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.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Chicken and Biscuit Supper Saturday March 10th
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.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
David Copperfield Book Discussion
The library will sponsor a book discussion featuring David Copperfield by Charles Dickens on Monday, February 20 at 7:00 PM. The discussion will be free and open to the public, and copies of the book are available to borrow in advance.
David Copperfield is not only one of Dickens's most popular and enduring books, it is also the novel in which he drew most directly on autobiographical material. In particular, the episode in which the young protagonist is sent to work in a factory is reminiscent of the author's own childhood experience of working ten-hour days in a boot-blacking factory to help support his family.
Dickens is particularly famous for the many memorable characters he created, and David Copperfield features two of the best remembered, Wilkins Micawber and Uriah Heep. The impecunious but ever-hopeful Mr. Micawber, who is jailed for debt in the course of the novel, is generally considered to be modeled on Dickens's own father, who was also imprisoned for debt. The name of the odious Uriah Heep, meanwhile, has become a synonym for manipulative and malevolent sycophancy.
Like most of Dickens's novels, David Copperfield was first published in serial form; it appeared as a book in 1850. It was the author's first novel to be written in the first person, and Dickens subsequently declared it to be his own favorite from among all his novels.
This discussion is part of our series featuring the works of Charles Dickens in honor of the bicentennial of his birth this year.
David Copperfield is not only one of Dickens's most popular and enduring books, it is also the novel in which he drew most directly on autobiographical material. In particular, the episode in which the young protagonist is sent to work in a factory is reminiscent of the author's own childhood experience of working ten-hour days in a boot-blacking factory to help support his family.
Dickens is particularly famous for the many memorable characters he created, and David Copperfield features two of the best remembered, Wilkins Micawber and Uriah Heep. The impecunious but ever-hopeful Mr. Micawber, who is jailed for debt in the course of the novel, is generally considered to be modeled on Dickens's own father, who was also imprisoned for debt. The name of the odious Uriah Heep, meanwhile, has become a synonym for manipulative and malevolent sycophancy.
Like most of Dickens's novels, David Copperfield was first published in serial form; it appeared as a book in 1850. It was the author's first novel to be written in the first person, and Dickens subsequently declared it to be his own favorite from among all his novels.
This discussion is part of our series featuring the works of Charles Dickens in honor of the bicentennial of his birth this year.
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