Nonfiction Book Club to discuss: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson - Thursday, July 5, 2012 @ 6:30 PM

It's time to set our sights on another nonfiction gem. It seems very appropriate to have a uniquely American story be the subject of the book picked for discussion the Thursday after Independence Day. So read up, and join the discussion of Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns on July 5th @ 6:30pm.

Description from the book jacket:

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to previously untapped data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.

About the Author:

Isabel Wilkerson wont the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing as Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times. The first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism and the first African American to win for individual reporting. She is currently Professor of Journalism and Director of Narrative Nonfiction at Boston University. During the Great Migration, her parents journeyed from Georgia and southern Virginia to Washington, D.C., where she was born and reared. This is her first book.

While we do ask you to obtain the book yourself (and there are plenty of copies in the MVLC library system) this book club is free and open to the public. If you have any questions please email me at sthibodeau@mvlc.org. Happy reading!  

Up Next for Nonfiction Book Club: Common As Air: Revolution, Art and Ownership by Lewis Hyde - Thursday, June 7th @ 6:30pm

Read up and join the PML Nonfiction Book Club at our next discussion of Lewis Hyde's Common As Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership, Thursday, June 7th at 6:30pm. As a librarian and writer, I am especially interested in Hyde's work and highly recommend his previous book: The Gift to anyone engaged in creating art in our highly commercial society.

Last year, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Hyde during a speaking engagement and I'm excited for this opportunity to discuss some of the heady arguments in his most recent book. Common As Air investigates the relatively recent idea of creative works as "intellectual property." Especially with an eye toward how this gels with what the founders of our country thought the best usage of the collective store of human invention, intelligence, and art. As opposed to some of the historical adventure stories the nonfiction book club has been reading, this book is essentially a book length essay revealing the thoughts of a wide ranging mind (Hyde's) as they relate to the the idea of a cultural commons and how to best preserve protect and engage with it. So, the long and short of it is you may want to allow yourself some time for your mind to digest Hyde's incisive and wide ranging arguments.

While we do ask you to obtain the book yourself (and there are plenty of copies in the MVLC library system) this book club is free and open to the public. If you have any questions please email me at sthibodeau@mvlc.org. Happy reading! 

Non-Fiction Book Club - Over the Edge of the World by Laurence Bergreen, Thursday, May 3, 2012 @ 6:30PM

First off, I would like to thank the folks who contributed to last weeks engaged and insightful discussion of Cleopatra: A Life. The intelligence and openness of this group really make my job as moderator easy like Sunday morning.

Speaking of Sunday morning, if you have the benefit of a long weekend it might be a good time to join Non-Fiction book lovers across Lowell as we begin the journey through another truth seeking monograph. This one chronicles Magellan's bold adventure around the globe in search of a better route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. If he only knew, specifically, how big the pacific was he might never have left Europe. I'll leave it to the book jacket to give you a better overall feel for the book:

Ferdinand Magellan's daring circumnavigation of the globe in the sixteenth century was a three year odyssey filled with sex, violence, and amazing adventure. Now in Over the Edge of the World, acclaimed author Laurence Bergreen, interweaving a variety of candid, first-person accounts, some previously unavailable in English, brings to life this groundbreaking and majestic tale of discovery that changed many long-held views about the world and the way explorers would henceforth navigate its oceans.

While we do ask you to obtain the book yourself (and there are plenty of copies in the MVLC library system) this book club is free and open to the public. If you have any questions please email me at sthibodeau@mvlc.org. Happy reading!

Who's Art is it Anyway? Art & Commerce Panel Discussion - Thursday, April 5th, 7pm UMass O'Leary Library Auditorium

Even though it conflicts with our Non-Ficiton Book Club meeting this Thursday (I figure if you've invested the time to read Cleopatra: A Life you're already coming to the meeting, and if not, it's probably too late to start—I wouldn't say the book is uninteresting but it is formidable) I want to give a quick plug to what looks like a fascinating event happening this Thursday, April 5th at 7pm. That would be the Dickens in Lowell / Parker Lecture Series Performance and Panel discussion on Who's Art is it Anyway? this Thursday April 5th at 7pm at the O'Leary Library Auditorium, Room 222, 61 Wilder St, UMass Lowell South Campus.

