Shakespeare Discussion

We at the library love the summer Shakespeare productions by Theatre Under the Stars sponsored by our neighbors at Court Street Arts at Alumni Hall. To prepare for this year's season, we will host a discussion of The Taming of the Shrew on Friday. June 22 at 7:00 PM. The play will be performed a week later, on Friday, June 29, next door. Our discussion is free and open to the public.

One of Shakespeare's most popular and enduring comedies, The Taming of the Shrew is also one of his most controversial plays. Many find the plot to be inherently misogynistic and the behavior of the characters unnecessarily cruel. Katherina, the titular shrew to be tamed, delivers a long monologue near the end of the play which appears to advocate the absolute submission of wives to their husbands, and this scene has proven particularly problematic, especially for contemporary audiences.

The "out of control woman" who requires "taming" was a familiar figure in both drama and folklore in Shakespeare's day. Nevertheless, contemporary scholars believe that even in the Elizabethan era, the play's extreme sexism was controversial; they point to a sequel (written by Shakespeare's successor at the Globe Theater) that features some of the same characters but in which the sexual power politics are reversed. Alternatively, many argue that the play's apparent sexism is not intended to be taken at face value; some contend that it is to be understood as ironical commentary on relations between the sexes, while others hold that it is mitigated by the unreal, farcical nature of the play as a whole.

Despite its controversial nature, The Taming of the Shrew has been staged and adapted for film many times. Perhaps the best-known of the numerous film versions is the adaptation directed by Franco Zeffirelli that starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The play has also inspired other adaptions, including several operas, the musical Kiss Me, Kate, and the 1999 film 10 Things I Hate About You.

Please join us to kick off this summer's selection of Shakespeare productions!

Chaon and Murakami Discussion

Join us Thursday, April 26 for the next edition of Book Club for Writers, in which we read and discuss short stories with a particular focus on questions of writing and craft. This month, we will discuss "Big Me" by Dan Chaon and "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning" by Haruki Murakami.

The discussion will be held at 7:00 PM at library, and is free and open to all. Copies of the stories are available at the library.

Dan Chaon is the author of two novels and three collections of short stories, most recently Stay Awake (2012). His short stories have won the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been selected for Best American Short Stories anthologies. His collection Among the Missing, which includes "Big Me," was a finalist for the National Book Award. He teaches creative writing at Oberlin College.

Haruki Murakami is the winner of such international literary awards as the Franz Kafka Prize, the Jerusalem Prize, and the International Catalunya Prize. Perhaps the best-known in the West of living Japanese writers, Murakami is the author of such novels as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore, A Wild Sheep Chase, and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. His most recent novel, 1Q84, was a sensation in Japan, where it was published in three volumes, and an international phenomenon when published in English last year. He is widely considered, as described in The Guardian, as "among the world's greatest living novelists."

Book Club for Writers is a fiction discussion group that meets four times a year. It was created by the New Hampshire Writers' Project and is sponsored locally by a fiction writing group that meets weekly at the Haverhill Corner Library. The summer edition will be held on Thursday, July 26 and will feature "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs and "Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl.

Author Tea with Jane K. Cleland

The library will host an author tea with acclaimed mystery novelist Jane K. Cleland on Sunday, April 15. Cleland is the author of the Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries, which are set in New Hampshire and have been hailed as "Antiques Roadshow for mystery fans." The tea will be held from 3:00 to 5:00 PM at Susan Brown's Rock Creek Farm on Route 10 north of Haverhill Corner. Catering will be provided by Janice Robinson, and admission will be $10, to benefit the library.

Cleland's popular series features antiques appraiser Josie Prescott, who operates an antiques store and auction house in fictional Rocky Point, New Hampshire. The first volume in the series, Consigned to Death, has been selected by Library Journal as one of twenty-two "core titles" recommended for libraries seeking to build their collections in cozy mysteries. The Josie Prescott books are "packed with antique lore, complex characters, and intricate plots," says Library Journal.

Cleland has just published her seventh mystery in the series, Dolled Up for Murder, which has already been praised by Publishers Weekly for "action [that] builds to a seamless and fitting conclusion."

In addition to her novels, Cleland has also published short stories in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, where she has a new story scheduled for this summer. Her books have been bestsellers for the bookstores of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. She has served on the national board of the Mystery Writers of America and is past president of its New York City chapter. She is on the faculty of Manhattanville College's Master of Arts in Writing program and has taught writing at MIT.

Call the library to reserve a spot for this event.

Bleak House Book Discussion

The library will host a discussion of Bleak House by Charles Dickens on Monday, March 19 at 7:00 PM. The discussion will be free and open to the public, and copies of the book are available to borrow from the library in advance.

Frequently named by critics as Dickens's best novel, Bleak House is his most complex in terms of plot and character and his most innovative in terms of narration. The novel is also one of the very in English literature to feature a professional detective as a character; Inspector Bucket participates in several investigations in the course of the book and in the latter part, conducts a murder inquiry. (The character was probably based on a real Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Charles Frederick Field.)

The lynchpin of the novel is the long-running lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which provides the vehicle for Dickens's savage satire of England's Court of Chancery. At that time, Chancery had jurisdiction over questions involving wills, estates, guardianship, property, and other matters, and was notorious for its arcane rules and sluggish pace; in the novel, Chancery suits are depicted as blighting the lives of most litigants while their lawyers prosper and thrive. Only those who can turn their backs on the litigation, such as the admirable John Jarndyce, escape its baleful influence. The novel both reflected and contributed to popular dissatisfaction with the Chancery system, and some twenty years after its publication, Parliament enacted comprehensive reforms of the legal system.

Bleak House was also controversial in its time for its use of spontaneous human combustion as a plot device, though Dickens himself believed in the phenomenon and vigorously defended that belief.

The library's discussion series featuring the works of Dickens will conclude on April 16 with Great Expectations.

Chicken and Biscuit Supper Saturday March 10th

• 5:30 at the 1st Congregational Church of Haverhill in the newly renovated Parish Hall

• To Benefit the Haverhill Corner Library. Book sale starts at 5pm. Tickets $10 Menu: Chicken and Biscuits*Coleslaw*Hot Fudge Brownie Sundae Raffle $30 Gift Certificate to Woodsville Book Store! Raffle Tickets $1 each To Reserve tickets call 603-989-5578 or purchase tickets at the library.