Pianist Sayuri Miyamoto in Concert

Pianist Sayuri Miyamoto will bring a concert of works by Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Chopin to the Library on Sunday, October 12, 2PM. Newton resident Miyamoto has performed in solo and chamber recitals across the country, locally at the Longy School of Music, New England Conservatory of Music and other venues. Among the many orchestras with which she has appeared as soloist are the New Jersey Symphony and the National Repertory Orchestra of Colo-rado. She has received many concerto prizes and other awards. In addition to her teaching studio, Miyamoto serves on the coaching staff of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra and maintains an active career as an accompanist/coach throughout the Boston area. Library audiences may remember her appearance with violinist Marylou Speaker Churchill.

BSO Cellist Jonathan Miller to Present Lecture/Concert

Musicians from the world class Boston Artists Ensemble will give a Lecture/Concert on Listening to Chamber Music from the Musicians' and Audience Perspective in relation to the BAE's upcoming season in Newton. The presentation at the Library on Monday, November 3, 7:30PM will include brief performances of music by Haydn and Schubert by Jonathan Miller, cello, Sharan Leventhal, violin and Tatiana Yampolsky, piano.
Miller, a 30-year veteran of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is the founder and Artistic Director of the BAE.
Leventhal has toured the U.S. and Europe as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. She and Miller perform in the renowned Gramercy Trio.
Yampolsky has performed in
concert throughout Europe and North America, as soloist with the Boston Pops and many other orchestras.

Soprano Jean Danton Gives Concert of Songs by Haydn and Others

Soprano Jean Danton, pianist Brian Moll and guest artist, trumpeter Dennis Alves will present a concert at the Library on Sunday, November 2, 2:00PM. The program will feature songs by Haydn from Danton’s new CD “The Spirit’s Song” as well as works by Purcell, Gershwin and more.
Danton has been a soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society, Oregon Bach Festival, Boston Baroque and the Boston Pops Orchestra. She enjoys an active career as a recitalist and chamber musician. As a strong promoter of American music she has premiered works by composers Sharon Davis, Thomas Stumpf and William Moylan. Her operatic and stage performances include roles in “Le nozze di Figaro” with Boston Baroque, Polly in “Threepenny Opera” under Craig Smith at the ART and Quiteria in the U.S. premiere of Telemann’s “Don Quixote” with the Boston Classical Orchestra under Harry Ellis Dickson. Her recordings for Albany Records include “Songs of Innocence,” “American Dreamer” and “Origins.”
Moll has given recitals as a pianist and organist in the major concert halls of Europe and Asia and throughout the U.S. He has given master classes at numerous music schools, most recently in Bulgaria. Chair of the Collaborative Program at the Longy School of Music, Moll is also Music Director of the Opera Program at the Boston Conservatory of Music.
Alves performs with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra and has also been the principal trumpet of the Boston Ballet Orchestra and the New Japan Philharmonic, under the baton of Seiji Ozawa. He has appeared as solo-ist with numerous orchestras in New England, including Newton Symphony.

The All Newton Music School Concert

The All NewtonMusic School will open its 2003/04 faculty concert series at the Library on Sunday, October 19, 2:00PM with a concert of violin/ piano sonatas by Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms performed by violinist Barbara Englesberg, violinist Liana Zaretsky and pianist Esther Ning Yau.
Englesberg is assistant concertmaster and a founding member of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra and a member of the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra. She has performed with Boston Ballet, Boston Lyric Opera and many other organizations as well as at the Scarlatti Festival in Italy. She serves on the faculties of ANMS and other schools.
Zaretsky appears regularly with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops and the Pittsburgh Symphony. Formerly principal second violinist of the Portland, ME, Symphony, she is a member of Radius Ensemble. She serves on the faculties of ANMS and other schools.
Yau is an active soloist and collaborative pianist. She has performed at Jordan Hall, the Chinese Cultural Institute in Boston, Aspen Music Festival, Hong Kong Government House, Taipei National Concert Hall and the Museum of Arts in Puerto Rico. She serves on the faculty of the New School.

