Monthly Archives: November 2020

The Nichols Library will be closed on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (Nov 25th, 26th and 27th) this week. We will be back open for curbside delivery on Monday, 11/30. We will also be getting an inter-library loan delivery.

Things Fall Apart by Nigerian novelist, essayist, and poet Chinua Achebe (1930; d.2013) is a book group perennial.

From pieces of eight to tales of Gothic horror, Robert Louis Stevenson (11/13/1850) was a masterful teller of tales. Tight plotting and memorable characters don’t grow old. Treasure Island‘s voyage for pirate treasure is made memorable by John Silver’s loveable … Continue reading →

Tracy Kidder‘s (11/12/1945) non-fiction stories offer snapshots of life as it is lived. He is the author of House, Home Town, A Truck Full of Money, Strength in what Remains, Mountains beyond Mountains, My Detachment, and Among Schoolchildren.

Authors of note with early November birthdays. James Jone’s WW2 novels (From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line) spoke from the common soldier’s point of view. Bram Stoker, theater impressario and staunch rationalist, helped invent the Gothic horror genre … Continue reading →

R&B singers Bonnie Raitt (71) and Rickie Lee Jones (68) share an 11/8 birthday.

Prairie songbird and poet Joni Mitchell turns 77 today. You can listen to all her flavors: the aspiring folkie, the quintessential hippie, the daring folk-jazz innovator, and the enduring craftsman:

In this neo-western, Kevin Costner plays a rancher trying to preserve his holdings from outside developers. He is, however, getting on and none of his grown children are ready to take over. Think of Yellowstone as a dysfunctional Ponderosa, or … Continue reading →

Chadwick Boseman’s untimely death robbed the movie world of a talented actor. His credits include the biopics 42, which tells how Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball and Get on Up, which shows how James Brown brought the … Continue reading →

Connery, the actor who first portrayed James Bond, passed away at the end of October. While best known for the Bond films, some of his best work came later in his career, with classics like The Man who Would b … Continue reading →