Adult Services | Lower Providence Community Library

Welcome to the Adult Services page of the Lower Providence Community Library website. Find upcoming Programs & Events, check out our Resources for Readers, and send us your recommendations for books, DVDs, and other materials you would like to have in the library. Also, please let us know if you have any ideas for programming. We would love to hear from you!

To register for programs, email Barbara Loewengart or call the library at 610-666-6640 for the Circulation Desk.

Adult Yoga

Yoga taught by certified yoga instructor Kamini Patel via Zoom. Class times are as follows:

Monday @ 4:00 pm
Tuesday @ 7:30 pm
Wednesday @ 12 noon
Friday @ 12 noon

Zoom ID 6568878396
Password 000816

Chair Yoga for Adults

Chair yoga (gentle yoga for people with less mobility) taught by certified yoga instructor Kamini Patel via Zoom on Tuesdays at 2:00 pm and Thursdays at 4:00 pm.

Zoom ID 6568878396
Password 000816

Meditation Sessions

Experience the many benefits of meditation. Meets Monday evenings via Zoom at 7:00 pm. Taught by Roger Shaughnessy, YT-200. Please contact Roger directly via email with the subject line “Monday Night Meditation” at rvshaughnessy@yahoo.com

Please join us for FREE meditation sessions. Open to all levels. Bring your active mind and wear comfortable clothing.

Evening Book Discussion Group

On Wednesday, April 21 at 7:00 pm, we will be discussing via Zoom The Rent Collector by Camron Wright. Please email Library Director Marija Skoog at mlskoog@mclinc.org for Zoom credentials. All are welcome!

Survival for Ki Lim and Sang Ly is a daily battle at Stung Meanchey, the largest municipal waste dump in all of Cambodia.
They make their living scavenging recyclables from the trash. Life would be hard enough without the worry for their chronically ill child, Nisay, and the added expense of medicines that are not working.
Just when things seem worst, Sang Ly learns a secret about the ill-tempered woman they call “the rent collector” who comes demanding money—a secret that dates back to the Khmer Rouge and sets in motion a tide that will change the life of everyone it sweeps past.
The Rent Collector powerfully illustrates how literacy can change lives and how anyone can “rise from the ashes” in the most unlikely of places. (From the publisher.)

Book Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions:

1. In the opening pages of The Rent Collector, Sang Ly’s grandfather promises that it will be a very lucky day. What role do you think luck plays in our lives? How does the idea of luck reconcile with the novel’s epigraph, the quote from Buddha on the opening page?

2. After reading Sarann (the Cambodian Cinderella), Sopeap and Sang Ly discuss how story plots repeat, reinforcing the same lessons. Sopeap calls resurfacing plots “perplexing” and then asks, “Is our DNA to blame for this inherent desire to hope? Is it simply another survival mechanism? Is that why we love Sarann or Cinderella? Or is there more to it?” How would you answer? What are possible explanations for the phenomenon?

3. Sang Ly says that living at the dump is a life where “the hope of tomorrow is traded to satisfy the hunger of today.” How might this statement also apply to those with modern homes, late-model cars, plentiful food, and general material abundance?

4. Sang Ly mentions that Lucky Fat has an “uncanny knack of finding money lost amongst the garbage.” Do you suppose someone may have been helping him by placing money for him to find? If so, who?

5. Speaking of her clock, Sang Ly says, “Sometimes broken things deserve to be repaired.” What might she be referring to more than the clock?

6. The shelters at Stung Meanchey are built to protect the resting pickers from the sun. What other purposes do they serve? What “shelters” do we build in our own lives? How would you react if the “shelters” in your life were constantly being torn down?

7. At first, Ki is reluctant to welcome change, specifically to see Sang Ly learn to read. He says, “I know that we don’t have a lot here, but at least we know where we stand.” What do you think he means? When have you found it hard to accept change?

8. Sopeap tells Sang Ly: “To understand literature, you read it with your head, but you interpret it with your heart. The two are forced to work together—and, quite frankly, they often don’t get along.” Do you agree? Can you think of examples?

