Adult Events

The Oliver Wolcott Library offers a wide range of programming for adults, from continuing series like Monday Scholars,
to lectures, book discussions, and author talks. All events are free and open to all.

Continue your journey of lifelong learning with us!

 

February Events:

 

Coming Out of Your Shell: Hermit Crab Craft

*while supplies last

Don’t be shy this February, scuttle on down to Oliver Wolcott Library and pick up the latest adult Take and Make! This month we are inviting all patrons to construct their own hermit crab companion. Each kit is equipped with an empty shell, beads, pipe cleaners, and two clothes pins- it’s incredible how little you need to make your new friend! Supplies are limited though, so reel in your take and make craft while you can!

 

 

 

Blind Date with Books & Movies

This Valentine's Day, go on a blind date with some books and movies! 

How It Works:
The books and movies are wrapped up to hide their identities, but they each have a few clues listed about their contents so you can decide which ones you might like.

Pick a book/movie whose clues stand out to you and bring it to the circulation desk to check it out. Then unwrap to reveal your surprise book/movie and "go on a date" with it by reading or watching your selection!

 

 

 

Monday Scholars: America in the Gilded Age & the Progressive Era

*no class on Feb. 17 or April 14

ZOOM LINK: Click here at 1 PM on Mondays beginning February 10 to zoom to this program.

Monday Scholars combines the best of online learning and engaging discussion!

Join us for the full 12-weeks or drop in to explore your favorite topics. Each week, we will watch two video lectures together and then engage in lively conversation afterwards. The conversation will be facilitated by OWL's Caroline Ugurlu. 

About the course:
Welcome to one of the most colorful, tumultuous, raucous, and profoundly pivotal epochs in American history. Stretching from the end of the Civil War in 1865 to roughly 1920, this extraordinary time was not only an era of vast and sweeping change—it saw the birth of the United States as we and the world at large now know it.

Click here to read more about this series.

 

Sounds & Images of Spain with Guitarist Kevin Sherwin

Zoom Participants:  Zoom Link - click here on Thursday, Feb. 13 at 6:30 PM

Experience the soul of 19th century Spain in the evocative concert, Sounds & Images of Spain. This program showcases iconic works by Enrique Granados and Joaquin Turina, alongside guitar transcriptions of compositions by Chopin, Saint-Saens, Meyerbeer and others, highlighting their profound impact on Spanish music. 

Enhancing the audio journey, the concert will feature a curated selection of photographs and paintings that resonate with the music's themes on the large screen projector. You won't want to miss this multisensory experience that transports audience members to the heart of Spain.

Guitarist, composer, and conductor Kevin Sherwin has been praised as "absolutely superb, with an immense capacity for self-expression" (Fanfare Magazine). Following his solo debuts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Regent Hall in London, England, he has toured throughout North America in numerous programs reflecting his work as a composer and cultural historian. He recently made his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall with the Mahanaim Orchestra, and serves on the conducting faculty of the undergraduate Mahanaim Music Program in Huntington, New York.

Sherwin studied at The Juilliard School and at Yale University where he graduated with Honors and is currently a Fellow at Timothy Dwight College, Yale University. 

 

Meet the Author: Tal Fagin

Zoom Participants:  Zoom Link - click here on Thursday, Feb. 20 at 6:30 PM

Meet author Tal Fagin as she discusses the concepts in her book, Sometimes I Think I Suck.  If you ever live with a negative inner voice that demeans and undermines you, insisting you're not smart enough, successful enough, fit enough, productive enough, or just not good enough, you're not alone.

In Sometimes I Think I Suck, Tal Fagin shares her personal journey from an ambitious, hard-driving lawyer to a contented, easy-going life coach, showing how she shed the perfectionism that once caused her so much pain. Drawing from years of experience coaching high achievers and other deeply self-critical clients, she offers practical tools and exercises to help you silence your inner critic, develop greater self-compassion, and find more profound satisfaction. 

Tal Fagin, a former attorney and now certified life coach, helps already successful people who continue to feel dissatisfied despite their many achievements. Especially with themselves! She appreciates nothing more than connecting deeply and meaningfully with others. This is her first book. 

 

Armchair Travel to South Africa - with Nancy & Ed Schuler

In-Person Registration: Click here to attend in-person on Feb. 26

Join Nancy and Ed Schuler as they take you to South Africa. 

Go on a safari to Krueger National Park; visit the home of Nelson Mandela in Soweto where he lived before he was arrested; explore the beautiful capital of Cape Town and much more!

 

 

 

Move Your Mind; Move Your Body

Zoom Participants:  Zoom Link - click here on Tuesdays at 10:15 am to Zoom to the Event.

Note: This Class is designed for senior women.

The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2021 to 2030 The Decade For Healthy Ageing. The OWL has always been committed to expanding minds and now we would like to help our community expand their physical strength. 

