The Oliver Wolcott Library offers a wide range of programming for adults, from continuing series like Monday
Scholars and Tea with TED, to lectures, book discussions, and author talks. All events are free and open to all.
Continue your journey of lifelong learning with us!
Murder at the Library: A Book Club for Thrill Seekers
What if you belonged to a monthly book club that culminated in an event with the author?
Now you can!
During the month of September read the bestselling and critically acclaimed mystery novel Bluff by Jane Stanton Hitchcock, and then participate in a live, virtual online author event with Hitchcock scheduled for September 30 (see below for details of author event).
Bluff is the winner of the 2019 Dashiell Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing and is sure to be a delight for mystery readers.
Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review and wrote, “This delicious novel of sweet revenge reveals, with wit and stylish vigor, a world New York high society that the author clearly knows intimately”
Kirkus Reviews wrote, “The biggest take away: He who underestimates women of a certain age certainly does so at his own peril”
Join us for the fun this September!
For the entire month of September, we will have unlimited, multi-user, simultaneous online access to Bluff, providing everyone access to the book “on demand”. Beginning September 8, we will be introducing the new Baker and Taylor 360 downloadable book platform that seamlessly integrates into our catalog, and makes it easy for you to download to your favorite device. And, don't worry for any of you who prefer to read only physical books, we also have print copies available.
For unlimited ebook access, no hold lists! Just click the link below and create an account*!
http://bookclub.axis360.baker-taylor.com
*Click on the LOGIN button in the top right corner to create a Library ID. When prompted, enter the following:
LIBRARY CARD ID: OWLBC + last 5 digits of your phone number
PIN: a passcode of your choice (alpha or numeric)
You can read right in your browser or download the Axis 360 app onto your mobile device and enter the same credentials above to access the e-book. To access the books from the app you will need your OWL library card number.
P.S. Need help downloading?
If you need help downloading the book, please email [email protected] to set up a virtual Book a Librarian or see one of our helpful online guides here.
Bluff Book Discussion with Author Jane Stanton Hitchcock
Wednesday, September 30 at 7:00 pm
Winner of the 2019 Dashiell Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing!
"Bluff is a triumphant and thrilling return. Not only can Hitchcock stage a murder mystery that's as comedic as it is clever, but she also skewers the social elite -- a world in which she grew up -- with a satirical touch that's both razor-sharp and subtly sympathetic."
-- The Strand Magazine
Join author Jane Stanton Hitchcock in this Zoom session as she discusses her latest crime novel, Bluff, a stunning social noir that begins with an audacious murder in broad daylight which sets off the biggest scandal to hit New York society in years!
Jane Stanton Hitchcock is the New York Times bestselling author of Mortal Friends, The Witches' Hammer, Social Crimes, and Trick of the Eye, as well as several plays. She was born and raised in New York City, where she led a seemingly privileged life. Early on, she learned the trappings of wealth and fame are not nearly all they are cracked up to be, themes she has since explored in screenplays, stage plays, and novels dealing with murder and mayhem in high places. Jane is also an avid poker player who regularly competes in the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker. Her sixth novel, Bluff, pays tribute to her passion for poker. She lives with her husband, syndicated foreign-affairs columnist Jim Hoagland, in New York City and Washington, DC.
God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire & the Making of the Modern World
with Author Alan Mikhail
Thursday, September 24 at 7:00 pm
Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor, geopolitical power, and enlightened pluralistic rule. At the height of their authority in the sixteenth century, the Ottomans, with extraordinary military dominance and unparalleled monopolies over trade routes, controlled more territory and ruled over more people than any world power, forcing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and to the New World.
Yet, despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world, the Ottoman Empire’s history has for centuries been distorted, misrepresented, and even suppressed in the West. Now Alan Mikhail presents a vitally needed recasting of Ottoman history, retelling the story of the Ottoman conquest of the world through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (1470–1520).
Alan Mikhail, Professor of History at Yale University, is widely recognized for his work in Middle Eastern and global history. He is the author of four books and over thirty scholarly articles that have received multiple awards in the fields of Middle Eastern and environmental history. In 2018, he received the Anneliese Maier Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for internationally distinguished humanities scholars and social scientists. His writing has appeared in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
- To join the event by phone:
- +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
- Meeting ID: 819 0030 7759
- Passcode: 474916
OWL Monthly Book Discussions
LIVE Zoom Event
Thursday, October 8
Book Selection: Educated by Tara Westover
Born to survivalists in Idaho, Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that no one ensured the children received an education, and no one intervened when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara tried a new life. Her quest for knowledge took her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University.