A trio of UML professors (writer Andre Dubus III, photographer Arno Minkkinen, and musician Alan Williams) each will be sharing some of their work and then engaging in a panel discussion on some of the gnarly ethical dilemmas they face as producers of creative material—including what they think as creative producers about copyright, artistic influence and artistic property.

Reminds me of Lewis Hyde's book Common As Air: Revolution, Art and Ownership which I'll be advocating for at the Non-Fiction Book Group this Thursday—it all comes full circle.

Author Stacy Schiff profiled in the Boston Globe's Sunday Bibliophiles column

I don't know if anyone caught it but Stacy Schiff, the author of this month's Non-Fiction Book Club selection, Cleopatra: A Life, was profiled in this past Sunday's Globe Bibliophiles column. She shares that growing up in Adams, MA, she "rode her bike to the local library, where she was awarded a sticker for each book she read." This reminds me of the Pollard's children's Summer Reading Program (details of the 2012 program will be available in the coming months).

I was impressed by Ms. Schiff's wide ranging readerly interests—fiction and non-fiction alike—and her admission that fiction is her "first a probably true love." I'm sure her abiding love for storytelling is one of the reasons her biographies are such a delight to read.

She also shares a funny little story about Ms. Vera Nabokov's aversion to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. She will be speaking this Wednesday at the MFA about "The Real Cleopatra." Sadly, it appears as though the event is already SOLD OUT.

Non-Fiction Book Club: Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff, Thursday, April 5, 2012 @ 6:30PM

As a humble moderator, I would like to thank, once again the dedicated and insightful folks comprising the Non Fiction book group for a thoughtful, if somewhat contentious, discussion of James Carroll's memoir An American Requiem. Y'all brought it: perspective and passion. Great work.

It is time, once again to set our sights on another nonfiction gem. This time around, we'll be leaving the nebulous, fact bending world of memoir to enter the better researched emotionally removed neighboring province of biography. Though it is clear, the facts of the life of the figure outlined in the chosen book are certainly shrouded in misconception, bombast, and caricature. I am talking of Cleopatra. And the book—meticulously cobbled together by, Pulitzer Prize winning biographer Stacy Schiff (Vera: Mrs. Vladimir Nabakov)—is Cleopatra: A Life.


As Ms. Schiff outlines in her opening chapter there are only a few actual recorded facts known about Cleopatra. The rest of her story has been written by her enemies or admirers, often decades or lifetimes after her death.

And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history. The holes in the record present one hazard, what we have constructed around them another. Affairs of state have fallen away, leaving us with affairs of the heart. A commanding woman versed in politics, diplomacy, and governance; fluent in nine languages; silver-tongued and charismatic, Cleopatra nonetheless seems the joint creation of Roman propagandists and Hollywood directors. ... To restore Cleopatra is as much to salvage the few facts as to peel away the encrusted myth and the hoary propaganda.

Ironically enough, the rights to this myth peeling biography have been bought by film producer Scott Rubin with Angelina Jolie's name being bandied about to play the queen. Ah, Hollywood.

I've posted a video of Ms. Schiff on the Tavis Smiley show talking about her reasons for taking on the task of illuminating the life of this elusive character.

Watch Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

NF Book Club - An American Requiem by James Carroll - Thursday, March 1st @ 6:30pm

What a refreshing thing it is to discuss a book with a diverse group of attentive and considerate adults. Reading is such a solitary, intimate and sometime arduous experience that to be able to share one's gained insights with a larger group of people who partook of the same solitary, intimate and sometimes arduous experience is a rare and wonderful thing. We're lucky this book group meets every month. What I mean to say is thank you once again to the Pollard's Non-Fiction Book Group, for this past Thursday's heartfelt discussion of The Emperor of All Maladies.

And to announce to Greater Lowell book lovers, it is time to set your sights on the next Non-Ficiton monograph. The selection for next month's discussion should be very interesting indeed. On Thursday, March 1st @ 6:30pm we will be discussing An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us by James Carroll.