BSO Violist Burton Fine & Harpist Susan Miron to Perform
Scarlatti, Saint Saens and More

© 2003 MotoPhoto & Portrait Studio

Boston Symphony Orchestra violist and violinist Burton Fine and harpist Susan Miron will perform Britten’s Lachrymae for Viola and Harp, Saint Saens’ Fantasy for Violin and Harp, Scarlatti sonatas and Suite Bergamasque by Debussy, the latter two composers's works transcribed for harp by Miron. The concert will take place on Sunday, October 26, at 2:00PM at the Library.
Fine joined the BSO as a second violinist in 1963 after working as a research chemist at NASA. The next year he won the position of principal violist which he maintained until 1994. He has appeared as soloist on viola and viola d’amore with the BSO and Boston Pops and many other orchestras. He has toured and recorded extensively with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and is featured on many chamber music recordings. Fine has performed on viola and violin with his wife, Susan Miron, for the past 25 years.
Miron has enjoyed a versatile career as a harp soloist, vocal accompanist and chamber musician. For 15 years she performed in the acclaimed Melisande Trio with Fine and BSO flutist Fenwick Smith at venues throughout the Northeast including several concerts at Jordan Hall, the Gardner Museum, Merkin Concert Hall in New York City and Wigmore Hall in London. In July 2002, she and Fine were featured at the World Harp Congress in Geneva. Her new CD of Scarlatti sonatas has just been released on the Centaur label.

Author Alan Lightman to Speak on "Reunion"

Since the publication of his debut novel, Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman has established himself as a writer of singular vision and voice. The New York Times calls him “a highly original and imaginative thinker,” and The Los Angeles Times says Lightman is “an artist who paints with the notion of time.”
In his latest novel, Reunion, M.I.T. professor Lightman again delivers a work of thoughtful self-examination, exploring the often conflicting nature of art and science. In it he shares his rare ability to simultaneously meditate on contemporary urban life and delve into the provocative issues of time and space, always in beautiful and poetic language.
Hear him speak on his new book at the Library on Tuesday, October 28, 7:30PM followed by a booksigning with books provided by New England Mobile Book Fair.
At fifty two, Charles is a professor at a minor college, a once promising poet, divorced, admiring passion but without passion himself. Without knowing why, he decides to attend his thirtieth college reunion – and there he magically witnesses a replay of his last year in college. Drawn to his past like a moth to a flame, Charles watches his tender 22-year-old self embark on an all- consuming love affair with a beautiful dancer. As Charles and Juliana struggle to find themselves amidst the social and political chaos of the late 1960s, the older Charles confronts, for the second time, a series of devastating events that will forever change his life.
At once precise and mysterious, Reunion explores the pain of self-examination, the malleable nature of memory and the impossible hopefulness of youth.
Lightman’s most recent work of fiction, The Diagnosis, on which he spoke at the Library, was nominated for a National Book Award, and Einstein’s Dreams was an international bestseller. His previous books include a collection of essays and fables and several books on science. Lightman is a professor of Humanities and a senior lecturer in physics at M.I.T. In 1996 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

“Quiet American" Programs Begin:
Panel with Tom Ashbrook, Book Discussions, Film Screening

Graham Greene’s classic The Quiet American has been causing a stir with the release of the provocative movie earlier this year. Set in Vietnam in 1953, this prophetic novel is both a political thriller and a tense love story. The Friends of the Library have chosen the book as the focus of a community-wide reading event this fall.
One Newton, One Book events at the Main Library will include a screening of the movie starring Academy Award nominee Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser on Monday, October 20, 6:45PM, a book discussion on Tuesday, October 21, at 7:00PM and a panel discussion moderated by NPR’s “On Point” host, Newton’s own Tom Ashbrook. The discussion: “From Vietnam to Iraq: Lessons from The Quiet American” will take place on Saturday, November 1, at 1:30PM. Ashbrook is an award-winning journalist who for 10 years was a foreign correspondent in Asia, including Vietnam, and directed coverage of the end of the Cold War and of the Gulf War at the Boston Globe.
Other book discussions will take place on weekday mornings at Library branches and at the Senior Center.
Additional copies of the book are available at the Library as well as at local bookstores.
There is no advance registration. For more information, please call 617-796-1408 or e-mail onenewton_onebook@yahoo.com

One Newton One Book “Quiet American" Additional Links and Resources

For more information, following are several informative links:

Each year the University of Pennsylvania sponsors the “Penn Reading Project” in which all dirst year and new Penn students read the same book. This year they chose The Quiet American. This site has some useful information, including biographical information, links to other Graham Greene books, and links to other books and movies about Vietnam:
http://www.upenn.edu/nso/prp/quiet

Some of the most informative sites about Graham Greene are sites set up by individuals. Unfortunately, they are not all regularly updated. The following link is from the “Greeneland” website dedicated to Graham Greene. This particular webpage quotes Graham Greene’s response to the original New Yorker review of the novel:

http://members.tripod.com/~greeneland/quiet.htm

The “Literary Traveler is dedicated to the exploration of the literary imagination.” It features “… informative articles about writers, creative artists, and the places that they lived and traveled.” Here is the link to “Graham Greene’s Vietnam Literary Traveler” article:
http://www.literarytraveler.com/special/greene.htm

Following are links to three reviews of the 2002 The Quiet American movie, all of which include references to the novel and Graham Greene:
http://www.ijpc.org/quietamerican.htm
http://slate.msn.com/id/2079291/
http://www.imagesjournal.com/2003/reviews/quietamerican/text.htm

This link takes you to the Library of Congress’ information about the country of Vietnam:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/vntoc.html

The “one book one city” program was started by the Seattle Public Library. The following link, from their website, features “Book Club How-to’s” - information on choosing and discussing books:
http://www.spl.lib.wa.us/booklists/bookclubs.html

Some questions for discussion

1. In "The Quiet American" Greene has provided the story of a love triangle in a wartime setting, involving the creation of three strikingly contrasting characters. He has also transmitted a political message with his own views of the 1950's struggles in Indo-China. These are presented primarily through the eyes of the novel's British reporter, Thomas Fowler.

