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Due to the extreme heat this activity has been rescheduled for Saturday, June 25th.

The June read for the book club is “Wake” by Anna Hope.

A brilliant debut for readers of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, in which three women must deal with the aftershocks of WWI and its impact on the men in their lives—a son, a brother and a lover. Their tragic connection is slowly revealed as the book unfolds.

Wake: 1) Emerge or cause to emerge from sleep 2) Ritual for the dead 3) Consequence or aftermath.

Hettie, a dance instructress at the Palais, lives at home with her mother and her brother, mute and lost after his return from the war. One night, at work, she meets a wealthy, educated man and has reason to think he is as smitten with her as she is with him. Still there is something distracted about him, something she cannot reach…Evelyn works at the Pensions Exchange through which thousands of men have claimed benefits from wounds or debilitating distress. Embittered by her own loss, more and more estranged from her posh parents, she looks for solace in her adored brother who has not been the same since he returned from the front…Ada is beset by visions of her son on every street, convinced he is still alive. Helpless, her loving husband of 25 years has withdrawn from her. Then one day a young man appears at her door with notions to peddle, like hundreds of out of work veterans. But when he shows signs of being seriously disturbed—she recognizes the symptoms of “shell shock”—and utters the name of her son she is jolted to the core…

The lives of these three women are braided together, their stories gathering tremendous power as the ties that bind them become clear, and the body of the unknown soldier moves closer and closer to its final resting place.

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

Due to the extreme heat this activity has been cancelled. Rendez-vous in September for a new year of walking and talking together! Dates to be posted soon!

If you would like to do textile arts while speaking in English, this activity is for you! Participants create textile pieces of their choice using any technique that suits them: embroidery, patchwork, quilting, weaving, collages. It is also a great opportunity for each person to learn new techniques.

Covid protocol require that you bring your own materials. Open to library members. If you would like to join the group which meets once a month, if possible, please sign up at the front desk.

Come and play (simple) Bridge (cardgame) at the library! Engage in a brain-stimulating sport: the Mini Bridge Exclusive Society. Discover, learn and play Mini Bridge in a relaxed, casual and informal ambiance. Mini Bridge, as developed by MBES allows and encourages

• conversations while playing the game,
• comments and remarks before, during and after the game,
• second thoughts,
• not taking oneself too seriously,

…in a nutshell, MBES (Mini Bridge Exclusive Society) proposes a different concept from the competing conventional Bridge Clubs.

Feel free to sign up and come and discover this new activity for library members! It is free and open to members of the library. Please contact the library to join!

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.

Do you love French food and restaurants? Would you like to speak English more, but in a relaxed environment? Join the Luncheon Club! Enjoy a meal and great conversation in English once a month at a local restaurant. This activity is open to library members. Spaces are limited. For more information or to sign up, please contact the group coordinator here.

The Saturday Reading Group is for anyone who loves to read, socialize in English, and meet new people. This Saturday, the group will read The Home Place by Drew Lanham.

From the fertile soils of love, land, identity, family, and race emerges The Home Place, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist J. Drew Lanham. Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina-a place “easy to pass by on the way somewhere else”-has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, listeners meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be “the rare bird, the oddity.” By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South-and in America today.

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.

After cancellation in 2021, the Big Quiz is back for the 11th edition! Join the library for a whole evening of fun…if you like Trivial Pursuit you will LOVE this!

Here’s the deal: teams of 6…6 heads are better than 1! You are welcome to constitute a full team or simply join in on partially filled teams…you might meet some great new friends! Teams are colored coded, do any of the following colors match your wardrobe?  Whiter Shade of Pale, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Greensleeves, Brown Sugar, Black Eyed Peas, Simply Red, Blueberry Hill, Orange Crush, Yellow Submarine?

Note the start time, 6 pm, SHARP… yes, best to be on time! There will be questions in all sorts of shapes, sizes and challenges. Wine, coffee (we will need it!), tea, and nibbles will be available. All this for just 12 euros per person: the ultimate win-win situation, support the library and enjoy the fun, the friendship, the laughter…and perhaps you will learn something new!

To sign up send an email by clicking here!