The library is a place that has so many different facets and related opportunities that it can be difficult to decide what to highlight in a column. Any given week can feature a dizzying variety of options, from our “First Chapter Book Club” to “DIY Candy Jars” to the “Ancestral Sounds of Mesoamerica” to “Storytimes in the Park.” This month I have information to share about rare literary and Wine Library-related opportunities coming up in the next few weeks.
Book clubs at the library provide a special opportunity to try out a new book and also a chance to check in with other readers and talk over some of the things that come up while one is reading. Three active groups are meeting at the library at the moment—the “Healdsburg Library Book Club” on the first Tuesday of each month at noon, exploring a variety of newer titles along with other groups across our library system; the “First Chapter Book Club” for young readers who enjoy reading together and are also starting to embark on solo reading; and the “Joe Mesics’ Literary Canon,” a group that votes on and reads books that are classics or seem to have missed their calling as a classic.
Every once in a while we get the opportunity to invite an author to visit with a book group, which is a rare opportunity to connect on another level with a particular book or writing style. Over the years we have enjoyed visits with children’s-book authors and illustrators as well as teen and adult fiction and nonfiction authors alike.
Next week we are looking forward to another engaging opportunity to visit with Dr. Gene Bell-Villada, the Harry C. Payne Professor of Romance Languages at Williams College since 1975. Dr. Bell-Villada has written and edited numerous books including a memoir, critical works, fiction and major works on the Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentine writer, poet and librarian. It is his interest in Jorge Luis Borges that brings him to this particular event, a meeting of the Canon Book Club, to discuss Borges’ Labyrinths.
The event with Dr. Bell-Villada will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 27, from 6-7:30pm. Topics of discussion will include ways of creating unreality in literature, as well as diving into titles, plots, themes and genres in particular short stories within Borges’ work. For more information about the event or how to prepare for it, contact the library at 707.433.3772.
In other library programming news, the Sonoma County Wine Library will offer two free introductory wine-tasting classes in October and November. Wine Library Association board member Dan Berger will lead “Wine Basics” in two parts on Tuesday evenings—an introduction to white-wine varietals on Oct. 20 followed by red-wine varietals on Nov. 3. Each class will offer the opportunity to taste around six different varietals and discuss their tasting notes.
Berger, a wine columnist since 1976, has lead numerous classes and tastings over the years. These two evenings are designed for newcomers to wine tasting. In future months, we expect to offer additional courses with Berger exploring other varietals or older vintages. Registration, required for each individual tasting, is available through the library’s event calendar link. The white-wine tasting was on Oct. 20, with the red-wine tasting still coming up on Nov. 3, from 6-7:30pm in the library’s Meeting Room.
The Healdsburg Regional Library at 139 Piper St. is open daily; for details see sonomalibrary.org/visit/locations/healdsburg.
