Programs
2021 Adult Summer Reading has begun!
Can you complete our reading challenges? We’ve put together 10 challenges designed to expose you to books you may not be aware of. For each challenge you complete, you will receive one ticket to put towards an array of prizes listed below.
If you complete all 10 challenges, you will receive a Gunn Memorial Library tote bag to fill with books from our book shop!
Click here for more information & registration
Sharing Our Shelves
Need some inspiration for summer reads? Look through the lists below. These titles meet our Summer Reading Challenges too!
- Non Fiction Books with Tale in Title
- Books with Summer in Title
- Plagues, Pandemics, Epidemics
- Short Story and Essay Collections
- Books With Food, Drink
Author Talk with Jan-Philip Sendker
Short Story Summer Series
June & July 2021 (see dates below)
In this bullet train world, novels suffer while short stories do the work of illuminating what it is to be human. It may be that the short story is more difficult to write because of its limitations of time and space. Still, we need literature to reveal human experience to us. We read not just to be entertained but to learn how others handle life and its problems. Life is short, too.
Join the Gunn Memorial Library for a series of four sessions on the components of a short story and examples of exemplary work. Jim Kelleher, a poet who teaches literature and composition at Northwestern CT Community College will lead this series where we will read and share our ideas and impressions. Titles for the June sessions include “Hills Like White Elephants” by Hemingway, “My Financial Career” by Stephen Leacock, “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” by Leslie Silko, and “The Gilgul of Park Avenue” by Nathan Englander. We will review the mechanics of storytelling: characters, plot, setting, tone, theme, point of view. We will conclude on week four with “Without Inspection”, a sad look at immigration in our present time, by Edwidge Danticat.
This will be a hybrid program offered both in person and online. We will allow fifteen people to participate in this program onsite and it will be streamed live via Zoom.
The dates for the four sessions are as follows:
Tuesday, June 22 @ 6:30 pm
- Click to access Hemmingway and Leacock
Tuesday, June 29 @ 6:30 pm
Tuesday, July 13 @ 6:30 pm
Tuesday, July 20 @ 6:30 pm
Please select which format you’d prefer to access this program. Only 15 people will be allowed to attend in-person.
