Weymouth Public Libraries

This week's new book spotlight focuses on, "The Life Impossible" by Matt Haig.

"What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don't understand yet..."

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend's life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.

Join us for Weymouth Reads Together. Weymouth Reads Together is a shared community experience around one book. This is our first "one book, one community" initiative specifically for Weymouth. From September through November, Tufts Library will host events for adults related to our chosen book. This year we are reading "The Times That Try Men's Souls by Joyce Malcolm. For more information on the book, author, and events check out the images attached to this post!

Weymouth Public Libraries wants to wish everyone a happy Library Card Signup Month. If you don't have a card come on in and get one. They give you access to books, DVDs, Museum Passes, and more. If you already have a card don't forget to stop by and check something out to celebrate!

Check out this weeks happenings at the Tufts library. For more information go to our event calendar: https://shorturl.at/6kFbT!

The Weymouth Libraries will be closed today, Monday, September 2nd, in observance of Labor Day. While we may be closed you are still able to access all of our digital materials: https://tinyurl.com/rm2z5m47.

The Weymouth Libraries will be closed today, Saturday, August 31st, in observance of Labor Day. While we may be closed you are still able to access all of our digital materials: https://tinyurl.com/rm2z5m47.

September is Library Card Sign-Up Month! Come celebrate by taking a picture in front of our selfie wall on the second floor. If you don't already have a library card make sure to stop by the desk on the first floor and sign up for one. We hope to see you soon!

The Weymouth Libraries will be closed Saturday, August 31st and Monday, September 2nd, in observance of Labor Day. While we may be closed you are still able to access all of our digital materials: https://tinyurl.com/rm2z5m47.

This week's staff pick comes from Janet G., one of the Teen and Reference Librarians. Her pick is "Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books " by Kristen Miller.

The provocative and hilarious summer read that will have book lovers cheering and everyone talking! Kirsten Miller, author of The Change, brings us a bracing, wildly entertaining satire about a small Southern town, a pitched battle over banned books, and a little lending library that changes everything.

Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books--none of which she's actually read. To replace the "pornographic" books she's challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she's sure the town's readers need.

What Lula doesn't know is that a local troublemaker has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets, and restocked Lula's library with banned books: literary classics, gay romances, Black history, witchy spell books, Judy Blume novels, and more. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean's library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean's enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town's disgraced mayor.

That's when all the townspeople who've been borrowing from Lula's library begin to reveal themselves. That's when the showdown that's been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever.

This week's new book spotlight focuses on, "The Enchanted Lies of Celeste Artois" by Ryan Graudin.

In this lush and lyrical fantasy debut, Ryan Graudin transports readers to the hidden magical pockets of early 1900s Paris, a place of enchanted salons, fortune tellers who can change your stars, and doorways that can take you to the most unexpected places--and introduces readers to the delightful Céleste Artois, a con artist who will make a deal with the devil in exchange for her life...and change the fate of the world.

Once, Céleste Artois had dreams of being an artist. But when the creative elite of Paris dashed those plans, she turned her talents to forgery and cons. She and the Enchantresses--her two fellow thieves and best friends--see Paris as a rich hunting ground for marks. Yet even though their hideout in Père Lachaise cemetery is bursting with francs, Céleste cannot rest. There is always more to take. And the blood she has begun to cough into her handkerchief means her time is running out.

But everything changes when she encounters Rafe, a mysterious and beautiful stranger who leads her to an enchanted salon--a place where artists can bring wondrous imaginations to life. Céleste is captivated by this establishment, and learns of the existence of magical Paris, hidden in the pockets and alleys of the ordinary world, if one only knows where to look.

Rafe offers Céleste an irresistible deal: the gift of time in exchange for lending him and his benefactor her forging talents. But one must be careful making deals with devils, and there's more to this hidden world than meets the eye. Shadows have begun to circle Paris. And soon, the Enchantresses will find that true magic is far more powerful, and deadly, than they ever imagined.

