Led by Anne Serafin, this group explores the rich variety of writings from Africa. The group usually meets on the third Wednesday of the month at 7:30PM. Meeting Date: March 8 in the Trustees Room: Links, a novel by Nuruddin Farah from Somalia. For further information, call 527-1072.

Meetings are held on the first Monday or on the fourth Wednesday of the month at 7:00PM in Meeting Room A. This group is for writers who have work in progress. Pre-registration required. Please call Jacqueline Davies at 781-455-8334 or Karen Day at 244-4830 for more information. Meeting Dates: Monday, March 6 or Wednesday, March 22.

Meetings are held the first Wednesday of the month, 7:30PM, in Meeting Room A. Group coordinator: Marilyn Miller. Meeting Dates: March 1: The Last Garden by Helen Humphreys ; April 5: A Palestine Affair by Jonathan Wilson.


Contemporary Books Booklist

Meetings are held on the second Tuesday of the month at 7:15PM in Meeting Room A. Members read books from the Great Books Foundation (available at the Library). Meeting Date: March 14: Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. For further information, call Ruth Greene at 527-4143.

Meetings are held at 7:30PM on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month at the Nonantum branch. Coordinator: Amy Oppenheimer: amy.oppenh@verizon.net, www.newtoncameraclub.org. Meeting Date: March 13: “Funding Your Photographic Projects" by Carole Berney; March 27: “Favorite Places to Photograph Birds and Wildlife” by Sandy Selesky.

In this women’s workshop, participants read, discuss and write about literature by women. The group meets the second Wednesday of each month from 10 - 11:30AM in Meeting Room A. Leader: Robin Mayer Stein. Meeting Date: March 8.

This workshop provides an atmosphere of expert support to polish short fiction. It is geared for published writers as well as those who are actively pursuing publication. Leader is Michael Kaufman. Pre-registration is required: call 617-332-3347. The group meets the first Tuesday of the month, 7:00PM, in Meeting Room A. Meeting Date: March 7.

Meetings are held on the second Monday of the month at 7:30PM in Meeting Room A. Group co-leaders are Mary Lanigan and Barbara McGinley. For further information, call 527-1505. Meeting Date: March 13: “Seed” and “Aftermath” by Mary Yukari Waters.

This group is for singers of all levels who enjoy singing classical and popular music. It meets monthly on Saturday afternoons, Noon – 1:30PM in Druker Auditorium. Meeting Date: March 11. Call coordinator Miriam Simen at 617-244-6705 for more info.

This new group, led by career counselor Joyce Picard, is for women downsizing careers, entering (or re-entering) the workforce or thinking of opting out. It will focus on goals, allowing time to share concerns and gain support. It will meet the third Tuesday of the month at 7:30PM in Meeting Room A. Meeting Date: March 21. For further information, please call 617-796-1410.

A group to support beginning writers of the short story, novel, personal essay or memoir. Led by Tom Yee, the group meets on the third Saturday of the month, 10:30 – Noon in Meeting Room A. Pre-registration required: Call 630-0742. Meeting Date: March 18.

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day a wee bit early with the Celtic folk duo Tara’s Thistle. Come to the Library on Sunday, March 5, at 2:00PM for a program of traditional Irish folksongs.

The husband and wife team sing in close, two-part harmony with guitar, harmonica and drum accompaniment. You’ll be sure to clap along to their toe-tapping Irish hornpipes and reels on the Great Bagpipes and the Irish flute, both with the bodhran (Irish frame drum). The duo is known for the stories from Irish history they weave between their songs along with humorous anecdotes of adventures that befell them while living in Ireland.

From Mansfield, CT, Tara’s Thistle has performed for more than 10 years at town and state fairs, libraries, historical societies, cafes, colleges and other venues. Classically trained, the

Pianist Arunesh Nadgir, winner of the 2005 Steinway Society of Mass. Piano Competition, will present a concert of Bach, Scriabin, Liszt and Beethoven at the Library on Sunday, March 12, at 2:00PM.

Nadgir has performed at Weill Recital Hall and Steinway Hall in New York City. He was a prize winner at the International Piano Festival in Vicenza, Italy in 2000, and a finalist in the John Pierce Langs International Piano Competition in 1997. For the past two years he has performed frequently with the Artimus Chamber Ensemble.

Nadgir currently serves on the faculty of the Palisades School of Music and the Sylvan Academy of Music in N. J.

From Iceland, pianist Jon Sigurosson will join local pianist Margaret Cheng Tuttle for a four- hand piano concert of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, arranged by Max Reger, Mozart’s Sonata in C Major and Bizet’s Children’s Games, at the Library, Sunday, March 19, at 2:00PM.

