Swamplandia! – BookTalk at BSC

Join us for BookTalk at BSC 2017!

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Sunday, February 5th, 1 to 3 p.m.

LEA 204 (BSC Library’s second floor conference room in LEA Hall)

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Tempe O’Kun, BSC Enrichment creative writing instructor and award-winning author, will lead the second of three BookTalk discussions exploring the theme “The Prize That Wasn’t: 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction”.

Swamplandia! is a blend of whimsy, humor and weirdness with a real feeling for its characters’ pain and longing. Set in the Florida Everglades, it tells the story of young Ava Bigtree and her family who own an alligator theme park, Swamplandia! 

Author Karen Russell, is one of 24 recipients of the $625,000 MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called Genius Award. She was cited for her “haunting yet comic tales that blend fantastical elements with psychological realism.”

BookTalk at BSC series books are available at local libraries and from booksellers. Discussions are open to all. For more information, call 224-5450.

The 18^th annual series is funded by the BSC Library and a grant from the BSC Foundation.  For more information, visit the online guide.

Mudbound – The Book, The Film

It’s exciting to see that Hillary Jordan’s debut novel, Mudbound, has been made into a film that’s getting lots of buzz at Sundance!

We read Mudbound for BookTalk at BSC 2011, “What Divides Us.” It is a great read and winner of the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Fiction. Set on a cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta in the late 1940s, we see a world of racism, prejudice, poverty, and hardship through the eyes of six characters, who take turns narrating the story.

Barbara Kingsolver, the founder of the Bellwether Prize, said this of Hillary Jordan’s book, “Her characters walked straight out of 1940s Mississippi and into the part of my brain where sympathy and anger and love reside, leaving my heart racing.  They are with me still.”

Re-read Mudbound or read it for the first time and get ready to see the movie on the big screen!

You can find both print and ebook copies of Mudbound at the BSC Library.  Check them out!

Wondering What’s New at the Library?

To see the latest additions to the collection,

click on What’s New at the Library

For previous Featured Arrival lists, click here

Good reading!

MLK Holiday Weekend Hours

A Day On, Not a Day Off

The King Holiday is a time when the nation pauses to remember Dr. King’s life and work … and also to honor his legacy by making the holiday a day of community service, “a day on, not a day off.”

The Library will observe these hours for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend:

• Saturday, January 14 — CLOSED
• Sunday, January 15 — CLOSED
• Monday, January 16 — CLOSED

Regular hours will resume on Tuesday, January 17.

The Chimney Map

Libraries – Preservers and Promoters of Culture

“The continuing story of a huge 17th century map found stuffed up a chimney is told by a conservator, a map curator, a historian and an explorer.  As the map is painstakingly conserved at the National Library of Scotland, it unfolds stories of exploration, battles, slavery, kingship and knowledge.”