Was Greene successful and convincing in both endeavors?

To what extent do you sympathize with Fowler¹s views and actions?

2. Can you address some of these questions related to events in the plot?

A. Why did Pyle save Fowler's life?

B. Why did Fowler arrange for the murder of Pyle?

C. What is Phuong's role in the novel? Why did Greene include her?

3. In evaluating the mix of naivete, pragmatism, and self-interest what do you conclude about the motives of Pyle and of Phuong?

4. At the beginning of the novel, in reflecting on his early, protective feelings toward Pyle, Fowler has this thought: - Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

Does this fit your own ideas about Alden Pyle? Does he seem to you to be a "dumb leper"? To what extent is Phuong innocent? How about the "American Economic Mission"?

5. At the end of the book, Mr. Heng, in a conversation with Fowler, says: - "Sooner or later, one has to take sides. If one is to remain human."

What do you make of Mr. Heng's comment? What evidence in the novel suggests the truth of it? To what extent can you "take sides" with Pyle, with Fowler, with Graham Greene??

6. What does the novel seem to show as the proper role of duty?

7. What happens in real life to people like Phuong? Mr. Heng? Vidot? General The?

8. On balance, in his writings, does Graham Greene seem to you more like a reporter than a novelist?

9.How successful has the recent film version of the novel been in fulfilling your impression of the written story?

“Library: An Unquiet History" Author Talk

Through the ages, libraries have not only accumulated and preserved but also shaped, inspired, and obliterated knowledge. In Library:
An Unquiet History, Matthew Battles, a rare books librarian and a gifted narrator, takes us on a spirited foray from Boston to Baghdad, from classical scriptoria to medieval monasteries, from socialist reading rooms to the Information Age.
He will speak and sign copies of his new book at the Library on Thursday, October 9, 7:30PM.
From the decay of the great Alexandrian library to scroll burnings in ancient China to the destruction of the Aztec books by the Spanish and in our own time, the burning of libraries in Bosnia and Baghdad, the library has always been a battleground of competing ideas of what these reposi-tories mean: a place to secure and exalt canons of literature – or to contain and control all forms of human knowledge.
Library is an engaging read for cultural historians and bibliophiles alike.
Battles works at the Houghton Library at Harvard University, where he is coordinating editor of the Harvard Library Bulletin; he is also a contributor to Harper’s.

Author Talk on WWII Radio Drama & the Blacklist

From New York, author Howard Blue will speak on his compelling new book, Words at War: World War II Era Radio Drama and the Postwar Broadcasting Industry Blacklist. The talk will be held at the Library, Wed-nesday, October 15, 7:30PM.
Blue’s book examines the powerful role of radio in supporting the World War II effort and the post-war consequences for many of those involved. Beginning in the late 1930s, the commercial networks, private agencies and the government cooperated with radio dramatists to produce plays to stimulate morale and alert Americans to the Nazi threat. As these dramatists and actors fought a war of words against fascism abroad, many advanced a progressive agenda to fight injustice at home: racism, poverty and other social ills. When the war ended, many of these people suffered blacklisting as veterans’ groups, the FBI, right-wing politicians and other reactionaries mounted an assault on them to drive them out of their professions. Words at War discusses the blacklisting effort and response of the radio personalities involved as well as public reaction.
Largely based on the author’s interviews with Norman Corwin, Arthur Miller, Pete Seeger, Arthur Laurents, Art Carney and others from radio’s Golden Age, the book also uses materials from FBI files and other archives including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the National Archives. Featured series include “The Man Behind the Gun,” “Uncle Sam” and “Lux Radio Theatre.”
Blue is a freelance writer, translator and former history teacher. Two of his translations appear in An Anthology of Russian Literature. He is currently working on a novel.

