"Reel Eclectic" Film

Program date: December 4, 2008, 7 PM

Playing in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library

Please call 341-5479 for title and movie information.

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

"Reel Eclectic" Film

Program date: November 6, 2008, 7 PM

Playing in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library

Please call 341-5479 for title and movie information.

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

Music Concert: The Noga Group

Program date: November 2, 2008, 2 PM

The Friends of Middletown Thrall Library, Inc. present a free musical performance by

The Noga Group

Enjoy an exciting afternoon of exotic and inspired music and dance spanning many cultures and musical styles!

This program is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Ancient Egypt: Slide Show & Lecture

Program date: October 19, 2008, 2 PM

The Friends of Middletown Thrall Library, Inc. Present:

Ancient Egypt: A Lecture with Slides
Sunday, October 19, 2008, 2PM in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library

Join Professor Barry Kass, (professional photographer and Professor Emeritus, SUNY Orange, Anthropology Dept.) as he shares with you rare glimpses of Ancient Egypt based on some of his most recent photographs.

This program is FREE and open to the public.

Refreshments will be served.

"Reel Eclectic" Film: Days and Clouds

Program date: October 2, 2008, 7 PM

Playing in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library

Drama - Directed by Silvio Soldini
In Italian with English subtitles. 115 minutes. 2007.

2008 David Di Donatello Award winner for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress

Well-to-do, sophisticated couple, Elsa and Michele, have a 20 year-old daughter, Alice, and enough money for Elsa to leave her job and fulfill an old dream of studying art history. After she graduates, however, their lives change. Michele confesses he hasn't worked in two months and was fired by the company he founded years ago. Elsa overcomes her initial shock by pouring extra energy into facing the crisis while Michele, exhausted by an unsuccessful job hunt, lets himself go, alternating between vivacity and apathy. The growing distance between them eventually leads to a break-up. Only when they are apart will they realize that they risk losing their most precious possession: the love that binds them.

Upcoming dates for other films in this series:

• November 6, 2008
• December 4, 2008

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

A Musical Performance

Program date: September 21, 2008, 2 PM

The Friends of Middletown Thrall Library, Inc. Present

A Musical Performance

Starring Bill Pernice and His Band

Sunday, September 21, 2 PM
in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library

We invite you to attend this lively and entertaining musical performance as well as to enjoy our new piano.

This program is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Book Discussion Series: The Empire State

(Please see schedule below for program dates)

"The Empire State" is the title of the Fall 2008 book discussion series at Middletown Thrall Library.

New York has been the birthplace for many American writers as far back as Philip Freneau, poet of the Revolution, and Washington Irving. Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry James, and Edith Wharton were all born in New York. Doris Kearns Goodwin Lauren Belfer, and Linda Fairstein are also native New Yorkers. Ralph Ellison moved from Oklahoma to New York City and made his home there as an adult and the City the setting of his classic novel. New York's colorful past and present continues to serve as literary inspiration for novelists. Colorful personalities, quirky characters, political and business power brokers have been brought to life by both fiction and non-fiction writers. More than a few New York authors have been recipients of prestigious literary awards while others produce books that appear regularly on The New York Times best seller lists. Join with us to celebrate and sample the four books that make up this series.

The Schedule of Discussions:

