book TALK

loading...

They soak up poetry, chew on novels, puzzle over nonfiction or jump onto a bus to visit places mentioned in a volume based in Maine.

They are members of book discussion groups, meeting in communities large and small, and, especially in winter, they can’t get enough.

Bangor Public Library is about to begin a free four-week “Let’s Talk about It” series, one of the most widely used Maine Humanities Council book discussion programs. The council pays the salary for the person who serves as scholar and facilitator, and frequently provides books for loan.

At the Witherle Memorial Library in Castine, a “Let’s Talk about It” series gets under way later this month.

Many libraries offer their own community book discussion groups. In Dexter, for example, Abbott Memorial Library has a monthly gathering for mothers and daughters. Port In A Storm Book Store in Somesville recently held a meeting to organize book groups for the season, and public libraries in Blue Hill and Old Town, among other communities, hold regular book groups.

In sparsely populated Maine, book groups offer friendship, fellowship and a chance to learn from other’s experiences. They also break down barriers between different age groups and people from different educational and economic backgrounds.

“The great thing is the incredible range of backgrounds of people who come, all kinds of people,” reflected Kathleen Ellis who teaches writing at the University of Maine and has given talks all over Maine for book groups going back to the 1980s.

In Searsport, population 2,700, the Carver Memorial Library boasts two book discussion groups – one meeting at 1 p.m. every other Thursday, reading “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” and one meeting at 6:30 p.m. on the second Thursday of the month.

The evening group does a different book each month, said member Denise LoBue.

“November is devoted to selecting books for the coming year,” she said. Members suggested a total of 35 books during the November meeting.

“We sought variety,” she said, from classics to recent fiction and nonfiction. The book for May, the month of Mother’s Day, will be “All Over But the Shoutin’,” Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times writer Rick Bragg’s tribute to his mother.

“One of my favorite meetings was in December,” LoBue said, the month for members to each bring in a book.

“I brought ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,’ because I had spent time in Savannah,” she said.

Last year’s books included Carole Shields’ “The Stone Diaries,” a book about the Holocaust which LoBue described as “very difficult to read. It brought up all kinds of different issues, and was intellectually challenging.”

“Another book that half the group adored, and half hated, was ‘We Were the Mulvaneys,’ by Joyce Carol Oates. I happened to be on the side that loved the book,” she said.

Maine’s cold, snowy winters give added inspiration to the average reader, but LoBue has that special devotion that comes from working with books.

She did so for more than 20 years, most recently as a district manager for a chain of bookstores – a position that took her all over the country.

It was a job she had to leave when she became disabled with multiple sclerosis.

“I thought, well, I can always read,” LoBue recalled, “but I really missed the camaraderie, the ‘Oh, what are you reading? What did you think about the book?'”

Now she has that camaraderie with the book group at the Searsport library, meeting in a curved room with appurtenances of old wood and a marble fireplace.

The subject for the Jan. 11 discussion was “Plain and Simple: A Woman’s Journey to the Amish,” by Sue Bender. The former New Yorker is a therapist and ceramics artist in California, and was prompted to spend several weeks in Amish communities in Iowa and Ohio after becoming fascinated with Amish quilts she had seen.

The book has few illustrations, so quilting aficionado LoBue shared several pictures of Amish quilts and others done in the sect’s simple style.

“This is really helpful,” commented Janet Blood, “because it’s not really like I imagined in the book.”

The nine women in the group liked learning about the Amish and absorbing the theme of a life where every activity is of value. LoBue called it the perfect book for the new year.

“Personally, this month I’m trying to simplify my life,” said Sandy Dolan.

“It reminded me of my childhood. I was born on a farm – that simplicity,” said Rena Bezanilla, who grew up in Madawaska.

The possibility of living away from the hustle and bustle of society appealed to some.

“I think I would enjoy going out and finding a place with a well, and doing electricity with a wheel,” said Neva Allen. “I always feel my life is ruled by utility companies and all these other things.”

Another reader, Chase Colasante, grew up in Ohio not far from an Amish community.

She was impressed with the notion that “there is no separation between the everyday and the sacred.”

As enthusiastic as the group was about the book, members were a little put off by some of the attitudes of the author, an affluent woman who redid her kitchen in a simpler style after her first visit to the Amish.

