Thank You!

Our One Book, One Mesa County 2012 annual event has just concluded. Amor Towles, author of Rules of Civility, addressed our audience at Avalon Theater on Saturday the 25th. Amor told personal stories of his life in New York City, and described his passion for the study of classic literature and his inspiring and efficient writing methods. He highlighted artistic inspirations to his novel, including the Walker Evans photo exhibit, which provided the novel's concept, and the paintings of Edward Hooper. He then answered questions from the audience - noting that while Katy wasn't based on anyone he knew, though his grandmothers were rich inspiration as young women of that time, and that he hadn't done any formal research on the 30's before writing, although he had studied that time period previously. It was clear to all that Amor was knowledgeable, captivating, a natural story teller, as well as very happy to address all of you.

Thank you all for joining us for One Book this year and for supporting our program! We hope you enjoyed exploring the One Book choice with us this year.

If you have comments about this year's program, or suggestions for future One Book titles, please email ask@mcpld.org.

Literary Approach Provides Excellent Conversation Starters

At our literary evening, we hosted Colorado Mesa professors Barry Laga and Julie Barak, and the evening quickly became an exchange with our participants. Barry led with notion of opposites in the novel - authentic versus false, appearance versus truth, have versus have-nots, and so on. Julie introduced the notion, following on our first program on jazz, of improvisation, and that the characters in the novel who are improvising, or "riffing on life", are the most interesting, since they defy arrangement. We discussed the snappiness of the prose, which Julie contributed to the frequent and imaginative similes, as well as the strength of characters. Great conversation arose from questions like - Is Tinker really the main character? Is Anne to be applauded for her modernity or should readers disapprove of her manipulation?

Continue these conversations this evening! Attendees to book discussions will receive tickets to our VIP reception on Friday, February 24th. You'll have a chance to meet and chat with the author. Our last three discussions take place on the 16th and 17th:

Central Library - Thursday 16th - 6:00 pm
Collbran Library - Thursday 16th - 7:00 pm
Palisade Library - Friday 17th - 11:00 am

We hope to see you there!

One Book Discussions start this Weekend

Our first One Book branch discussions kick off this weekend. If you attend any of our upcoming book discussions, you will receive a ticket to attend a VIP Reception. The reception will take place on Friday, the 24th, the evening before Amor Towles' presentation at the Avalon. This reception is an opportunity to meet Amor and personally ask him your questions. We've heard a lot of great questions and insightful comments at our programs so far, and we can't wait to continue these conversations with you. Here is a complete list of our upcoming book discussions:

Saturday, Feb 11th at 10:30 am - Fruita branch
Saturday, Feb 11th at 2:00 pm - Orchard Mesa branch
Tuesday, Feb 14th at 1:00 pm - Clifton branch
Thursday, Feb 16th at 6:00 pm - Central library
Thursday, Feb 16th at 7:00 pm - Collbran branch
Friday, Feb 17th at 11:00 am - Palisade branch

For library location information, click here.

Also this weekend, we're hosting our Movie Series on Sunday, February 12th at the Central library at 1:30 pm. This week's film is a documentary featuring the Silver Belles - a dance group of 80+ year old women who all worked as dancers in the New York clubs of the 1930's. They were the entertainers at the events Katy would have frequented, and their perspective is unique, charming, and full of sass. You won't want to miss it!