• Tuesday, September 23rd, 7 - 9 PM: Wait 'Til Next Year: A Memoir by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Presented by Chris Godwin, Professor Emeritus, SUNY Orange, Dept. of English and Foreign Languages. Pulitzer Prize winning historian Goodwin writes a beautiful book, an ode to her father, Thomas who opens his daughter's heart to the game of baseball. Doris kept a detailed score book, which allowed her to describe every game to her bank-examiner father when he came home from work. From her father she learned the importance of telling a story slowly, building the drama to a powerful crescendo. Through reading, Mrs. Kearns demonstrated the beauty of a well-chosen word and how a good book can take you away to places you might otherwise never go. The 1940s and 50s were a golden era for baseball in New York City. Goodwin describes with eloquence how the Dodgers' leaving Brooklyn in 1957, and the death of her mother soon after, marked both the end of an era and, for her, the end of childhood.
• Tuesday, October 7th, 7 - 9 PM: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Presented by Peggy Abt, Professor Emeritus, SUNY Orange, Dept. of English and Foreign Languages. A classic from the moment it first appeared in 1952, Invisible Man chronicles the travels of its narrator, a young, nameless black man, as he moves through the hellish levels of American intolerance and cultural blindness. He came to realize that he was an "invisible man." People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. Certainly this is a book about race in America, and sadly enough, few of the problems it chronicles have totally disappeared even now. But Ellison's first novel transcends a narrow definition. Told with intensity and power, it's also a book about the human race stumbling down the path to identity, challenged and successful to varying degrees. The attainment of spiritual progress and self-knowledge becomes a possibility as this dramatic story heads into its final act. Ellison's willingness to raise difficult questions without clear and ready resolutions increases the psychological and interpretive depth of this compelling story.
• Tuesday, October 21st, 7 - 9 PM: City of Light by Lauren Belfer. Presented by Mary Makofske, SUNY Orange, Dept. of English & Foreign Languages, retired. Kirkus called this an ambitious, vividly detailed and stirring debut novel offering a panorama of American life at the beginning of the 20th century in Buffalo, New York. Using both real and imagined characters, Belfer examines an early skirmish in the war between conserving and exploiting natural resources, the sexual double standard, and racial prejudice. Louisa Barrett, headmistress of a prestigious girls' school, operates in the city's social circles with a freedom generally not accorded to other women. People assume her to be "without passion or experience." Louisa tells her story with the clarity and restraint of a Jane Austen heroine, gradually revealing the great secret and sorrow of her life. Delve into this novel which includes dangerous liaisons, gorgeous descriptions of the Falls, and a zinger of a conclusion.
• WEDNESDAY November 5th, 7 - 9 PM: Entombed by Linda Fairstein. Presented by David McTamaney, English Department, Monroe-Woodbury High School, retired. With over twenty-five years as head of the New York City District Attorney's sex crimes unit, Linda Fairstein has used her wealth of experience about criminal activities, police procedure, and the impact of crime on victims to create the popular, bestselling "Alex Cooper" mystery series. The specter of Edgar Allan Poe hovers, chillingly, over Fairstein's seventh thriller Entombed. A pair of hot cases carry Cooper back to a past series of crimes-and the distant past of an American literary giant. The Silk Stocking Rapist is on the loose on the upper East Side. At about the same time a young woman's skeleton is found entombed in an old home Poe once inhabited in a manner strongly reminiscent of its one-time tenant's horror classic "The Cask of Amontillado." Meet a strange group of Poe enthusiasts who would do anything to gain the respect of their similarly obsessed peers. If you enjoy well written mysteries with dashes of New York City history, local lore, and historical landmarks thrown into the mix you will have fun reading this novel.

All programs are FREE, and light refreshments, courtesy of the Friends of Middletown Thrall Library, Inc., will be served.


Books Available

Copies of each book can be requested at any time and in any order you wish using your RCLS library card. I will have copies of each book here at Thrall about three weeks before each discussion.


Join Our Mailing List!

Please click here to register for free e-mail announcements for future programs at Thrall. If you would like to receive print copies of major Thrall events and book discussions, or if you have any questions or require special accommodations, please contact us at (845)341-5479 or send e-mail to thrall16@warwick.net.

We look forward to seeing you at our programs!

The Big Read: The Grapes of Wrath

(Please see schedule below for program dates)

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest. This initiative is designed to restore reading to the center of American culture.

The Big Read answers a big need. A 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts found that not only is literary reading in America declining rapidly among all groups, but that the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young.

The Big Read aims to address this crisis by providing citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities.

Seventeen public libraries in Orange County, NY successfully applied for a grant from NEA to sponsor The Big Read.

The Orange Librarians Association (OLA) chose to read and discuss John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath.

ALL events are FREE. We encourage everyone to attend events anywhere in the county. We especially want to invite you to attend these events in Middletown:

Our Schedule of Events...

1. Sunday, September 28, 2008, 2 PM: Concert at the Paramount Theatre in Middletown. Kick off Orange County's participation in The Big Read with a Concert entitled "Woody Guthrie Tribute: Words and Music." Participants include folksingers and musicians Ellis Paul, the Burn Sisters, Antje Duvekot, and Mac Benford.

2. Wednesday, October 1, 2008, 7 PM at Middletown Thrall Library: Keynote lecture by perennial favorite presenter Chris Godwin, Professor Emeritus, SUNY Orange. Chris Godwin will orient us to The Grapes of Wrath with its gripping story of the Joad family and the migrants' search for a home. We'll see again what life was like for so many in the United States during the painful years of the Depression and the Dust Bowl. We'll learn about the human spirit in the darkest of times and, perhaps, begin to reflect on so many contemporary parallels. As we leave, we'll have useful readers' tools with which to take one of the most affecting journeys in the literature of our country. It is not necessary to read the book before this program, but attendees might wish to do so.

3. Thursday, October 30, 2008, 7 PM: Watch the film The Grapes of Wrath at Middletown Thrall Library. Jim Givant, Professor of English, SUNY Orange will introduce the award winning 1940s version of The Grapes of Wrath featuring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad and directed by John Ford. A short discussion of the film will follow.

Please click here to view other events scheduled throughout Orange County, New York.

NEA's general information website concerning the Big Read can be found at this link.

If you have any questions concerning the Big Read, please call (845) 341-5479 or send e-mail to thrall16@warwick.net.

