Events - 13 May 23

The library’s Garden Club will be selling seedlings from Saturday, May 6th through Saturday, May 13th…lots of vegetable seedlings but not only…! Buying plants from the library will make the planet greener, will help give you a lovely choice of interesting homegrown seedlings and, the cherry on the cake or the plum on the tree…this fundraiser helps to support the library!

The Saturday Reading Group is for anyone who loves to read, socialize in English, and meet new people. For this meeting, the group will read Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Paradise is at once the story of an African boy’s coming of age, a tragic love story, and a tale of the corruption of traditional African patterns by European colonialism. It presents a major African voice to American readers – a voice that prompted Peter Tinniswood to write in the London Times, reviewing Gurnah’s previous novel, “Mr. Gurnah is a very fine writer. I am certain he will become a great one.” Paradise is Abdulrazak Gurnah’s great novel. At twelve, Yusuf, the protagonist of this twentieth-century odyssey, is sold by his father in repayment of a debt. From the simple life of rural Africa, Yusuf is thrown into the complexities of precolonial urban East Africa – a fascinating world in which Muslim black Africans, Christian missionaries, and Indians from the subcontinent coexist in a fragile, subtle social hierarchy. Through the eyes of Yusuf, Gurnah depicts communities at war, trading safaris gone awry, and the universal trials of adolescence. Then, just as Yusuf begins to comprehend the choices required of him, he and everyone around him must adjust to the new reality of European colonialism. The result is a page-turning saga that covers the same territory as the novels of Isak Dinesen and William Boyd, but does so from a perspective never before available on that seldom-chronicled part of the world.

Meetings are once a month on Saturday afternoons starting at 3 pm. Open to all library members. To sign up please contact the group coordinator at bookgroup@ellia.org.

The film club presents a film in English once a month on a Saturday afternoon. This showing will be of “Vera Drake”, directed by Mike Leigh.

Vera Drake is devoted to her family, looking after her husband and children, her elderly mother, and a sick neighbour. Her shy daughter, Ethel (Alex Kelly), works in a lightbulb factory, and her son, Sid  tailors men’s suits. Her husband, Stanley is a car mechanic. Although Vera and her family are poor, their strong family bonds hold them together. During her working day as a house cleaner, Vera performs constant small acts of kindness for the many people she encounters.

She is a kindly person who is eager to help others. Unknown to her family, she also works secretly, providing abortions for young women. She receives no money for providing this service because she believes that her help is an act of charity to women in trouble. However, her partner Lily (Ruth Sheen), who also carries on a black-market trade in scarce postwar foodstuffs, charges two guineas (two pounds and two shillings: equivalent to £73 in 2021) for arranging the abortions, without Vera’s knowledge.

Watch the trailer here.

Screening begins at 3 o’clock sharp and will be followed by a discussion in English. This activity is free and open to all library members.  

Are you a new mom or dad and looking to meet other English-speaking parents in the area? The BYOB (Bring Your Own Baby) group is a way for families with young children to connect and chat about anything and everything related to the journey into parenthood. This group is for English-speaking parents with a baby (or babies!) under 3 years old so be sure to bring them along! Bilingual and multilingual families are welcome, too. The group will meet one Saturday a month from 4:15-5:15pm in the back of the library.

This activity is free for library members. For more information or to sign up, please contact the group leader.