Hoopla's Bonus Borrows are back! From today, August 25th to Saturday, August 31st you will have access to select TV shows, movies, comics and manga, eBooks, audiobooks, and even the STEAM Powered Kids BingePass without having to use any of your borrows. Make Sure to check Hoopla out today!

Join us on Wednesday, August 28th, for a screening of Stand By Me, at 10:00 AM. Watch this wonderful movie at Tufts Library in Multipurpose Room 138.

This week's staff pick comes from Sandy C., The Head of Circulation. Her pick is in honor of the 104th anniversary of the 19th amendment. Her pick is, "The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote" by Elaine Weiss.

Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, twelve have rejected or refused to vote, and one last state is needed. It all comes down to Tennessee, the moment of truth for the suffragists, after a seven-decade crusade. The opposing forces include politicians with careers at stake, liquor companies, railroad magnates, and a lot of racists who don't want black women voting. And then there are the "Antis"--women who oppose their own enfranchisement, fearing suffrage will bring about the moral collapse of the nation. They all converge in a boiling hot summer for a vicious face-off replete with dirty tricks, betrayals and bribes, bigotry, Jack Daniel's, and the Bible.

Following a handful of remarkable women who led their respective forces into battle, along with appearances by Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Frederick Douglass, and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Woman's Hour is an inspiring story of activists winning their own freedom in one of the last campaigns forged in the shadow of the Civil War, and the beginning of the great twentieth-century battles for civil rights.

This week's new book spotlight focuses on, "There Are Rivers in the Sky" by Elif Shafak.

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur's only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur's world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family's ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers--the Tigris and the Thames--transcend history, transcend fate: "Water remembers. It is humans who forget."

We wanted to update the community that the elevator is fixed!

The elevator is currently down. We are working on getting it fixed as soon as possible. In the interim please see the front desk for help with retrieving any materials from the second floor. You can also give us a call at 781-340-5002.

We had a great time at the Teen Art Show on Thursday night! Take a look at some of the great artwork that was on display! We also had wonderful live performances as well!

Join us on Wednesday, August 21st, for a screening of We Are Marshall, at 10:00 AM. Watch this wonderful movie at Tufts Library in Multipurpose Room 138.

Check out our Fat Liberation display on the first floor. It has so many great books! For a list of the books, click the link: https://shorturl.at/ipf1I.

This week's staff pick comes from Linda B., from the circulation department. Her pick is "Ella" by Diane Richards.

When fifteen-year-old Ella Fitzgerald's mother dies at the height of the Depression in 1932, the teenager goes to work for the mob to support herself and her family. When the law finally catches up, the "ungovernable" adolescent is incarcerated in the New York Training School for Girls in upstate New York--a wicked prison infamous for its harsh treatment of inmates, especially Black ones. Determined to be free, Ella escapes and makes her way back to Harlem, where she is forced to dance for pennies on the street.

Looking for a break into show business, Ella draws straws to appear at the Apollo Theater's Amateur Night on November 21, 1934. Rather than perform a dance routine directly after "The World Famous Edwards Sisters" number, the homeless Ella, wearing men's galoshes a size too big, risks everything when she decides to sing Judy instead. Four years later, at barely twenty-one, Ella Fitzgerald has become the bestselling female vocalist in America.

Diane Richards' Ella Fitzgerald is inspiring and intriguing--an emotionally rich, psychologically complex character, a flawed mother and wife who struggles with deep emotional scars and trauma and battles racism, sexism, and colorism as she learns to find her voice on the stage. Ella takes us from the brothels, speakeasys, and streets of Depression-era New York City to the grand hotel suites where Ella, now older and wiser, looks back on her life and finally confronts the demons from childhood that torment her.

Compelling and rich in historical detail, Ella is a remarkable debut novel about an extraordinary woman.

This week's new book spotlight focuses on, "Mina's Matchbox: A Novel" by Yōko Ogawa.

