Jean Lovett: A Dilettante's Tour of Boston
February 2 - 27

Janet Bartlett Goodman: Luminous Landscapes
February 2 - March 5

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: February 7 in Meeting Room B: Get a Life, a novel by South African Nadine Gordimer. For further information, call 527-1072.

Meetings are held on the first Monday or on the fourth Wednesday of the month at 7PM in Meeting Room A. This group is for writers who have work in progress. Pre-registration required. Please call Maria Gianferrari at 781-891-0153 or Karen Day at 244-4830. Meeting Dates: Monday, February 5 or Wednesday, Feb. 28.

Meetings are held the first Wednesday of the month, 7:30PM, in Meeting Room A. Group coordinator: Marilyn Miller. Meeting Dates: February 7: In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant; March 7: White Ghost Girls by Alice Greenway.

Contemporary Books Booklist - September 2006 - June 2007

Meetings are held on the second Tuesday of the month at 7:15PM in Room A. Members read books from the Great Books Foundation (available at the Library). Meeting Date: Feb. 13: Meno by Plato. For further info, call Ruth Greene at 527-4143.

Great Books Booklist - January 2007 - June 2007

Meetings are held at 7:30PM on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month at Nonantum. Group coordinator: Amy Oppenheimer: amy.oppenh @verizon.net, www.newtoncameraclub.org. Meeting Dates: February 12: Develop Your Own Style – by Steve Maka; February 26: Street Photography/Open Competition – judged by Don Crasco.

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: February 14.

This workshop provides an atmosphere of expert support to polish short fiction. It is geared for published writers and those who are 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 Room A. Meeting Date: Feb. 6.

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: February 12: “Flint and Fire” by Dorothy Canfield and “Amor Divino” by Julia Alvarez.

Will meet in March.

Led by career counselor Joyce Picard, this group is for women downsizing careers, entering the workforce or opting out. For further information, call (617) 332-7600. It meets the third Tuesday of the month at 7:30PM in Meeting Room A. Meeting Date: February 20.

Mayor David Cohen will introduce a second Library screening of the hit global warming documentary by Al Gore, "An Inconvenient Truth," back by popular demand. The program will take place on Saturday, February 3, at 1:00PM, followed by a discussion led by Brandeis University ecology professor Eric Olson. Sponsored by Green Decade Coalition.

Former Vice President Al Gore presents a compelling look at the state of global warming in this inspirational documentary. Larry King called it, “One of the most important films ever” and Roger Friedman of FoxNews.com wrote, “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative...your mind will be changed in a nanosecond.”

Olson teaches ecology and environmental impact assessment at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University. He also serves as Chairman of the Newton Citizens Commission on Energy. Olson’s focus on energy policy and technology stems from his concern that much of the world’s biological wealth will be harmed by too-rapid climate change, especially now that we have relegated so much of wild nature to national park “islands” in a sea of developed land.

The New England Gilbert & Sullivan Society will present a repeat screening of the popular biopic movie, "The Story of Gilbert & Sullivan," on Sunday, February 4, at 2:00PM. This classic film from 1953 stars Robert Morley, Maurice Evans and Peter Finch. Although it is a romanticized version of the composers' partnership, the performances in the G&S operetta excerpts by members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company are authentic and superb.

Pianist Stephen Porter will return to the Library with cellist Katherine Kayaian for a program of sonatas for cello and piano by Bach and Rachmaninoff. This concert on Sunday, February 11, at 2:00PM will feature the Rachmaninoff cello sonata, considered his greatest chamber work.

Kayaian performs as a soloist and chamber musician in Chicago, Miami, Boston and London and is associate principal cellist with the New England String Ensemble and the Key West Symphony Orchestra. She also performs with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Opera Boston, Cantata Singers, Boston Pops and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Previously she won a three-year fellowship with the New World Symphony where she performed as principal cellist under the baton of Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas.