Carroll is a former priest and Boston Globe columnist and this memoir won him the National Book Award in 1996. Here is a short synopsis from the jacket:

In this dramatic, intimate, and tragic memoir, James Carroll recovers a time that one of us will ever forget - a time when parents could no longer understand their sons and daughters and when you people could no longer recognize the country they had been raised to love. The wounds inflicted in that time have never fully healed, but healing is something that Carroll accomplishes in telling his family's remarkable story. The Carroll Family stood at the center of all the conflicts whirling around the Vietnam War. ... An American Requiem is a benediction on his father's life, his family's struggles, and the legacies of an entire generation.

Mr. Carroll will be reading from American Requiem at Suffolk University's Modern Theatre on February 15th. Unfortunately, it appears this show, which was free and open to the public, has been SOLD OUT.

Non-Fiction Book Club: The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Thursday, February 2, 2012 @ 6:30PM

I'll have to admit that I did not enjoy reading last month's book selection but the discussion it generated at the book club meeting was well worth the slog. This month's book is challenging in a different way. The story is engaging and fascinating, the subject matter is somewhat disturbing (especially to my inner hypochondriac). The subject, of course, cancer. The most dreaded of all diseases. I'll defer to the cover jacket to give you a better sense of what Dr. Mukherjee has accomplished with his biography of cancer:

The Emperor of all Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane "biography" of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist's precision, a historian's perspective, and a biographer's passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years.

Don't miss this month's discussion—it's going to be grand. Not only that, but we'll be voting for the titles to be discussed in April and May. If you want more information, or a ballot please let me know at sthibodeau@mvlc.org. Happy reading!

Non-Fiction Book Club: The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, Thursday, January 5, 2012 @ 6:30PM

No, not that Prince. The Prince:

Have you ever heard someone or some entity’s actions pejoratively described as being "Machiavellian"? Ever wonder what that means? Ever wonder if indeed, the definition of "Machiavellian" might have changed somewhat from the facts of his philosophy. The Pollard's Non-Fiction book club has tasked itself with investigating this definition by reading Machiavelli's legendary treatise The Prince, originally written in 1513 and cited as one of the first works of political philosophy. We're going to see if we can make sense of what Niccolò was getting at and whether his ideas deserve the rap they’ve been given.

One of the great things about this month's selection is that since it was written in the 16th century, it is in the public domain and is widely available online. And it is a favorite amongst poly-sci profs so there are also study guides available to aid contextualizing the work.

Join in on the discussion! Despite the fact that we ask you obtain your own copy of the selected title (copies available to borrow from our library system, call 978-970-4121 with your library card to request one) the Pollard Library Non-Fiction Book Club is free and open to the public. We will be voting for future titles at the December meeting. For more information or to request a ballot please contact Sean Thibodeau, Community Planning Librarian sthibodeau@mvlc.org or 978-970-4118.

Delayed opening this Thursday, December 1st

Just a quick reminder that this Thursday is the first Thursday of the new month which means two things:

1) The library has a delayed opening to accommodate a staff meeting. The library will be open 11am-9pm.

2) The Non-Fiction book club will meet at 6:30pm in the Ground Floor meeting room to discuss another truth seeking monograph. This month, while we wait for snow to arrive in the Merrimack Valley, we'll discuss Carlos Eire's Waiting for Snow in Havana. We'll also be voting for future titles at this meeting so don't miss it...or contact Sean Thibodeau if you want an absentee ballot.

Non-Fiction Book Club - Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire - Thursday, December 1st - 6:30pm

The Pollard's Non-Fiction book club marks it's first anniversary with a sparkling memoir of exile and redemption. Join us at 6:30pm on Thursday, December 1st for a discussion of Carlo's Eire's 2003 National Book award winner, Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy. Here's some of what Publisher's Weekly had to say about it:

As imaginatively wrought as the finest piece of fiction, the book abounds with magical interpretations of ordinary boyhood events...Eire looks beyond the literal to see the mythological themes inherent in the epic struggle for identity that each of our lives represents.