Poetry Series Features Tim Gager, Gary Duehr & Ayelet Amittay

The Library Poetry Reading Series continues with readings by Tim Gager, Gary Duehr and Ayelet Amittay on Tuesday, October 14, 7:00PM.
Gager is the author of Twenty-Six Pack, a collection of short fiction and From the Same Corner of the Bar, a collection of poetry. Other work has appeared in Midnight Mind Magazine, Ibbetson Street Press, Word Riot and Scene Boston. He is the founder of the Dire Reader Series in Cambridge.
Duehr teaches, writes and co-directs the theatrical group, Invisible Cities Group in Somerville. The recipient of a Poetry Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, he is the author of the poetry collections, Winter Light, Where Everyone is Going To and his most recent, In the Bar Apocalypse Now.
Amittay is a member of the Workshop for Publishing Poets. Her poems have appeared in Nimrod and in several anthologies. She is a senior at Brown University.
The next reading will be held on Tuesday, November 18. The series is coordinated by Doug Holder.

Revitalizing Retirement

The Discovering What’s Next initiative will present a talk by Marc Freedman, President and Founder of Civic Ventures, and author of Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America. The talk will take place at the Library on Thursday, October 2, at 7:00PM, followed by a panel discussion and audience question and answer session.

Raising Children in an Interfaith Family

The Interfaith Family Resource Center will present a program for parents on "Raising Children in an Interfaith Family" on Tuesday, October 28, 7:30PM in Meeting Room A at the Library.
The discussion will address special issues for interfaith families on handling religious differences, celebrating holidays and life cycle events and other unique aspects of life for interfaith families. There will be time for questions and sharing of opinions and concerns.
The discussion will be led by Elana Kling Perkins, LICSW, Coordinator of the Interfaith Family Resource Center at the Jewish Family & Children's Service of Greater Boston.

Friends' Annual Meeting

Join the Friends at their Annual Meeting in Druker Auditorium on Thursday, October 30, 7:30PM. Learn about the important work they do and how you can get involved.

Library Tours

The Library offers tours of all three floors as well as one-session free computer classes in using the Library catalog, computer skills and subjects such as genealogy. To sign up, call Reference at 617-796-1380.

Library Lovers' Evening

Don't miss out on attending Newton's brightest literary soiree, our annual Library Lovers’ Evening which will be held at the Westin Hotel in Waltham on Sunday, November 2, 6:30PM. The evening begins with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres while guests mingle with well-known invited authors, followed by an elegant dinner, coffee and dessert.
As part of the evening festivities, M.C. William Novak will honor these distinguished authors for their achievements: fiction writers Tom Perrotta (Election) and Laura Zigman (Her), Boston Globe sports writer Charles Pierce, New Yorker medical writer Dr. Jerome Groopman and others.
Novak is co-author of the best-selling autobiographies of Lee Iacocca, Nancy Reagan, Tip O’Neill, Magic Johnson and co-editor of The Big Book of Jewish Humor. He is currently working on a biography with Tim Russert, moderator of “Meet the Press.”
Funds raised from the event will be used to purchase new computers for the Information Technology Training Center.
The RSVP date is October 24. Tickets are $75 and may be reserved with a check made payable to the Trustees of the Newton Free Library. Mail to: Development, Newton Free Library, 330 Homer Street, Newton, MA 02459. For more information, call 796-1407.
Following is a preliminary list of donors who helped defray the costs of the evening: Patrons: C&R Management Corp.; Sponsors: Auburndale Co-operative Bank, Sandra & John Butzel, Gold & Goldberg; Benefactors: Bread & Circus, Albert Costa, Nancy & Modestino Criscitiello, Dunkin' Donuts, Barbara & Steve Grossman, Anne & Bob Larner, Newton South Co-operative Bank, Anne & Robert Sullivan, R.L. Tennant Insurance, Paula & Sam Thier; Supporters: Boston Showcase, Pat & Larry Burdick, John T. Burns Insurance, Audrey Cooper, Nancy & William Crowley, Frost Motors, Inc., Kathy Glick-Weil & Gordon Weil, Joan & Peter Harrington, Susan & Ken Heyman, Joan & Rob Klivans, Linette Liebling & Peter Demuth, Barbara & Keith Lietzke, Richard Lovell, Dorothy & John Reichard, John & Virginia Taplin, Nancy Watson & Stefan Krug.

Library Closed Morning of October 31

The Library will be closed the morning of Friday, October 31, for Staff Development Training. It will reopen at 1:00PM.

Book Cart Prices Drop in October

During October, all books on all 4 book carts in the first floor lobby will sell for 25 cents each: children's, fiction, non-fiction, mysteries and paperbacks! On some October Saturdays, the Gift Cart will sell new books, exclusively, for $1.00 and up in price.

Wireless? We’ve Got That!

State House News Online

Newton Camera Club Display

The Nonantum branch is proud to present a beautiful rotating exhibit of
photos by Newton Camera Club members. Drop in during branch hours.

Please Don't Save Seats!

When attending a Sunday after-noon concert, please do not save more than one seat as this deprives others of attending the concert. The rule is first come, first served.