Porter’s solo recitals have been highlighted by performances in Italy and Turkey (at the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation) as well as at Sanders Theatre, the Palm House in St. Louis, Christ Church Cathedral and the Frederick Piano Collection.  He was chosen by Steinway and Sons to present five concerts as part of its “Legendary Instruments of the Immortals” tour in Boston and Worcester, and this year Steinway also selected him to present both the Art-Case Collection and the Horowitz piano, currently on tour throughout the U.S. He has performed with members of the St. Louis Symphony and with concertmaster David Halen at the invitation of the Missouri Fine Arts Academy.

Stellar pianist Jun Toguchi will present a concert of music by Bach, Beethoven and Dvorak as well as original works and pieces by local composers John Bavicchi and Frank Warren. The concert will take place on Sunday, February 18, at 2PM.

Bavicchi, a Newton resident, has been teaching at Berklee College of Music for more than 40 years.

His virtuosic Toccata explores the mirror technique and develops a theme on the notes B-A-C-H. Warren is a composer and music publisher (Frank E. Warren Music Service) whose Three Inventions explore contrapuntal techniques in a modern musical language. Toguchi’s Matsuri, part of a piano suite, musically depicts images from a traditional Japanese festival.

A versatile pianist and composer, Toguchi combines elements of classical, jazz, Latin, atonal and oriental music to create a unique sound. His performances in the U.S. and Japan (in Tokyo, Kyoto and many other places, including the 21st Tokyo Summer Festival) have received high acclaim. He has taught master classes and lectured at conservatories in Israel and Japan. Toguchi’s recordings include “Ravel’s Piano Works” and “Starlet Dreams: Selected Original Works 1990-2000.”

He has written concerti, operas, chamber music and piano works which have been commissioned and performed in Massachusetts and Japan. Currently, he is writing the opera, “The White Fox.”

 

In honor of Black History Month, the Library and the Newton History Museum at the Jackson Homestead will present a dramatic multimedia production by Harlin Kearsley, followed by a discussion. “Voices: Those who Wore the Shoe” will take place on Sunday, February 25, at 2:00PM at the Library.

What was it like to be a slave? In 1934 the Federal Writer’s Project (an extension of the WPA) set out to find the answer. Hundreds of writers were sent to interview the few thousand former slaves in the United States, who were then in their 80s and 90s.

From thousands of pages of testimony, Kearsley compiled and edited a powerful production, based on actual slave narratives. “Voices” explores this period of American history through the words and music of those who experienced the pain, the sorrow, the reality of being physically owned by another human being. Archival photographs are incorporated in the visual presentation. Kearsley will introduce the afternoon and lead a discussion about the days of slavery and the making of the production.

Originally presented as a stage play, “Voices” had its premiere in 1993 in New York City. The play was later adapted for radio and is broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the country each year.

The CD of the NPR broadcast will be available for purchase that day.

Kearsley has many Off-Broadway and regional stage, television and film credits. He was a writer/actor on the FOX series “Damn Right,” was the host of the PBS series “The Internet in Action” for five years and has a recurring role on “Law & Order.”

The Library will celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Boar (4705) with live music, plate spinning and Chinese and English word games on Saturday, March 3.

At 1:00PM, acrobatic dancer Chen Won-Ju will spin bright plates in a graceful yet energetic traditional Chinese juggling act. Master er hu player Zhao Zhi Min, with yang qin player Ji Hong and some of his talented er hu students, will perform traditional Chinese music.

At 2:15PM, a Deng-Mi Hui activity will be presented, back by popular demand. This challenging and fun program of Chinese and English word games is composed by Yuan Sunshine, a well-known practitioner of the craft.

Throughout the month of February an exhibit from the collection of Judith Funkhouser will be on view in the Library display cases consisting of vintage postcards as well as images/figures of the pig, a Chinese village and the Great Wall.

 

Looking ahead to March 4, the next All Newton Music School faculty concert will feature classical guitarist John Muratore.

Barry Blesser will speak on his new book Spaces Speak, Are You Listening: Experiencing Aural Architecture at the Library on Thursday, February 8, at 7:30PM, followed by a booksigning.

We experience spaces not only by seeing but by listening. We can “hear” the emptiness of a house without furniture. Social relationships are strongly influenced by the way that space changes sound. The unique acoustics of religious spaces acquire symbolic meaning. In Spaces Speak, Blesser, with co-writer Linda-Ruth Salter, examines auditory spatial awareness: experiencing space by attentive listening. The book integrates contributions from a wide range of disciplines - including architecture, music, acoustics, evolution, anthropology, cognitive psychology and audio engineering.