Into this fantastic idyll comes Castro—"Beelzebub, Herod, and the Seven-Headed Beast of the Apocalypse rolled into one"—overthrowing the Batista regime at the very end of 1958 and sweeping away everything that the author holds dear. A world that had been bursting with complicated, colorful meaning is replaced with the monotony of Castro's rhetoric and terrorizing "reform." ...The final cataclysm comes when Eire and his brother, still young boys, are shipped off to the United States to seek safety and a better life (another paradise, perhaps). They never see their father again.

As painful as Eire's journey has been, his ability to see tragedy and suffering as a constant source of redemption is what makes this book so powerful. Where his father believed that we live many lives in different bodies, Eire sees his own life as a series of deaths within the same body. "Dying can be beautiful," he writes, "And waking up is even more beautiful. Even when the world has changed."

In January, the book club will be discussing The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli but we've not decided on the titles beyond then. So, we will be voting for two more at our December meeting. If you would like more information or a ballot please contact Sean Thibodeau, Community Planning Librarian at sthibodeau@mvlc.org.

Patti Smith is Everywhere

I know you are all excited about the non-fiction book club's discussion of Patti Smith's National Book Award winning memoir Just Kids this Thursday, November 3rd at 6:30pm. You've probably even finished the book already. Well here's some extra credit for you and further proof of the cultural status and influence of one Patti Smith.

In the October 10th New Yorker, she's written a beautiful and short reminisce of the early onset of her kleptomaniac and francophillic tendencies.

The New York Times Magazine featured a front page article on October 14th, in which she discusses, among other things, her writing process for Just Kids.

And if you want to see some of her work live and in person, the Wadsworth Museum in Hartford is featuring some of her photographs in an show called Camera Solo, on display through Feburary 19, 2012.

Non-Fiction Book Club - Just Kids by Patti Smith, Thursday, November 3rd @ 6:30pm

Non-Fiction lovers, of Lowell, it is time to set our readerly sights on the next Non-Fiction gem to be discussed at our meeting November, 3rd @ 6:30pm. This month's selection comes from the memoir section of the non-fiction universe but it is not just any memoir. This is Just Kids by Patti Smith—a 2010 National Book Award winning reminisce from an American cultural icon about her formative years as an artist living in NYC and her close relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. As it says on the jacket: "Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late sixties and seventies and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists' ascent, a prelude to fame."

Say it with me....G-L-O-R-I-A

Hurricane Overload

Don't forget our non-fiction book club meeting this Thursday, September 1st, at 6:30PM. Where we'll be discussing RA Scotti's book Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938. The timing of this discussion couldn't be better (or worse! depending on how you fared through the winds and rain and constant media chatter about Hurricane Irene). Come on down! Free and open to the public. For more information contact Sean Thibodeau at sthibodeau@mvlc.org.

Non-Fiction Book Club: Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 by R. A. Scotti, Thursday, September 1, 2011 @ 6:30PM

Thank you book clubbers for last week's lip-smacking discussion of Cod by Mark Kurlansky—the cod on crackers and cod chowder were really something else—the donuts and cupcakes and cooikies were all stellar as well. But, I digress. The time has come to set our sights on a new Non Fiction gem. Our nautical theme continues onward for at least one more month as we will be discussing R.A. Scotti's book Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938. This, from the jacket:

The gripping and unforgettable story of the Great Hurricane of 1938, still remembered by all who survived it as the most terrifying moment of their lives...On September 21, 1938, the fastest hurricane on record caught the Northeast by surprise and left a wake of death and destruction across seven states. Traveling at record speeds, the storm raced up the Atlantic coast, reaching New York and New England ahead of hurricane warnings and striking with such intensity that seismographs in Alaska registered the impact.

Sounds like quite a story, don't miss out what sure to be a lively discussion Thursday, September 1st @ 6:30PM.

ALSO—Don't forget this week is Independent Film Night at the library. Come to our free screening of Illegal by Olivier Masset-Depasse tomorrow night at 6:30pm. Made possible by the Friends of the Library.