What’s happening

“Ski, Snow and Surf” is a 3-day English-learning workshop for collégiens. Participants learn English in a fun, interactive way with games, songs and activities with lots of talking and moving around! The workshop will be at the library for three consecutive afternoons of three hours each.

Please contact the front desk to sign up by phone: 02 41 24 97 07 or email: info@ellia.org. Limited to 15 participants so sign-up fast! Cost is 75 euros (includes snack, materials and library membership).

The library is an authorised test center for the TOEIC Listening and Reading Test (the Test of English for International Communication). For more information please visit our TOEIC page or to sign up go to the official ETS website.

The February read for the book club is “Celestial Bodies” by Jokha Alharthi.

Celestial Bodies is set in the village of al-Awafi in Oman, where we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries Abdallah after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla who rejects all offers while waiting for her beloved, who has immigrated to Canada. These three women and their families witness Oman’s evolution from a traditional, slave-owning society slowly redefining itself after the colonial era, to the crossroads of its complex present. Elegantly structured and taut, Celestial Bodies is a coiled spring of a novel, telling of Oman’s coming-of-age through the prism of one family’s losses and loves. Winner of the 2019 Booker International prize.

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

Join us for our ever-popular game night and pizza party! Cost is 7 euros (covers pizza and non-alcoholic drinks, 5 euros for native English speakers and children under 13). Event starts at 6 pm sharp. Last entry at 6:15 pm. No reservations necessary, just come and enjoy!

[Official date for March to be determined]

The Saturday Reading Group is for anyone who loves to read, socialize in English, and meet new people.

The March read for the group is Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime by Ron Stallworth. In 1978 the community of Colorado Springs, Colorado experienced a growth of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) membership. One man dared to challenge their effort and thwart attempts to take over the city, Police Detective Ron Stallworth. He launched an undercover investigation into the Klan, gained membership into the organization, briefly served as Duke’s bodyguard, and was eventually asked to be the leader of the Colorado Springs chapter. The irony of this investigation was that Stallworth is… A Black man. In the process he battled internal departmental politics to successfully pull off this “sting.” Black Klansman explains how he overcame these obstacles and accomplished this almost unbelievable unique achievement.

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 library is an authorised test center for the TOEIC Listening and Reading Test (the Test of English for International Communication). For more information please visit our TOEIC page or to sign up go to the official ETS website.

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.

Join us for our ever-popular game night and pizza party! Cost is 7 euros (covers pizza and non-alcoholic drinks, 5 euros for native English speakers and children under 13). Event starts at 6 pm sharp. Last entry at 6:15 pm. No reservations necessary, just come and enjoy!

The library is an authorised test center for the TOEIC Listening and Reading Test (the Test of English for International Communication). For more information please visit our TOEIC page or to sign up go to the official ETS website.

[Official date for April to be determined]

The Saturday Reading Group is for anyone who loves to read, socialize in English, and meet new people.

The April read for the group is Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple. When her daughter Bee claims a family trip to Antarctica as a reward for perfect grades, Bernadette, a fiercely intelligent shut-in, throws herself into preparations for the trip. But worn down by years of trying to live the Seattle life she never wanted, Ms. Fox is on the brink of a meltdown. And after a school fundraiser goes disastrously awry at her hands, she disappears, leaving her family to pick up the pieces–which is exactly what Bee does, weaving together an elaborate web of emails, invoices, and school memos that reveals a secret past Bernadette has been hiding for decades. Where’d You Go Bernadette is an ingenious and unabashedly entertaining novel about a family coming to terms with who they are and the power of a daughter’s love for her mother.

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.