Bender seemed to take from the experience some of the more superficial things, they thought, and went overboard acquiring the plain Amish dolls that bear no facial features.

“The dolls’ faces aren’t supposed to be vain,” pointed out Jean Cummings, Dolan’s mother.

“Every mother made those dolls for her children,” said Cheryl Krause.

The women tried to imagine what it would be like to be part of an Amish community.

“Would we all feel so different if we were sitting here with those aprons and those bonnets?” queried Lee Anne Lee.

The group closed with Lee reading information about next month’s selection, “In the Lake of the Woods.”

Krause, who prefers not to know anything about the book before she reads it, plugged her ears for the few moments it took Lee to tell about it.

During the course of the evening, the readers augmented their discussion with tea, cookies and lots of laughter.

Searsport’s evening group has been meeting for more than a year, and the afternoon gathering for six years.

“It’s well worth doing,” commented Librarian Nancy Morley. Later this year, she hopes, there will be a repeat of another literary activity that was a big hit the first time it was tried.

“Last spring, we had a historical novel tour for ‘Pink Chimneys,’ by Ardeana Hamlin,” Morley said. “We took a bus with 45 people to Stockton Springs, up to Bangor and back down the other side of the river.

At the Bangor Public Library’s “Let’s Talk about It” series, Kathleen Ellis will lead the discussions, which will be held at 7 p.m. Thursdays at the library beginning Feb. 15.

The four books for the program about this culture’s myths of romance and happy endings are: Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” Anne Sexton’s “Transformations” and Rachel Ingalls’ “Mrs. Caliban.”

Participants may register at the adult circulation desk, and books will be available for loan the first week in February.

Kathleen Ellis teaches writing at the University of Maine and has given talks all over Maine for book groups going back to the 1980s.

The gatherings begin with an informal talk, “and I prepare questions,” Ellis said. “The series seems to have a real following – a lot of people come back.”

Another UM writing instructor, Margery Irvine, will lead the same discussion series at the Witherle Memorial Library in Castine, beginning at 7 p.m. Jan. 24. The group will meet every few weeks into March.

Irvine also is doing the Maine Humanities Council “dinner and a book” community seminar which begins Jan. 23 at Bangor Public Library with the theme “Living on the Edge.”

Books will include Annie Proulx’s “Close Range: Wyoming Stories,” Michael Cunningham’s “The Hours,” James Dodson’s “Final Rounds,” Michael MacDonald’s “All Souls: A Family Story from Southie,” Rose Tremain’s “The Way I Found Her” and J.M. Coetzee’s “Disgrace.”

There is a $200 fee for the six-session series, which includes the cost of the monthly dinner and books.

“I’ve been doing this for the Maine Humanities Council since 1988,” Irvine explained of her work as a scholar and facilitator for a variety of book discussion groups.

“Two things really appeal to me from the reader’s point of view,” Irvine said. “It gives all of us that hard-to-come-by joy of reading a book, then getting to talk about it.

“From a teacher’s point of view, it’s a treat to be able to meet with people who read the book and really want to be there. They’ve had a lot of life experience they bring to the discussion,” she said.

More than 120 Maine libraries have offered book groups at different times with assistance from the council.

Last fall, for example, the Bangor-Brewer YWCA received funding, enabling it to offer a three-session group led by Husson College professor Esther Rauch on the autobiographical works of Maya Angelou. The poet, actress and civil rights activist spoke at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono between the second and third meetings of the group.

The council also offers an annual Winter Weekend program, to be held Friday evening and all day Saturday, March 2-3, at Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

This year’s scholarly program is “Beowulf and the Norse Millennium.” The fee is $200, which includes books, two meals and a tax-deductible contribution to MCH programs for at-risk youth. The contact for this program and the dinner-and-a-book series at Bangor Public Library is Trudy Hickey at the Maine Humanities Council.

Other MHC programs focus on children, new readers and even health professionals. Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor and Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft were the first hospitals to participate in “Literature and Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Healthcare” in 1998.

Several hospitals around the state now participate in the effort, which this year has the theme “Spirituality and Health.”

For information on local book groups, contact the nearest library or call the Maine Humanities Council at 773-5051; or check Web sites of public libraries at www.state.me.us/msl/melibson.htm, or the Maine Humanities Council at www.mainehumanities.com.