Thomaston Public Library, Thomaston Maine

Our display case this month is truly a thing of beauty. We're very fortunate to be displaying the stunning wood-turned vessels of Peter McCrea of Thomaston. Do not miss this breathtaking collection, which will be in place through the month of April.

Also beautifying the library this month are the lovely fresh flower arrangements donated to us by Thomaston's new florist and giftshop, The Flower Goddess, now open at 144 Main Street. Look for these colorful arrangements on the display table as you enter the main room of the library.

Please scroll down for the latest news and for information on upcoming events. Check the Catalog & ILL page for a list of our new materials and the Book Clubs page for the scoop on April's Intergenerational Book Club selection. We're also delighted to feature, just below, an exclusive link to a new 10-minute documentary about preserving the legacy of Maine artist Bernard Langlais, whose works grace our walls.

The Thomaston Public Library is pleased to offer a program introducing the local community to the broad spectrum of services available at the Rockland Career Center for those seeking jobs or changing careers. A Career Center consultant will present a slideshow, distribute handouts, and answer all of your questions about the career center's many services, from computer use, faxing, and scanning to job training, resume-help, and content and contact information about job openings in the area and the state. Stay tuned for more information about this timely and informative program.

Story Hour happens every Thursday morning at 11 in the Children's Department. Bring your pre-school child in to hear stories, do crafts, browse the shelves, and play!

During Spring Break week, which begins April 21st, we'll be offering fun, daily events. We are closed on Monday, April 21st, for Patriots' Day, but check the list below for the cool stuff happening at 11 AM that week, Tuesday through Friday!

April 17th

Make handprint flamingos and read the award-winning Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle!

Spring Break Week

April 22nd

Meet an animal from the Knox County Humane Society as Tracy Sala and friends visit the library and read a story about pets.

April 23rd

Join us on Wednesday to learn about things that float and experience some buoyancy fun!

April 24th

Experience songwriting firsthand as David Hynd of Playin’ Possum band does a musical workshop in the kids' room.

April 25th

Join Jess Day and Megan Rogers of Midcoast Music Together as we sing and dance and learn.

April's contra dance will take place in the gym of the Thomaston Academy building at 8 PM. Sassafras Stomp will provide the music and Kim Roberts will call. Admission is $10 and young children are free. Contra dances are open to everyone and families are welcome. No experience is necessary!

Mark your calendars for another Thomaston Academy dance - a special dance on Thursday, May 8th, at 7:30 PM, to benefit the Georges River Land Trust!

This Week: Songcatcher

The Friday Night Films are open to the public and free, although donations are gratefully accepted. The location is Room 200 of the Academy Building and films start promptly at 6:30 PM. Light refreshments are served.

Naturalist, filmmaker, and author Yoke Bauer DiGiorgio creates works that explore the human connection to wildlife and the natural environment. Yoke collaborated with her husband, John, an accomplished fine-art and wildlife photographer, in creating this short documentary about Bernard Langlais.

Renowned Maine artist Bernard Langlais created over 3,000 indoor and outdoor works of art during his lifetime, many of them constructed in response to the surrounding landscape of his Cushing property. Unique, edgy, and very creative, he was also well known as a painter in New York City where he lived during the 50s and 60s. This 10-minute documentary tells the story of the collaboration of three organizations – Colby College Museum of Art, Kohler Foundation, Inc., and the Georges River Land Trust – and their efforts to restore and preserve Langlais's artistic legacy.

You may view this short documentary here.

Tim English leads his Qi Gong sessions at Thomaston Public Library every Saturday at 11 AM in the Thomaston Academy gym.

According to the National Qi Gong Association, "The word Qigong (Chi Kung) is made up of two Chinese words. Qi is pronounced chee and is usually translated to mean the life force or vital energy that flows through all things in the universe. The second word, Gong, pronounced gung, means accomplishment or skill that is cultivated through steady practice. Together, Qigong (Chi Kung) means cultivating energy. It is a system practiced for health maintenance, healing, and increasing vitality."

The Qi Gong sessions are open to people of any age and skill level. No experience is necessary. Non-restricting, comfortable clothes are advisable for the gentle, graceful exercises of Qi Gong.

