Events - 20 Mar 20

Flash Covid-19: this activity has been cancelled.

Join the library community for a special moment to talk about anything and everything (in English of course!) over a cup of coffee or tea. Coffee House is free and open to all library members. Just drop by, no need to reserve!

Flash Covid-19: the March 20th “Knit and Natter” has been cancelled.

Flash Covid-19: this event has been maintained for a maximum of 15 participants.

The March read for the book club is “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit” by Lucette Lagnado.

In vivid and graceful prose, Lucette Lagnado re-creates the majesty and cosmopolitan glamour of Cairo in the years between World War II and Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rise to power. Her father, Leon, was a boulevardier who conducted business on the elegant terrace of Shepheard’s Hotel, and later, in the cozy, dark bar of the Nile Hilton, dressed in his signature white sharkskin suit. But with the fall of King Farouk and Nasser’s nationalization of Egyptian industry, Leon and his family lose everything. As streets are renamed, neighborhoods of their fellow Jews disbanded, and the city purged of all foreign influence, the Lagnados, too, must make their escape. With all of their belongings packed into twenty-six suitcases, their jewels and gold coins hidden in sealed tins of marmalade, Leon and his family depart for any land that will take them. The poverty and hardships they encounter in their flight from Cairo to Paris to New York are strikingly juxtaposed against the beauty and comforts of the lives they left behind.

To join the book club please send an email to the group coordinator here.

Let yourself be carried away during this “Apéro Poétique” that takes place at the “122” at the top of the Rue de la Chalouère (where the CABA used to be). Part of the “Printemps des Poètes” the library and other non-profits are organizing an evening with different activities…

The library (yours truly!) had the bright idea of asking people to write a SHORT poem in Haiku style (we will have some very basic rules printed for people to follow) and then fold the haiku into an origami boat and ‘float” it in a small pool…fun, huh?

No need to sign up. Just come and enjoy!