber debut, Veronika Bergman returns to Sweden after a childhood following her diplomat father around the world (her mother abandoned the family), and after publishing her first novel titled Single, One Way, No Luggage. She rents a small house in a rural town to work on her second, but in solitude finds herself seized by feverish dreams and paralyzed by the “stillness” of the landscape and the memories of her recently dead fiancé. Reclusive septuagenarian Astrid Mattson, thought by the village to be a witch, takes an interest in Veronika, and the two strike up a friendship based on loss. Against the backdrop of the changing seasons and their small, plangent houses, the two women slowly tell each other their most closely guarded secrets (which concern their mothers and lovers), and venture, tentatively, out of the safety of their routines. Olsson has a clear feel for the emotional wellsprings of both characters, but can’t convert her terse lyricism into a fully realized story. (Mar.)
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This event sponsored by the Rye Free Reading Room.
