Programs
The Seneca Falls Library features many different programs during the year focusing on different issues and goals:
The 10 to 12 members of Myndwich, the friendly group that meets Wednesdays at the Seneca Falls Library, present a background as diverse as the topics they discuss each week.
Members currently include housewives, former teachers, businessmen and women, a former librarian, and an artist - all who continue to seek knowledge.
Programs include book reviews, readings of items clipped from newspapers and other publications, travel reports and slide shows and general discussion.
The name is a combination of Mynderse (the former name of the library) and sandwich, because originally members brought their lunch to meetings. Today however, it's coffee and tea and occasionally cookies.
The group, which actively supports and helps staff library used book sales, welcomes residents and guests to its Wednesday noon meetings.
Friends of the Seneca Falls Library is an organization of people interested in books and the library. The Friends seek to stimulate financial contributions and contributions of goods and services to the library to enable additional and expanded educational, civic, cultural and business services to our community.
The Friends of the Library meets on the third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. Anyone is welcome to attend the meeting and join the group. The Friends have conducted a large book sale and have helped in the library in their short existence resulting in a benefit of money and time to the library. Future activities include a baked sale during polling for the November election, the drawing of a Thanksgiving Gift Basket, establishing an angel tree for the Wonderful Life Celebration and the making of Christmas Tree Decorations for sale in December.
The Red Tent Book Club is a group of women who meet on the first Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Library. The name of the club derived from one of the books read, "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant, a novel based on the life of Dinah, daughter of Jacob (Old Testament), where the women supported each other in small ways and large. The book club reads a book the month before and discusses it at the meeting. The group has been together since 1999 and is always open to new members.
The books read are often fiction and range from best sellers to reflections of individual members' interests. An occasional offering of non-fiction is welcome.
Members of the club have donated copies of most of the past books read to the library, and many are now available, along with the updated list.
Books for 2009
September: "The Reader," Bernhard Klink. Re-reading our 10th anniversary book, guaranteed to be controversial.
October: "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" - by Junot Diaz. This Pulitzer-Prize winning novel tells the story of the unlucky Dominican-American family of an obese science-fiction nerd. It's narrated first-person by Yunior a friend of the family contemplating these events years after they've happened. It was suggested by Judy Pipher, in paperback in September.
November: "Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - read best critical review on Amazon which states that this is for serious students of 1918-1956 history in the Soviet Union. Suggested by Wilhelmina.
December: "Animal, Vegetable Miracle: A year of Food Life" by Barbara Kingsolver, daughter and husband (Judy enjoyed - but its different. Sally also suggested.)
Books for 2010
January: "Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times" by George Crile. A triumph of ruthless ability over scruples, this story has dominated recent history in the form of blowback: many of the men armed by the CIA became the Taliban's murderous enforcers and Osama bin Laden's protectors.
February: ALL SF READS
March: ALL SF READS
April: "Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follet, suggested by Ginny DeJohn. Chronicles the vicissitudes of a prior, his master builder, and community as they struggle to build a cathedral in the tumultuous 12th century.
May: "The Queen and the Oil Club: The Intrepid Wanda Jablonski and the Power of Information" (Hardcover) by Anna Rubino, suggested by Barb. In the 1950s, when women were rarely hired as business reporters, Jablonski became a force in the oil industry, boldly investigating deals and tracking the trade from London to Abu Dhabi.
June: "An Innocent, a Broad" (Hardcover) by Ann Leary. On a weekend trip with her husband, comedian Denis Leary (who was still relatively unknown at the time), to London in 1990 during her second trimester, Leary's water broke. No home birth, no healthy baby, no fireman. This memoir is an easy read that finds the humor in this trying time in Leary's life.
July: "The Lace Reader"(Paperback) by Brunonia Barry. The site of the tragic trials in 1692 (Salem MA) is like no other town in the US. Setting her story of a mentally unbalanced young woman in Salem was a brilliant choice, because its foggy, mystical elements are more easily accepted against that most eccentric of backgrounds.
August: "After Long Silence" (Paperback) by Helen Fremont. Raised RC, author found out family had been Jews and were Holocaust survivors who emigrated to the US.
September: "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II" (Paperback) by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
October: A new book by Richard Russo?
The Seneca Falls Library is a member of the Finger Lakes Library System
47 Cayuga St., Seneca Falls, NY 13148 315-568-8265 (phone), 315-568-1606 (fax)