Friends of the Library: News
Shades of Brown Newsletter
The Shades Of Brown newsletter is a bimonthly newsletter and is available in physical and digital formats. You can find the most recent issues here.
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Friends Book Reviews
Book Review events will resume in October. Please check back for more information.
Recent Reviews
- The Six Wives of Henry the VIII by Alison Weir
- I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
- The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer‘ by Anne Marie O’Connor
- The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Hinton
- The Man Who Saved the Whooping Crane by Kathleen Kaska
- Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit
- Up to Heaven and Down to Hell by Colin Jerolmack
December Book Review
On December 6, the Encores, the New Horizons Band, directed by Judith Shellenberger, will perform a holiday program for the community. New Horizons Band started in 1991 by Dr. Roy Ernst whose philosophy was that anyone could learn to play music at a level that would bring a sense of personal accomplishment. Thousands of New Horizons musicians have proven that to be true, many starting in their late retirement years with no musical background at all.
Active participation in music fills important needs for adults – the need for challenging intellectual activity, the need to be a contributing member of a group, and the need to have exciting events in the future. For many people, music can serve these vital needs better than anything else. The Encores, Williamsport’s New Horizons Band, began filling that need 26 years ago by becoming the 13th of over 300 bands in the United States and Canada.
Currently there are 18 members in Williamsport’s Encore’s band with three members being over 90 years “young.” They practice at Robert M. Sides Family Music Center Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9:30-11:30. New members are always welcome and anyone interested can find out how to join by contacting the store.
Judith Shellenberger, director, is the past president of the Association of Concert Bands and a sixty-year member of the Repasz Band, established in Williamsport in 1831.
The program begins at 12:15PM in the Lowry Room of the Welch Family Wing of the James V. Brown Library. Reservations are required due to space considerations. Please call the library at 570-326-0536 or use the library’s online reservation calendar (calendar.jvbrown.edu) before 3:00PM on Wednesday, December 4. Parking is available in the public lot off Market Street, adjacent to the Welch Wing.
February Book Review
On Friday, February 7, Dr. Keith Shenberger will review Bloody Dawn —the Christiana Riot and Racial Violence in the Antebellum North by Thomas P. Slaughter.
Bloody Dawn is a history of the fugitive slave resistance that occurred in 1851 in Christiana, Pennsylvania, near the Maryland border. Four slaves from a Maryland farm escaped and crossed the border into Pennsylvania. The Fugitive Slave Law, passed in 1850, granted the right of Southern slaveholders to recover and have returned to them runaway slaves, even if the slaves had fled into territories in the North that were free of slavery. The owner of these slaves, Edward Gorsuch, was determined to bring these slaves back to Maryland.
Bloody Dawn vividly chronicles the story of their escape, manhunt, and trial. This event was a very important aspect of the increasing division of our nation in the decades leading up to the outbreak of the Civil War. It may be the very first episode of fatal armed conflict inflaming tensions between the North and the South.
Dr. Shenberger, who was born and raised in southeastern Pennsylvania, completed his medical training in New Hampshire, and he was a physician in the Williamsport region since 1982.
The review begins at 12:15PM in the Lowry Room of the Welch Family Wing of the James V. Brown Library with a Q&A from 12:45-1:00PM. Complimentary snacks and bottled water will be available. Attendees are also welcome to bring their own lunches. Reservations are required due to space considerations. Please call the library at 570-326-0536 or use the library’s online reservation calendar (calendar.jvbrown.edu) before 3:00PM on Wednesday, February 5. Parking is available in the public lot off Market Street, adjacent to the Welch Wing.