Sigurosson has appeared as soloist and accompanist at many venues in Iceland, performed trio music with a grant from the Guild of Icelandic Musicians and gave a series of 4-hand piano concerts throughout Iceland this past year. He also organized the music festival Music Without Borders in Reykjavik. In the U.S. he has performed at the Icelandic Embassy in Washington, DC and at the Skandinavian Hjemkomst Festival, Minnesota.

Tuttle is an active soloist, chamber musician and teacher in Boston and the Midwest. She has performed at the VanderCook College of Music in Chicago, Berklee College,

Jordan Hall, Harvard University and at Wach Music School in Taiwan. She has been a soloist at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha and the Sheldon Art Gallery in Lincoln, Nebraska and played chamber music in Estes Park, Colorado.

 

The All Newton Music Faculty Concert Series continues at the Library with a concert by Mana Washio, flute, and Barbara Lysakowski, piano, playing works by Poulenc, Martinu and Enesco on Sunday, March 26, at 2:00PM.

A native of Japan, Washio performs in chamber music ensembles, plays principal flute with the New England Philharmonic and is a member of the Massachusetts Wind Orchestra. Previously, she played principal flute with the Metropolitan Wind Symphony and was invited to perform in Honduras and in Japan, where her performances won critical acclaim. She serves on the faculty of ANMS and also maintains a private studio.

Lysakowski performs as a soloist and chamber musician in the New England area and in her native Poland. She is a member of the ANMS piano faculty and accompanist.

Sopranos Rebecca Hayden and Karen Bell with pianist Bonnie Donham will perform duets and solos by Purcell, Faure, Mendelssohn, Brahms and DeFalla as well as spirituals at the Library on Sunday, April 2, at 2PM.

Bell has performed many principal roles in opera, Gilbert & Sullivan and musical theatre
productions in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. She has performed as a vocalist with the Kenny Hadley Big Band and has been a member of Boston Baroque and the Handel & Haydn Society.

Hayden has sung with choral groups such as the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the Munich Bachchor in the U.S. and abroad. She has given recitals throughout New England and has performed in musical theatre, including the Christmas Revels.

Donham is a freelance accompanist who works regularly at Longy School of Music and in musical theatre in the Greater Boston area.

In its third year, Transition Talks - free, informal, interactive, small group drop-in discussions - continue to attract 12 -15 bright and energetic individuals, all with a common interest in talking to others about a variety of topics related to transition issues in midlife and beyond.

Who comes? Men and women who are contemplating retirement, transitioning toward retirement or fully retired, as well as individuals looking to “re-invent” themselves and possibly pursue new interests.

Why do they come? They come both to gain and share insights, to informally network, as well as to learn more about Discovering What’s Next (DWN) and get more involved in whatever is comfortable and “fits,” which, of course, is different for every one of us.

As one indication of the value of the talks, some participants have been attending them for several years whether to discuss global topics or local and personalized ones. Some participants have found the talks helpful in launching new businesses, getting involved in community service or in gaining the confidence to teach a course.

The March afternoon Transition Talk will be held on Monday, March 6 from 2:30 - 4PM; the evening Transition Talk will be held on Tuesday March 28, from 7 - 8:30PM.

The DWN HUB on the third floor of the Library is a clearinghouse of information, direction and connection for those making the journey to or transition through retirement. For more information, call (617) 796-1419, e-mail dwnext @comcast.net or visit the Library web site at www.newtonfreelibrary.net and click on Discovering What’s Next.

 

National Geographic photographer Bill Curtsinger will give a slide show/talk on his thrilling underwater photographic adventures as captured in his book Extreme Nature: Images from the World’s Edge. Join him on Monday, March 13, at 7:00PM at the Library. A booksigning with books from New England Mobile Book Fair will follow his talk.

Curtsinger has traveled extensively around the globe, immersing himself in the waters of the world, swimming amongst predatory sharks and playful seals and capturing the often elusive inhabitants of the sea in unsurpassed close-up photography.

Extreme Nature is brimming with unexpected images that demonstrate his rare understanding of the creatures he photographs and his mastery of nature photography.

We marvel at the ethereal beauty of jellyfish and can almost feel the tickle of a grey seal’s whiskers; we cringe as the tiger shark lunges for an unsuspecting albatross chick in clear turquoise waters. “My goal is to immerse myself in an animal’s world so that I can extract from those movements a new image, or a new insight into behavior heretofore unseen,” he states in his Introduction.

Specializing in underwater subjects, Curtsinger has been a photographer for National Geographic for over three decades, with six cover stories to his name. His work has also appeared in Smithsonian, Time, Newsweek, Audubon, Life, Outside and many other publications. He lives in Yarmouth, Maine.

