Activities

Decorah Public Library staff are hosting five book discussions in November. The groups are open to the public and newcomers are encouraged to attend. Anyone interested should call the library at 382-3717 to learn more or to reserve a book. Zoom links are available on the Library’s Calendar of Events page or you can email ktorresdal@decorahlibrary.org to be added to any of the five groups’ email distribution lists. Funds for multiple copy sets were generously provided by Friends of Decorah Public Library.

For more information, contact Carmen Buss (Friday Book Group), Zach Row-Heyveld (Cookbook Group) or Kristin Torresdal (Happy Hour, History, and Speculative Fiction Book Groups) at 563-382-3717.

The Happy Hour Book Group will hold a hybrid meeting Wed. Nov. 10 at 5:15 p.m. to discuss Ashley Audrain’s “The Push.” In-person attendees will meet in the lower-level public meeting room at the library and digital attendees will join via Zoom. Blythe Connor is determined to be a warm mother to her new baby Violet. But in the exhausting early days of motherhood, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter. Then her son Sam is born—and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.

Cookbook Book Group will meet on Thursday, November 11 at 7:00 p.m. in the lower-level public meeting room for a discussion and potluck of food made from Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis’s “Bavel.” “Bavel” invites home cooks to explore the broad and varied cuisines of the Middle East through fragrant spice blends; sublime zhougs, tahini, labneh, and hummus; rainbows of crisp-pickled vegetables; tender, oven-baked flatbreads; fall-off-the-bone meats and tagines; buttery pastries and tarts; and so much more. “Bavel” celebrates the freedom to cook what we love without loyalty to any specific country and represents a world before the region was divided into separate nations.

The Speculative Fiction Book Group will meet via Zoom Wed. Nov. 17 at 5:15 p.m. to discuss Christopher Buehlman’s “The Blacktongue Thief.” Kinch Na Shannack owes the Takers Guild a small fortune for his education as a thief. His debt has driven him to lie in wait by the old forest road, planning to rob the next traveler that crosses his path—but today, Kinch Na Shannack has picked the wrong mark. Unsuccessful in his robbery and lucky to escape with his life, Kinch now finds his fate entangled with the knight Galva on an epic journey where goblins hunger for human flesh, krakens hunt in dark waters, and honor is a luxury few can afford.

The History Book Group will meet on the 2^nd floor of the library Thurs. Nov. 18 at 3:00 p.m. to discuss chapters 1-10 of Robert Dallek’s “Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life.” For FDR, politics was a far more fulfilling pursuit than the management of family fortunes or the indulgence of personal pleasure, and by the time he became president, he had commanded the affection of millions of people. While all Roosevelt’s biographers agree that the onset of polio at the age of thirty-nine endowed him with a much greater sense of humanity, Dallek sees the affliction as an insufficient explanation for his transformation into a masterful politician who would win an unprecedented four presidential terms, initiate landmark reforms that changed the American industrial system, and transform an isolationist country into an international superpower. The group will finish discussing chapters 11- the end of the book at the December meeting.

The Friday Book Group will hold a hybrid meeting Fri. Nov. 19 at 2:00 p.m. to discuss Maggie O’Farrell’s “Hamnet.” In-person attendees will meet in the lower-level public meeting room at the library and digital attendees will join via Zoom. Agnes lives in Warwickshire in the 1580s. She settles with her husband in Stratford and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.