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.

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.