The Library Poetry Reading Series will present Jocelyn Emerson, Sarah Hannah and Mary Buchinger Bodwell reading their poems on Tuesday, March 14, at 7:00PM, followed by an Open Mike with a one-poem per person limit.

Emerson’s collection of poems, Sea Gate, won the New York/New England Award from Alice James Books. Her poems, reviews and criticism have appeared widely in journals such as American Book Review, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Contemporary Poetry Review, New American Writing and in The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries. She is Associate Director of the Boston University CAS Honors Program.

Hannah's poems have appeared in Parnassus, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Gulf Coast and other journals. A semi-finalist for the Yale Younger Poets Prize in 2002, she received a Governor's Fellowship for residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts for summer 2001 and 2002.

With more than four million copies sold, Our Bodies, Ourselves is often referred to as the “bible” of women’s health, a classic resource that women of all ages can and have turned to for information about every aspect of their well-being since 1970. Now completely revised, this updated edition includes the latest information from experts and personal stories from women on:

• Nutrition and exercise
• Relationships, sexuality and sexual health
• Reproductive choices, pregnancy, and childbearing
• Growing older
• Medical testing and procedures
and more.

Asians have used it for centuries. Scientists have debated its chemical properties for decades. And cutting-edge American chefs are now cooking with it all the time. It’s umami, the fifth taste, and it’s the key to many delicious dishes. Umami is another basic taste, like sweet, sour, salty and bitter. It is the rich, savory, satisfying taste of shiitake mushrooms, tomato sauce, oysters, red wine, parmesan cheese, aged beef, Asian fish sauce and many other exotic and everyday foods. Last year, reports on umami appeared in the New York Times, Wine Spectator, Food and Wine, The New Yorker and many other publications.

The Green Decade Coalition's Environmental Speaker Series continues with “Pets & Pesticides: How to Keep Your Pets Healthy & Grass Green” on Monday, March 27, at 7PM. Speakers are Dr. Regina Downey, DVM, Medical Director at Coastal Animal Clinic, Salisbury and Chip Osborne & Pat Beckett, co-founders of the Living Lawn Project and Marblehead Pesticide Awareness Committee.

After her father's death, Sharona Muir discovered that he had invented Israel's first rocket as a member of a secret group of scientists during Israel's war of independence. Hear the author of The Book of Telling: Tracing the Secrets of My Father's Lives speak at the Library on Tuesday, April 4, at 7:30PM.

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The 22nd annual Book and Author Luncheon of the Friends of the Newton Free Library will feature Andrew Carroll, author of Behind the Lines, and Anita Diamant, author of the best-seller The Red Tent and her latest novel, The Last Days of Dogtown. The Luncheon will take place on Friday, April 7, at noon at the Newton Marriott.

The Last Days of Dogtown is set on Cape Ann in the early 1800s. Diamant's inspiration for the story came from a historical pamphlet she found in a Gloucester bookstore. She explains, “I set out to imagine the lives of people who have been left out of history: the poor, widows and spinsters, orphans, New England Africans - both enslaved and free. Marginal and voiceless, these folks fascinate me because so little is known about them . . . [T]heir silence gives me permission to imagine an entire world of longing and loss, of laughter and hope.” Dogtown was chosen as a Booksense Highlights Pick for 2005.

Behind the Lines: Powerful and Revealing American and Foreign War Letters — and One Man’s Search to Find Them includes two hundred previously unpublished war letters and e-mails written by American and foreign troops and civilians, beginning with the American Revolution and continuing up through Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Carroll's previous books include Letters of a Nation and War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars, which was the basis for the critically acclaimed PBS documentary. He is also executive director of the American Poetry & Literacy Project which he cofounded with Joseph Brodsky.

To join these authors on April 7, send your check for $30 per person (payable to the Friends of the Newton Free Library) to 14 Trowbridge Street, Newton, MA 02459. Please specify the names of those who will attend the event and include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Indicate your preference for chicken, fish, or vegetarian entree for lunch. Reservations received after March 25 will be held at the door. For more information, please call 617-969-4443.

Talk on the Paranormal

Chris Wangler will read from his book Famous People of the Paranormal on Tuesday, March 7, at 10:30AM at the Auburndale Library, where he is branch librarian. Among others, the book includes accounts of Rasputin, Miss Cleo, Aleister Crowley and Erik Jan Hanussen, a Jewish circus personality who became Hitler's clairvoyant. Wangler will also discuss Mary Roach's Spook: Science Takes on the Paranormal, one of the New York Times 100 Most Notable Books of 2005.

Light refreshments will be served.