News Release

12/31/08 Providence Public Library Announces New Book Club – the New England Book Club, to begin January 25 | event page

A new book club – the New England Book Club – will begin meeting at the Providence Public Library’s Central Library (150 Empire Street—Trustees Room, 3rd Floor) monthly on Sundays from 2:00 to 3:00 pm, beginning January 25 with the discussion of John Updike’s The Widows of Eastwick. Subsequent books and meetings are listed below and at www.provlib.org/booklovers.

This lively group reads a selection of fiction set in New England and explores the social relationships and cultural mores of the region. It meets regularly on the last Sunday of the month through May 2009 at 2:00 pm unless otherwise indicated (below).

Pre-registration is required by emailing Lisa Miller: lmiller@provlib.org (preferred) or calling 455-8057.

January 25: The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike
More than three decades have passed since the events described in The Witches of Eastwick. The three divorcées--Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie--have left town, remarried, and become widows. In Updike's delightful, ominous sequel, Sukie and Jane ask Alexandra, “Why not, go back to Eastwick for the summer?” The old Rhode Island seaside town, where they indulged in wicked mischief under the influence of the diabolical Darryl Van Horne, is still magical for them. Now he is gone, and their lovers of the time have aged or died, but enchantment remains in the familiar streets and scenery of the village, where they enjoyed their lusty primes as free and empowered women.

February 22: Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
When Grace Metalious’s debut novel about the dark underside of a small, respectable New England town was published in 1956, it quickly soared to the top of the bestseller lists and has since sold more than 10,000,000 copies world-wide, remaining the fourth largest selling novel of all time. Considered scandalous then, it stirred controversy with its explicit depictions of sex and sin. An influential landmark in 20th century American popular culture, Peyton Place continues to captivate contemporary readers. While the once-shocking details may now seem tame, Metalious will hook readers with her vivid characters, earthy prose, and riveting, uninhibited narrative. She skillfully exposes the intricate social anatomy of a small community, examining the lives of its people.

March 29: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
This collection of 13 linked tales presents a heart-wrenching, penetrating portrait of ordinary coastal Mainers living lives of quiet grief intermingled with flashes of human connection. The opening story, “Pharmacy,” focuses on terse, dry junior high-school teacher Olive Kitteridge and her gregarious pharmacist husband, Henry, both of whom have survived the loss of a psychologically damaged parent, and both of whom suffer painful attractions to co-workers. Their son, Christopher, takes center stage in “A Little Burst,” which describes his wedding in humorous, somewhat disturbing detail, and in “Security,” where Olive, in her 70s, visits Christopher and his family in New York. Strout’s fiction showcases her ability to reveal through familiar details. Themes of suicide, depression, bad communication, aging, and love run through these stories, none more vivid or touching than “Incoming Tide,” where Olive chats with former student Kevin Coulson as they watch waitress Patty Howe by the seashore, all three struggling with their own misgivings about life. Like this story, the collection is easy to read and impossible to forget. Its literary craft and emotional power will surprise readers unfamiliar with Strout. --adapted from Publisher's Weekly, starred review

April 26: Spartina by John Casey — Winner of the 1989 National Book Award
A classic tale of a man, a boat, and a storm, Spartina is the lyrical and compassionate story of Dick Pierce, a commercial fisherman along the shores of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay. A kind, sensitive, family man, he is also prone to irascible outbursts against the people he must work for, now that he can no longer make his living from the sea. His one great passion, a fifty-foot fishing boat called Spartina, also lies unfinished in his back yard. Determined to get the funds he needs to buy her engine, he finds himself taking a dangerous risk. But his real test comes when he must weather a storm at sea in order to keep his dream alive. Moving and poetic, Spartina is a masterly story of one man's ongoing struggle to find his place in the world.

May 17: Mr. Emerson’s Wife by Amy Belding Brown
In this work of historical fiction about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s wife, Lidian, Amy Belding Brown examines the emotional landscape of love and marriage. Living in the shadow of one of the most famous men of her time, Lidian becomes deeply disappointed by marriage, but consigned to public silence by social conventions and concern for her children and her husband’s reputation. Drawn to the erotic energy and intellect of close family friend Henry David Thoreau, she struggles to negotiate the confusing territory between love and friendship while maintaining her moral authority and inner strength. In the course of the book, she deals with overwhelming social demands, faces devastating personal loss, and discovers the deepest meaning of love. Lidian eventually discovers the truth of her own character and learns that even our faults can lead us to independence.