- To join either event by phone:
- +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
- Meeting ID: 879 5368 3358
- Passcode: 397885
Book Selection: Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
A mother and father set out with their two children, a boy and a girl, driving from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. On the radio, there is news about an "immigration crisis": thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States, but getting detained – or lost in the desert along the way. The family is led to a grand, harrowing adventure – both in the desert landscape and within the chambers of each member’s own imagination.
- To join either event by phone:
- +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
- Meeting ID: 879 5368 3358
- Passcode: 397885
Fast Girls: A Novel of the 1936 Women's Olympic Team
with Author Elise Hooper
Thursday, October 8 at 7:00 pm
Acclaimed author Elise Hooper explores the gripping, real life history of three female athletes, members of the first integrated women’s Olympic team, and their journeys to the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Nazi Germany.
- In the 1928 Olympics, Chicago’s Betty Robinson competes as a member of the first-ever women’s delegation in track and field.
- Outside of Boston, Louise Stokes, one of the few black girls in her town, sees competing as an opportunity to overcome the limitations placed on her.
- From Missouri, Helen Stephens, awkward, tomboyish, and poor, is considered an outcast by her schoolmates, but she dreams of escaping the hardships of her farm life through athletic success.
These three athletes will join with others to defy society’s expectations of what women can achieve. As tensions bring the United States and Europe closer and closer to the brink of war, Betty, Louise, and Helen must fight for the chance to compete as the fastest women in the world amidst the pomp and pageantry of the Nazi-sponsored 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
A native New Englander, Elise Hooper spent several years writing for television and online news outlets before getting a MA and teaching high-school literature and history. She is the author of two other novels, The Other Alcott and Learning to See. She now lives in Seattle with her husband and two daughters.
- To join the event by phone:
- +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
- Meeting ID: 879 4361 0879
- Passcode: 332607
The Supreme Court & the Electoral College with Historian Mark Albertson
Wednesday, October 14 at 1:00 pm
Among the system of Checks and Balances of the American Republican form of representative, elective government, are the Electors.
States have to have them; but, it was left to the states as to who becomes an Elector. The idea of the Electors is still confusing for many Americans; and it will be the objective of this talk to clarify any misconceptions and hopefully engender a greater understanding of this significant aspect of the original Republic.
Mark Albertson is an historical research editor at Army Aviation magazine; and, is the historian for the Army Aviation Association of America. He is a long time member of the United States Naval Institute and teaches history at Norwalk Community College. He has authored several books and is currently working on Sky Soldiers: The Saga of Army Aviation.
- To join the event by phone:
- +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
- Meeting ID: 880 6045 5722
- Passcode: 625605
Last Mission to Tokyo with Author Michel Paradis
Thursday, October 15 at 7:00 pm
In Last Mission to Tokyo, Michel Paradis uncovers one of the last untold stories of a seminal moment in World War II: the pair of trials in Shanghai that determined the future of legal and military history. With incredible and gripping detail, he recounts the dramatic aftermath of the Doolittle mission, which involved two lost crews captured, tried, and tortured at the hands of the Japanese and the dramatic rescue of the survivors in the last weeks of the conflict.
This international manhunt and trial was led by two dynamic and opposing young lawyers - Major Robert Dwyer, a prosecutor determined to bring justice to the Raiders, and Lieutenant Colonel Edmund
Bodine, assigned to defend the Japanese. They were both forced to confront the questions of what constitutes a fair trial, when we should show mercy to our enemies, and right and wrong in the fog of war. The result is a heart-stopping, perspective-shifting courtroom drama that opens our eyes to a final act in the story of the Greatest Generation.
Michel Paradis is a leading scholar and lawyer of international law and human rights. He has won high-profile cases in courts around the globe and worked for over a decade with the US Department of Defense, where he led many of the landmark court cases to arise out of Guantanamo Bay. He also holds the position of Lecturer at Columbia Law School, where he teaches on the military, the constitution, and the law of war. He has appeared on or written for NPR, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, America, Foreign Policy, Lawfare, and The Intercept.
- To join the event by phone:
- +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
- Meeting ID: 889 6652 1591
- Passcode:879665
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates : A Book Discussion with Dr. dann j. Broyld
Thursday, October 22 at 4:00 pm
"Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone)
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
dann j. Broyld is an associate professor of African American History and Public History at Central Connecticut State University. He earned his PhD in nineteenth-century United States and African Diaspora history at Howard University. His work focuses on the American- Canadian borderlands and issues of Black identity, migration, and transnational relations as well as oral history, material culture, and museum-community interaction. Broyld’s most recent article is titled: “The Underground Railroad as Afrofuturism” and he is currently finishing a book on American runaways to Canada before the Civil War.
Copies of the book will be available to borrow at the library a month before the event.
