A reading and discussion series in America's libraries.

“Love, Forgiveness, and Wisdom”


Sundays, 2-4 p.m.

March 15, 2009—Sense and Sensibility Register Now
April 26, 2009—The History of Love Register Now
May 17, 2009—The Winter's Tale Register Now


Saturdays, 2-4 p.m.

June 13, 2009—The Essential Rumi Register Now
July 18, 2009—Atonement Register Now


All discussions will be led by Dr. Susan Gilmore, Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University.

Registration is requested in-person, online (links above) or by calling 695-6295.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

In its marvelously perceptive portrayal of two young women in love, Sense and Sensibility is the answer to those critics and readers who believe that Jane Austen's novels, despite their perfection of form and tone, lack strong feeling. The two heroines: Marianne — young, impetuous, ardent — falls into paroxysms of grief when she is rejected by the dashing John Willoughby; while her sister, Elinor — wiser, more sensible, more self-controlled — masks her despair when it appears that Edward Ferrars is to marry the mean-spirited and cunning Lucy Steele.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness. Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always like this: 60 years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And though Leo doesn't know it, that book survived, inspiring fabulous circumstances, even love.

The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

This 1611 tragicomedy begins with the tyrannical actions of a jealous king and concludes with romance and reconciliation.

The Essential Rumi by Maulan Jalal al-Din Rumi

Though he wrote his extraordinary poems over 700 years ago in culture far removed from our own, Rumi is today the most widely read poet in America. This is, of course, largely due to the fact that his poems and stories are simple and direct enough for their startling and passionate imagery to travel across such distances of culture and time, but it is also true that Rumi never would have reached such a wide American audience if his work hadn't found the perfect translator in Coleman Barks.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

On a summer day in 1935, young Briony Tallis witnesses a moment's flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony's misunderstanding of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all their lives, a crime whose repercussions Atonement follows through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the 20th century.