"Reel Eclectic" Film: September 6, 2008

Showing: Thursday, September 6, 2008 at 7 PM

Our "Reel Eclectic" series features independent as well as acclaimed feature films of interest to art and foreign film buffs and cinematic connoisseurs alike. If entertainment of a truly different order is what you crave, this series may appeal to you!

Admission is FREE. Films are shown in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Thrall.

Film title: (Please call 341-5479 for title)

About the film: Drama - Directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. In Italian with English subtitles. 106 minutes.

In this celebrated film by Italy's Taviani brothers, a woman asks for the words to tell her son about that same night during the last days of World War II.

Upcoming dates for other films in this series:

• October 2, 2008
• November 6, 2008
• December 4, 2008

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

"Reel Eclectic" Film: August 7, 2008

(archived post)

Showing: Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 7 PM

Our "Reel Eclectic" series features independent as well as acclaimed feature films of interest to art and foreign film buffs and cinematic connoisseurs alike. If entertainment of a truly different order is what you crave, this series may appeal to you!

Admission is FREE. Films are shown in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Thrall.

Film title: The Grocer's Son

About the film: Drama - Director Eric Guirado. In French with English subtitles. 96 minutes.

It is summer, and thirty-year-old Antoine is forced to leave the city to return to his family in Provence. His father is sick, so he must assume the lifestyle he thought he had shed-driving the family grocery cart from hamlet to hamlet, delivering supplies to the few remaining inhabitants. Accompanied by Claire, a friend from Paris whom he has a secret crush on, Antoine gradually warms up to his experience in the country and his encounters with the villagers, who initially seem stubborn and gruff, but ultimately prove to be funny and endearing. Ultimately, this surprise French box-office hit is about the coming-of-age of a man re-discovering life and love in the countryside.

Upcoming dates for other films in this series:

• September 4, 2008
• October 2, 2008
• November 6, 2008
• December 4, 2008

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

Benjamin Franklin Exhibit: "In Search Of A Better World"
(June 4, 2008 - July 25, 2008)

(archived post)

Please click here to visit our special "Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World" website to learn about the exhibit and all the great programs we have planned for you!

"Reel Eclectic" Film: July 3, 2008

(archived post)

Showing: Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 7 PM

Our "Reel Eclectic" series features independent as well as acclaimed feature films of interest to art and foreign film buffs and cinematic connoisseurs alike. If entertainment of a truly different order is what you crave, this series may appeal to you!

Admission is FREE. Films are shown in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Thrall.

Film title: (* Due to licensing restrictions, please call 341-5479 for this film's title *)

About the film: Based on the best-selling book by Mexican novelist and screenwriter Laura Esquivel - now experience for yourself the erotic tale of forbidden love that seduced both critics and audiences nationwide! Tita and Pedro are passionately in love. But their love is forbidden by an ancient family tradition. To be near Tita, Pedro marries her sister. And Tita, as the family cook, expresses her passion for Pedro by preparing delectable dishes. Now, in Tita's kitchen, ordinary spices become a recipe for passion. Her creations bring on tears of longing, heated desire or chronic pain - while Tita and Pedro wait for the moment to fulfill their most hidden pleasures.

Upcoming dates for other films in this series:

• August 7, 2008
• September 4, 2008
• October 2, 2008
• November 6, 2008
• December 4, 2008

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

"Reel Eclectic" Film: June 5, 2008

(archived post)

Showing: Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 7 PM

Our "Reel Eclectic" series features independent as well as acclaimed feature films of interest to art and foreign film buffs and cinematic connoisseurs alike. If entertainment of a truly different order is what you crave, this series may appeal to you!

Admission is FREE. Films are shown in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Thrall.

Film title: (* Due to licensing restrictions, please call 341-5479 for this film's title *)

About the film: An unforgettable romantic comedy that's earned much acclaim, Italian For Beginners is a warm and playful story about seven perfect strangers and the shared journey of discovery that changes each of their lives! In a small, rainy Copenhagen suburb, a mismatched collection of opposites have signed up for an Italian class in hopes of spicing up their lives. Then, as they realize the class offers them more than just language lessons, they join together on a quest to Italy with the renewed desire to pursue the romances of their lives. Once there, these world-weary students who thought there was nothing left to learn from life will get an education that will change everything they know about love!

Upcoming dates for other films in this series:

• July 3, 2008
• August 7, 2008
• September 4, 2008
• October 2, 2008
• November 6, 2008
• December 4, 2008

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

Welcome!

July 8, 2008

News of upcoming programs, book discussions, concert,s and other events held at Middletown Thrall Library can now be found in this blog.

Having this blog enables us to archive news items for the benefit of your review. In the future you will have the ability to search our blogs and even subscribe to RSS feeds.

If you ever have any questions concerning any of our programs, please call us 341-5461 or use our free Ask a Librarian service on the web.

We look forward to seeing you at one or more of our programs!