Join Nancy Schuler in this exercise class for senior women. You can attend the class in person, here at the OWL, or online in the privacy of your home. The class features stretching and exercises that can be done in a chair or standing, and lifting of 1 or 2 lb. weights. All exercises are gentle and easy to understand. Exercise has been proven to help one's cognitive abilities, blood pressure, insomnia, digestive issues, depression, strength and independence. The Alzheimer's, Diabetes and Heart Associations all recommend exercise for healthy ageing.

No prior experience is necessary. Bring in a set of light weights for this class - 1 to 2 lbs.

 

 

March Events:

 

The Anxious Generation - A Book Discussion

In-Person Registration Required: Click here to attend in-person

The Oliver Wolcott Library and the Litchfield PTO invite Region 20 families and residents to a thought-provoking book discussion of The Anxious Generation, which explores the growing impact of cell phones and social media on today's youth.

The library has copies of the book to borrow and the title is also available to download as an e-book or e-audio to OWL library card holders.

The library will provide story time for children during the book discussion and pizza will be provided for discussion participants and children!

 

 

Meet the Author: Richard King

Zoom Participants:  Zoom Link - click here on Thursday, March 6 at 6:30 PM

A masterfully curated collection...You don’t have to be a sailor to be blown away by this fascinating, bighearted book.
—Nathaniel Philbrick

A story as vast and exhilarating as the open ocean itself, SAILING ALONE chronicles the daring, disastrous, and often absurd history of those who chose to sail across the ocean, in very small boats, alone.

Sailing by yourself, out of sight of land, can be invigorating and terrifying, compelling and tedious - and sometimes all of the above in one morning. But it is also a wide expanse of time in which to think. Sailing Alone tells the story of some of the remarkable people who, over the last four centuries, have spent weeks and months, moving slowly over the world's largest laboratory: a capricious and startling place in which to observe oneself, the weather, the stars, and countless sea creatures, from the tiniest to the most massive and threatening.

Sailing Alone also recounts the author's own nearly catastrophic solo crossing of the Atlantic, and the mystery of his inexplicable survival one sunny afternoon.

Richard J. King is a Visiting Associate Professor in Maritime History and Literature with the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, MA. He has been sailing on ships throughout the Atlantic and Pacific for twenty-five years and in 2007 sailed across the Atlantic alone in a 28’ sailboat. 

The library has copies of the book to borrow and the title is also available to download as an e-book or e-audio to OWL library card holders. The Curious Cat Bookshop will have books for sale at the event. 

 

Non-Fiction Discussion Group

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Thursday, March 13

Meeting will be held in the Library's Jamie Gagarin Community Room.

The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen

In New Rochelle in 1973, the author and his best friend were keen competitors while they succeeded academically. But at one point the friend suffered a psychotic break and entered a psychiatric hospital. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he continued to pursue ambitious goals until a terrible event. The book is a heartbreaking account of good intentions and tragic outcomes. Moderated by Margaret

 

 

 

Fiction Discussion Group

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Thursday, March 13

Fiction Group: 3:30 pm 

Meeting will be held in the Library's Jamie Gagarin Community Room.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey - the movie will also be discussed

In this classic novel, a fun-loving rebel named McMurphy swaggers into the world of a mental hospital. He rallies the other patients around him by challenging the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched. His defiance turns into an all-out war between two relentless opponents: Nurse Ratched, backed by the full power of authority, and McMurphy, with his own indomitable will. Moderated by Nancy

 

 

 

 

Exploring Flannery O'Connor with Mark Scarbrough

Zoom Participants:  Zoom Link - click here on Mondays at 10:30 AM  March 14 - May 9

Mark Scarbrough returns to OWL this Spring; leading us through 8 weeks of some of his favorite Flannery O’Connor works.

Flannery O'Connor is considered one of America's greatest fiction writers and her writing often reflects her Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.
When she died in August of 1964, The New York Times called her “one of the nation’s most promising writers.” 

O’Connor is now as canonical as Faulkner and Welty. More than a great writer, she’s a cultural figure: a funny lady in a straw hat, puttering among peacocks, on crutches she likened to “flying buttresses.”

Discussion Schedule:

March 14: A Good Man is Hard to Find; A Circle of Fire; and Good Country People

March 21: The Artificial N----r and The Displaced Person

March 28: Wise Blood: chapters 1 - 7

April 4: Wise Blood: chapters 8 - 14

April 11: The Violent Bear It Away: chapters 1 - 5

April 25: The Violent Bear It Away: chapters 6 - 12

May 2: Greenleaf; The Enduring Chill; and The Comforts of Home

May 9: Everything That Rises Must Converge; The Lame Shall Enter First; and Revelation

 

MARK SCARBROUGH is a former English Professor and author who teaches seminars on Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner and Toni Morrison. He also hosts three literary podcasts.

 

 

About Our Zoom Events:

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.

 

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 learn more about our e-newsletter offerings.