- To join the event by phone:
- +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
- Meeting ID: 860 9510 1851
- Passcode: 890273
How to Stay Healthy During a Pandemic with Dr. Avery Jenkins
Tuesday, October 27 at 7:00 pm
We all know about washing our hands and wearing masks, but is there more that we can do to help ourselves stay healthy during a pandemic?
Yes! In fact there is a lot you can do to help yourself and your loved ones stay healthier. Join us for this insightful and helpful talk as Dr. Avery Jenkins covers what you can do to stay healthy including nutrition, herbs and supplements, self-care and more.
Dr. Avery Jenkins, a primary care chiropractic physician, is one of only a handful of doctors who have been awarded board-certified status in the fields of both clinical nutrition and acupuncture. In his practice in Litchfield, Dr. Avery Jenkins is the only doctor in Connecticut who provides custom herbal formulations for his patients using the over 300 herbs and supplements in his Dispensary. In practice for over two decades, Dr. Jenkins has served as the Director of Examinations for the Chiropractic Board of Clinical Nutrition, recognizing his clinical expertise in the field of nutrition and herbal therapy, and he is also a Fellow of the International Academy of Medical Acupuncturists.
Dr. Jenkins has published over 25 articles on alternative medicine, and his original research was published in the Journal of the American Chiropractic Association. He has been a guest lecturer on multiple occasions for the New York Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and has lectured at the annual conventions of the Connecticut Psychological Association and the Connecticut Society of Medical Assistants. Visit his website at averyjenkins.com.
- To Join by Phone Dial
- +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
- Meeting ID: 854 9902 9971
- Password: 675072
Joan Jackson: An Unchained Love Story With Tammy Denease
Thursday, November 12 at 7:00 pm
Storyteller and actor Tammy Denease returns to portray another character, Joan, in her “Hidden Women” series.
Joan was born into slavery to a deaf and mute mother named Maria. Maria, owned by the Fox family, would meet and marry John Jackson. They would wed and have two children, Adam and Miriam. John became free and then purchased Joan’s freedom, but because she was a slave when their children were born, they would have to leave them behind. Because of a dispute between the Fox and Beebe families, Joan would be kidnapped and put back into slavery.
‘Unchained Love’ is filled with twists and turns, heartache, deception and an undying love.
Tammy Denease spent countless hours with her great-grandmother, a former enslaved person who lived to be 125, and her grandmother who lived to be 100. Both were known storytellers and passed this gift along. Tammy loves history and being able to tell others about the past. In her position as a Museum Educator, she instructs children through stories of Colonial History, Health, Medicine, Slavery and Native American History. Visit her website at
hiddenwomen.org.
- To Join by Phone Dial
- +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
- Meeting ID: 857 5412 2439
- Password: 346511
An Evening Of Classical Guitar With Lorena Garay
Thursday, November 19 at 7:00 pm
Lorena Garay is an award-winning guitarist from Puerto Rico who performs classical, Spanish and Latin guitar. She also loves playing rhythm guitar and percussive guitar. Her captivating arrangements and passionate playing style beautifully blend the classical influence with her Latin sound.
Lorena earned her Master of Music degree Summa Cum Laude from The Hartt School of the University of Hartford, where she received the Guitar Department Award. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree Summa Cum Laude from the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, from which she received the String Department Gold Medal Award.
She has received many awards, including the Identidad Latina’s Latino de Oro Music Award. She performs regularly as a soloist and bandleader of her award-winning ensemble, Surcari which received the Arts For Learning Connecticut’s 2018 Performing Artist of the Year Award.
To learn more, visit Lorena’s website at lorenagaray.com.
- To Join by Phone Dial
- +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
- Meeting ID: 881 5512 2712
- Password: 289719
MORE Information about Zoom:
All of our Virtual Zoom Events are live. They are not recorded. To participate/join the event, you need to use the exact link connected to the event. Once you click on the link at the specified date and time, you will be prompted to open Zoom, the virtual meeting program we are using. All you need is an internet connection and a device or computer with a webcam and audio. Most computers have built-in webcams. No passwords or confirmation codes, just click the link and follow the prompts.
Still having difficulty understanding how to access Zoom: email [email protected] to set-up a virtual Book-a-Librarian and we will go over it with you.
-
To Join by Phone Dial
- +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
- Meeting ID: 814 3167 9740
- Password: 393245
More security, more privacy: In response to concerns about privacy in a virtual meeting space, we have enabled additional security features in Zoom and updated our meeting links to be protected, private, and secure. These new, unique links can also be accessed through our e-newsletters.To receive secure information regarding these events, please subscribe to our e-newsletter! Click here to subscribe