Divergent, by Veronica Roth, is a dystopian-fiction novel about a sixteen-year-old girl growing up in a society divided into government- regulated cliques. Set in a deteriorating Chicago landscape in the future, the book opens with the protagonist, Beatrice Prior, about to decide which of her society's five factions she will belong to. All the schoolchildren are required to go through a "simulation," a scenario regulated by a computer and an injection, to determine the proclivity of the initiate. There is "Amity," which is noteworthy for its kindness and agricultural pursuits, "Dauntless," the faction that values bravery and supplies defense, "Erudite," the intelligence and research community, "Candor," which values honesty above all other traits, "Abnegation," the selfless faction that turns out most of the government leaders.

Born and raised in Abnegation, the main character anticipates her result will place her in her home faction. During the simulation, Beatrice makes a number of unusual decisions that leads her to the mysterious outcome called "divergent," meaning she has more than one potential outcome. Her results could equally place her in Dauntless, Erudite, or Abnegation. Unsure of which road she should take, but warned by the system never to discuss her results, Beatrice chooses to switch to Dauntless.

The Dauntless live in an underground cavern with dangerous passageways cut away around a roaring stream. There are no handrails, and one of the initiation rites is dropping ten stories into an open net. There are no disabled or elderly; all who cannot meet the demands of the Dauntless lifestyle are sent to live with the "factionless." The factionless are those who were unable to fit into a faction lifestyle and are essentially homeless.

Beatrice, or "Tris" for short, soon learns that she has special abilities as a "Divergent." During other simulations, administered to gauge the initiate's ability to overcome fear, she discovers that she has the ability to manipulate the scenarios she is presented with. Part way through her training, Tris uncovers an Erudite plot to control the Dauntless via simulation and turn them into their personal army. She awakens one night to find all of her fellow faction-members under a deep trance. With the help of family and friends, she takes on the situation.

Full of exciting action and daring escapes, try out this popular new trilogy, soon to become a motion picture!

In his wise little essay "Misery Loves a Memoir," writer Benjamin Kunkel asks, "Where is the contemporary writer reporting honestly, ambitiously, and without therapeutic cant or smug self-help recipes on his or her effort to live a proud and decent life? Contemporary memoirists have taught us mostly how to survive. They haven't begun to teach us how to live." Although some of the recent memoirs of misery and dysfunction are affecting, absorbing, and well-written, one does wish, from time to time, for a more positive sort of life-examination, one that might reveal how better to live.

Well, here are three new memoirs that fit the bill. My Bright Abyss, by poet Christian Wiman, chronicles the author's return to faith after a life-upending event. To say that Wiman writes like an angel wielding a diamond-point pen is no hyperbole. Each sentence is basically flawless, its idea perfectly and precisely expressed. The poetry he includes, his own and that of other poets, is superlative. It's the wisest book I've read in ages.

On a less ethereal plane, journalist Lynn Darling's Out of the Woods follows Darling's move, at age 56, from New York City to the backwoods of Vermont, where, in her newly empty nest, she confronts the challenges of inhabiting a house that's more a shambles, navigating the woods alone, and figuring out what to do with the rest of her life. Less profound and more practical than My Bright Abyss, Out of the Woods is as compelling as a good novel and Darling is one fine writer.

The third work, My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead, a staff writer for the New Yorker, is a biblio-memoir, a book that examines aspects of the author's own life through the lens of a book, in this case George Eliot's masterpiece Middlemarch, a novel Mead found hugely influential. This memoir's an English major's delight and will please anyone who loves good books and understands "a young woman's desire for a substantial, rewarding, meaningful life."

All three memoirs are available at the library and you can read Benjamin Kunkel's essay, "Misery Loves a Memoir," here.

When no Pulitzer Prize was awarded in 2012 for fiction, the Maine Library Association, in conjunction with the Maine State Library, created the Maine Readers' Choice award. The criteria are as follows: the book must be a work of fiction, published in the United States the previous year, with a well-written, compelling story that appeals to a wide audience. The short-list of 2014's 10 finalists can be found below. You can find 2014's sizeable long-list on the Maine Readers' Choice website.

Benediction by Kent Haruf
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Tenth of December by George Saunders
The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope by Rhonda Riley
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna
The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda

The three finalists will be unveiled to the Maine reading community in May for their summer-time reading pleasure and voting.