9. Koah Kchol, or scraping, is an ancient remedy Sang Ly says has been practiced in her family for generations. Do you have your own family remedies that have been passed down? What are they, and do they work?

10. Sang Ly and Sopeap discuss dreams. Have you ever had a dream that changed your attitude, decisions, or outlook? Was it a subconscious occurrence or something more?

11. In a moment of reflection, Sang Ly admits that she doesn’t mean to be a skeptic, to lack hope, or to harbor fear. However, she notes that experience has been her diligent teacher. She asks, “Grandfather, where is the balance between humbly accepting our life’s trials and pleading toward heaven for help, begging for a better tomorrow?” How would you answer her question?

12. Sang Ly speaks often to her deceased grandfather, but not to her father, until after her meeting with the Healer. Why did her attitude change? How might the same principle apply to relationships in our own lives?

13. Sopeap always wears thick brown socks, no matter the weather. As Sopeap lies dying, Sang Ly notices that the socks have slipped, exposing scars on Sopeap’s ankles. How would you presume Sopeap got these scars? How might Sopeap’s scars (or rather their source) have influenced her appreciation for the story of the rising Phoenix? In what ways does Sopeap rise from her own ashes, literally and figuratively?

14. The story ends with Sang Ly retelling the myth of Vadavamukha and the coming of Sopeap to Stung Meanchey. By the time you reached the final version in the book’s closing pages, had you remembered the original version in the book’s opening pages? How had the myth changed? How had Sopeap changed? How had Sang Ly changed?

15. When the story closes, Sang Ly and her family are still living at Stung Meanchey. Are you satisfied with the ending, that they remain at the dump? Why or why not?

Additional Questions
1. Lucky Fat is generally cheerful. In fact, most of the people who actually work and live at Stung Meanchey are happy, despite the fact they are only “earning enough money to buy food on the very day they eat it.” If you had to move to the dump today, could you be happy in your circumstance? Explain why or why not.

2. Sopeap warns Sang Ly: “Life at the dump has limitations, but it serves a plate of predictability. Stung Meanchey offers boundaries. There are dangers, but they are understood, accepted, and managed. When we step out of that world, we enter an area of unknown.” What boundaries do we accept or create for ourselves? In reply, Sang Ly says, “I’m just talking about literature.” Sopeap responds, “And so am I.” What do you suppose Sopeap is trying to imply? What might literature represent?

3. When returning from the province, Sang Ly declares, “Home. I let the word ring in my head. Stung Meanchey—a dirty, smelly, despicable place where our only possessions can be carried in two hands. ‘Yes,’ I confirm, ‘we are home.’” Contrast this with her declaration that for Sopeap, “the dump was never her home—no matter how hard she tried to make it so.” Why the difference? Where is home for you and why?

4. Sopeap’s last name is Sin. Do you think this was intentional by the author? If so, what are the implications and what parallels might be drawn?

5. Sitting beside Sopeap on the garden roof, Sang Ly says, “As the clouds close in, an evening rain begins to fall. The drops are large, like elephant tears, and as they smack the floor, they break into tiny beads that dance and play across the tiles.” How is the rain symbolic? What other symbolism did you notice?
(Questions from the author’s website.)

Evening Book Discussion List

Evening Book Discussion List 2020 – 2021

September – The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin
October – Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
November – The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau.
December – Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
January – Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
February – The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
March – Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
April – The Rent Collector by Camron Wright
May – A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
June – A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry

Afternoon Book Discussion Group

On Tuesday, April 20 at 12:30 pm, we will be discussing via Zoom A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline. Please email Reference librarian Barbara Loewengart at bloewengart@mclinc.org for Zoom credentials. All are welcome!

Later he told me that he’d been afraid to show me the painting. He thought I wouldn’t like the way he portrayed me: dragging myself across the field, fingers clutching dirt, my legs twisted behind. The arid moonscape of wheatgrass and timothy. That dilapidated house in the distance, looming up like a secret that won’t stay hidden.

