Every Family Has a Story is the theme for the fall book discussion series at the Niobrara County Library. The series features books with a variety of family dynamics and Barb Baker returns to facilitate the series. Please call the library at 307-334-3490 or stop by to register and pick up the first book.
“Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss ” by Margaret Renkl will be discussed on Tuesday, September 7 at 6 p.m. Growing up in Alabama, Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents—her exuberant, creative mother; her steady, supportive father—and of the bittersweet moments that accompany a child’s transition to caregiver.
Monday, October 4 “Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love” by Dani Shapiro will be featured. In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her father was not her biological father. She woke up one morning and her entire history—the life she had lived—crumbled beneath her. Inheritance is a book about secrets—secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love.
“The Beekeeper of Aleppo” by Christy Lefteri will discussed on Monday, November 1 at 6 p.m. This is an unforgettable love story of a mother blinded by loss and her husband who insists on their survival as they undertake the Syrian refugee trail to Europe. Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo–until the unthinkable happens. As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss, but dangers that would overwhelm the bravest of souls. Above all, they must journey to find each other again.
Rounding out the series will be “The Last Cowboys : a pioneer family in the New West” by John Branch slated for discussion on Monday, December 6 at 6 p.m. For generations, the Wrights of southern Utah have raised cattle and world-champion saddle-bronc riders—many call them the most successful rodeo family in history. Now they find themselves fighting to save their land and livelihood as the West is transformed by urbanization, battered by drought, and rearranged by public-land disputes. Could rodeo, of all things, be the answer?
For more information about library programming visit http://niobraracountylibrary.org or stop by anytime at 425 S. Main St., Lusk, WY or call 307-334-3490.
Library Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Wednesday, Noon to 7 p.m.