In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt's family. Tomoko's aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home--and handsome foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company--are symbols of that status. The seventeen rooms are filled with German-made furnishings; there are sprawling gardens and even an old zoo where the family's pygmy hippopotamus resides. The family is just as beguiling as their mansion--Tomoko's dignified and devoted aunt, her German great-aunt, and her dashing, charming uncle, who confidently sits as the family's patriarch. At the center of the family is Tomoko's cousin Mina, a precocious, asthmatic girl of thirteen who draws Tomoko into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling.

In this elegant jewel box of a book, Yoko Ogawa invites us to witness a powerful and formative interlude in Tomoko's life. Behind the family's sophistication are complications that Tomoko struggles to understand--her uncle's mysterious absences, her great-aunt's experience of the Second World War, her aunt's misery. Rich with the magic and mystery of youthful experience, Mina's Matchbox is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time--and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse.

Join us on Wednesday, August 14th, for a screening of Stronger, at 10:00 AM. Watch this wonderful movie at Tufts Library in Multipurpose Room 138.

The Adult Events Fall Preview with mocktails has been moved inside to Meeting Room 133 due to weather. We hope to see you there!

This week's staff pick comes from Miriam T., from the Children's Department. Her pick is, "The Missing Ink" by Philip Hensher.

When Philip Hensher realized that he didn't know what a close friend's handwriting looked like ("bold or crabbed, sloping or upright, italic or rounded, elegant or slapdash"), he felt that something essential was missing from their friendship. It dawned on him that having abandoned pen and paper for keyboards, we have lost one of the ways by which we come to recognize and know another person. People have written by hand for thousands of years-- how, Hensher wondered, have they learned this skill, and what part has it played in their lives?

The Missing Ink tells the story of this endangered art. Hensher introduces us to the nineteenth-century handwriting evangelists who traveled across America to convert the masses to the moral worth of copperplate script; he examines the role handwriting plays in the novels of Charles Dickens; he investigates the claims made by the practitioners of graphology that penmanship can reveal personality.

But this is also a celebration of the physical act of writing: the treasured fountain pens, chewable ballpoints, and personal embellishments that we stand to lose. Hensher pays tribute to the warmth and personality of the handwritten love note, postcards sent home, and daily diary entries. With the teaching of handwriting now required in only five states and many expert typists barely able to hold a pen, the future of handwriting is in jeopardy. Or is it? Hugely entertaining, witty, and thought-provoking, The Missing Ink will inspire readers to pick up a pen and write.

This Sunday! The Weymouth Farmers Market is hosting their Kids Day event here at Weston Park / Tufts Library! The library will be open for restrooms only. Join us outside for all this fun!

This week's new book spotlight focuses on, "The Rich People Have Gone Away" by Regina Porter.

Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife, Darla, head upstate to their summer cottage to wait out the lockdown. Not everyone in their upscale Park Slope building has this privilege: not Xavier, the teenager in the Cardi B T-shirt, nor Darla's best friend, Ruby, and her partner, Katsumi, who stay behind to save their Michelin-starred restaurant.

During an upstate hike on the aptly named Devil's Path, Theo divulges a long-held secret--and when Darla disappears after the ensuing argument, he finds himself the prime suspect. As Darla's and Theo's families and friends come together to search for her, with Ruby and Katsumi stepping in to broker peace, past and present collide with startling consequences.

Set against the pulse of an ever-changing city, The Rich People Have Gone Away connects the lives of ordinary New Yorkers to tell a powerful story of hope, love, and inequity in our times--while reminding us that no one leaves the past behind completely.

Join us on Wednesday, August 7th, for a screening of Bob Marley One Love, at 10:00 AM. Watch this wonderful movie at Tufts Library in Multipurpose Room 138.

Join us on Monday, August 5th, for a screening of Big Eyes, at 6:00 PM. Watch this wonderful movie at Tufts Library in Multipurpose Room 138.