The audible attributes of physical space have always contributed to the fabric of human culture, as demonstrated by classical Greek open-air theaters, Gothic cathedrals, acoustic geography of French villages, modern music reproduction and virtual spaces in home theaters. Auditory spatial awareness is a prism that reveals a culture’s attitudes toward hearing and space.

As a former professor at MIT and a founder of digital audio, Blesser has spent the last 40 years working at the junction of audio, acoustics, perception and cognitive psychology.

 

Every two years the Massachusetts Cultural Council awards grants in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction to some of the most talented writers in the state. Peter Brown, Elizabeth Graver, Henriette Lazaridis Power and Samantha Merritt, some of this year’s fellows and finalists, will read their work, as part of the statewide series, at the Library on Monday, February 12, at 7:00PM.

Brown (Fiction Recipient) is a senior editor at Salamander who was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2003. His collection, Since It’s You, was a finalist for the 2006 Bakeless Prize. His work has appeared in Harvard Review, Post Road, Salamander, New Renaissance and elsewhere.

Graver (Fiction Recipient) is the author of a story collection, Have You Seen Me?, as well as three novels, Awake, The Honey Thief and Unravelling, on which she spoke previously at the Library. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories; Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards; Best American Essays; and The Pushcart Prize Anthology.

Merritt (Poetry Finalist), who publishes as Samantha Mineo Myers, teaches literature-based composition courses in the writing program at Boston University. She has published her poetry in New Orleans Review, Washington Square and others.

Power (Fiction Recipient) spent fifteen years in academia, teaching English literature and writing and publishing scholarly articles. She is currently revising the novel manuscript she’ll be reading from, and is at work on another fiction project.

For more information on the Massachusetts Cultural Council, visit www.massculturalcouncil.org.

 

The Library Poetry Reading Series, coordinated by Doug Holder, will feature Beatriz Alba del Rio, Nicole DiCello and Gouri Datta on Tuesday, February 13, at 7:00PM. An Open Mike will follow with a one-poem per person limit.

Del Rio is a bilingual poet and lawyer. Born in Buenos Aires, she won 1st Prize at the Octavio Paz International Poetry Contest, 3rd Prize at the Pablo Neruda International Poetry Contest and the 2004 Cambridge Poetry Award in the category “Female Erotic Poem.” Her poetry speaks of longings; some are songs to love and to unity. Works have appeared in several anthologies and literary magazines including New Renaissance.

DiCello won first place in the Ithaca College poetry contest in 1996 and other prizes. She has been invited to read at festivals in Ithaca and for the Feminist Women’s Writing Workshop in New York state. She currently attends Barbara Helfgott Hyett’s Writing Workshop for Publishing Poets in Brookline and is working on her first book of poems, Red Shift, based upon astronomical phenomena.

Datta, a practicing psychiatrist, writes poetry and stories both in English and her mother tongue, Bengali. She has published several works: a book of Bengali poems, Sukh, Dukho, Ittadi (Pleasures, Sorrows, Etc.) a book of poems in English, Amaranths and Else and two books of Bengali short stories: Maitry (Friendship) and Vaidehi (Daughter of Videha). She is a member of a Bengali writers’ group based in Newton and Wingate Writers’ Group in Haverhill.

Thomas Laird will speak on his new book Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama at the Library on Wednesday, February 14, at 7:30PM, followed by a booksigning.

Over the course of three years, veteran journalist Laird held candid interviews with the Dalai Lama exploring his beliefs on history, science and reincarnation, and his lifelong study of Buddhism.

Publisher’s Weekly has called the book “A tenderly crafted study that is equal parts love letter, traditional history and oral history….Throughout, Laird’s colorful and lively writing brings to life thousands of years of Tibetan history, inviting the reader on his journey to a strange and wonderful land.”

Traveling across great distances to visit Tibet’s greatest monasteries, Laird explores with the Dalai Lama Tibet’s relations with the Mongols, the Golden Age under the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, Tibet’s years under Manchu overlords, the four decades of modern independence in the early half of the 20th century and the Dalai Lama’s personal meetings with Mao-Tse Tung just before he fled into exile in 1959.

