No matter how many wonderful times and events we have at the library – and there are many – the number one thing that draws people through the doors are books and a love of reading. We’ve got some upcoming events that focus on exactly that and give adults who read fiction some attractive options focusing on Michigan Notable Books.
First, we have an author visit, always interesting. Authors Dave McVeigh and Jim Balone are doing a Question and Answer (rather than a formal presentation) and a book signing soon – Saturday, May 7 at 11:00 a.m. at the library. Balone and McVeigh co-authored The Dock Porter (previously mentioned in this column). It is a Mackinac Island story, as the book blurb states, about “friends, family, love, luggage, and the summers we never forget.” I like this book. Like many good books, it gives us a knowledgeable and different look at something we think we know but don’t. Or at least not completely.
Most of us know Mackinac Island as a tourist where everything is geared to please us. We do notice the showy waiter entrance at the Grand Hotel for example (if they still do that) and notice those exotic accents of the waiters, but we don’t give a lot of thought to how the luggage might get from the ferry to the hotels. It’s those dock porters on bicycles working hard and balancing impossibly highly stacked bikes with tons of luggage who get them to us.
The Dock Porter gets us behind the scenes and into the different social circles of those who work for a living and those who own pricey property on the island, and a narrator who has done both, with the tourists as a backdrop. It is clever, funny, real, and touching. (And how do those guys write a book together? I’m curious.)
Then we have a June event heralding our new book club, The Michigan Notable Book Club. Thursday June 9 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. come for a double feature. The first part will be an hour in groups of about five discussing what they found interesting about the book. (Read it before you come if you possibly can.) And the book is Tin Camp Road by Ellen Airgood. We often think of urban poverty (when we think of it at all) but rural poverty is real and Airgood’s book focuses on a single mother, her ten-year-old daughter, and a hardscrabble life surviving in Michigan’s UP along the banks of Lake Superior. The mom cobbles together enough work to sustain them, but the landlord issues an eviction order one December so that he can convert the cabin to a tourist rental, throwing the little family into crisis.
There are hard and even dangerous decisions made. Do they head downstate looking for more opportunity or do they figure out a way to make it in a part of the state they’ve loved?
Lots of books will be available so that we can have many reading it at once. In fact, give the library a call or stop in to see about obtaining a copy. We will have some for sale at a cheap $8 and others available through the library. You can start reading now.
But what is the double feature? After the first hour of discussion, there will be a second hour where the author, Ellen Airgood, Zooms in and talks to us.
The Michigan Notable Book Club will hold four or five meetings a year with plenty of advance notice and access to the books discussed. It is a different experience than Books for Lunch – I love both formats.
Now for a favorite event back on the schedule – the judge is back. Judge Nuechterlein will be running the Constitution Series seminars again at the library on Wednesdays from 6:30 – 8:00. These will be held in person and also on Zoom – the best of both worlds for wherever you are. The dates are May 4, 18, June 1, 15, and 29. The Zoom link will be on our website (wicksonlibrary.org) and you can email the library at wicksonlibrary@gmail.com for information.
Keep track of youth and all other events on our website, too.
See you at the Library!
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