Laird has been based in Kathmandu, Nepal for thirty years and now divides his time between there and New Orleans. He has worked as a journalist for Time, Asiaweek and Newsweek. His first nonfiction book was Into Tibet: The CIA’s First Atomic Spy and His Secret Expedition to Lhasa.

 

What do Jon Stewart, Freddy Krueger, Patch Adams and George W. Bush have in common? As Paul Lewis shows in his new book Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict, they are among the ranks of joke tellers who aim to do much more than simply amuse. Exploring topics that range from the sadistic mockery of Abu Ghraib prison guards to New Age platitudes about the healing power of laughter, from jokes used to ridicule the possibility of global climate change to the heartwarming performance of hospital clowns, Lewis demonstrates that over the past thirty years American humor has become increasingly purposeful and embattled.

Hear him speak at the Library on Thursday, February 15, at 7:30PM, followed by a booksigning.

Wondering what’s so funny about a culture determined to laugh at problems it prefers not to face, Lewis presents a surprising, alarming, and at times hilarious argument that shows how humor is changing our cultural and political landscape.

The author of Comic Effects: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Humor in Literature, Lewis is professor of English at Boston College.

 

Drop by Meeting Room A any Saturday from 1:30 - 3:30PM for free tax help from February 17 and on. Volunteer AARP Tax Aides, trained by the IRS, are ready to answer questions and help fill out basic (non-business) tax returns. They will also provide information on the new federal refund of telephone excise tax.

Teens! Are you around for February vacation? Why not stop by Druker Auditorium in the Library on Thursday, February 22, at 4:30PM for a free showing of "The Princess Bride"? This movie was enthusiastically recommended by the Library's TAB (Teen Advisory Board). This very funny satire of a swashbuckling adventure story/romance stars Robin Wright, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin and others. Trader Joe's in Newton has graciously agreed to provide complimentary refreshments.

This project is funded through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners with funds from LSTA (Library Services and Technology Act) a federal source of library funding.

 

Imagine a world where all consumers, retailers and manufacturers insisted on buying and selling only non-toxic materials! Green Chemistry is a philosophy that seeks to reduce or eliminate the use of hazardous materials at the design stage of a materials process.

John Warner will speak on Green Chemistry: Necessary Steps to a Sustainable Future at the Library on Monday, February 26, at 7:00PM. He will describe the history of Green Chemistry and discuss the opportunities for the next generation of material designers to create a safer future.

Warner is Director of the Center for Green Chemistry at UMASS/Lowell. One of the founders of the Green Chemistry movement, he has co-authored the book Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice.

 

 

Joyce Levine will speak on her new book Breakthrough Astrology: Transform Yourself and Your World on Tuesday, February 27, at 7:30PM, followed by a booksigning.

This is astrology from a psychological perspective, something very different and much more in-depth than sun sign advice. Levine helps clients (and readers of her book) recognize their strengths and learn to overcome recurring obstacles in their personal or professional lives. The process offers tools for self-empowerment and self-improvement. More information may be found at www.joycelevine.com.

Levine has been a professional in the astrology field for more than thirty years. She is a member of the National Council for Geocosmic Research Exec. Committee and has been a board mem-ber for the United Astrology Conference. She speaks and teaches regularly and has contributed to many publications such as Dell Horoscope, Horoscope Guide and American Astrology.

The Newton History Series continues with this year's theme "Service to Others" at the Library on Thursday, March 1, at 7:00PM.

Former Executive Director of the Newton Community Service Center for 43 years, Anthony Bibbo will speak on "Tracing the Path of the Newton Community Service Center." Bibbo will follow the center’s humble beginnings as the West Newton Day Nursery to a private, nonprofit organization, which has maintained the founder’s vision of providing services based on family and community needs to individuals of all social, ethnic and economic backgrounds.

This series is sponsored by the Library and the Newton History Museum at the Jackson Homestead.

Historical information on NCSC is available in the Newton Collection (Special Collections Room) at the Library and the Newton History Museum.