To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life.
Instead, for more than twenty years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the twentieth century.
As she did in her beloved smash bestseller Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline interweaves fact and fiction in a powerful novel that illuminates a little-known part of America’s history. Bringing into focus the flesh-and-blood woman behind the portrait, she vividly imagines the life of a woman with a complicated relationship to her family and her past, and a special bond with one of our greatest modern artists.
Told in evocative and lucid prose, A Piece of the World is a story about the burdens and blessings of family history, and how artist and muse can come together to forge a new and timeless legacy.
(From the publisher.)

Book Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions:

1. Christina Olson’s life is limited by her parents, her illness, and the realities of a rural life in the first half of the 20^th But she does make decisions that affect the course of her life. What are some of the major consequences of Christina’s choices? Which choices did you agree with, and with which did you disagree?
2. Consider Christina’s relationship with her parents and her relationship with Mamey. What does Mamey offer Christina that her parents do not? What are the limitations of that relationship? How do Christina’s brothers have different relationships with both Mamey and their parents?
3. How do the poems of Emily Dickinson engage with the themes of this novel?
4. How might Christina’s life have been different if Walton had actually married her? What do you think their marriage might have been like?
5. What does Christina’s behavior toward her brother reveal about her character?
6. What is it about Andy that compels Christina to share her very private world with him? Why does she allow him to paint her, and why does she like being a model more than Al does?
7. What draws Andy toward Christina? How are they similar? How does Betsy’s relationship with each influence the relationship with the other?8. Discuss the ways in which Andrew Wyeth’s iconic painting Christina’s World interacts with this story. Were you familiar with the painting before you read the novel? How did that familiarity (or lack of familiarity) color your reading of the novel?
9. Which parts of Christina’s life are probably based on biographical fact? What parts do you think the author added? Did your reading of Kline’s Author’s Note at the end of the novel change the way you thought about any aspect of the book? What about seeing the painting at the end of the novel?
10. Would you characterize Christina as an unlikeable narrator? Why or why not?
11. Is A Piece of the World a “New England” novel? To what extent do the characters and the setting take into account their New England roots?
12. The majority of historical fiction revolves around important or influential figures—monarchs, cultural beacons or warmongers. Christina, by contrast, lives a ‘quiet, ordinary life.’ How does Kline extract drama and complexity in Christina’s character?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

A Different Kind of Book Club

A Different Kind of Book Club focuses on reading books with happy endings (romance, light fantasy, cozy mysteries and the occasional nonfiction). New members are welcome.
On Tuesday, April 20 at 7:00 pm, the club will be discussing Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd. Meets on the 3rd Tuesday of each month. For the May 18 meeting the club will be discussing Home Before Dark by Riley Sager. All are welcome to join. Please email Debra Duffy at deblrduff@gmail.com to receive a Zoom invitation or for more information.

Mother’s Day Card Making Program

Get creative with Sheetal Wagh as she shows you how to create cards through her YouTube channel. The library will provide you with
materials to create three cards. Card materials and design sheet MUST be picked up at the library between 4/26—5/3. Limited to 15 participants.

Memoir Writing Circle

The Memoir Writing Circle, which under normal circumstances would meet in person at the library, is now sharing their writing via Email. The group will be suspending their monthly email gatherings for April and May. Each month a member of the group offers a writing prompt. Each member submits their piece to the group by a specified deadline and everyone offers each other supportive feedback. Submitting a piece each month is not required, but definitely encouraged. Please contact Kathy Thomas at k3Thomas@yahoo.com for more information or to become part of the group.

Join writers in finding their voice through memoir writing. The group will use writing prompts, poems, journal entries and images to discover the compelling themes and stories that comprise a memoir. Suitable for writers of all levels and experience.

Medicare

Douglas Keene, the APPRISE coordinator for Montgomery County, wants our patrons to know that state-trained APPRISE volunteer counselors have always offered free, unbiased easy-to-understand information about the best plans for health coverage for Medicare recipients. Counselors are available at (610) 834-1040 ext. 120 to return calls and assist people with their Medicare concerns? In addition, APPRISE has put a number of informative Medicare presentations (and more) on their web site at www.rsvpmc.org/medicare-help. You can watch these presentations on your devices at your convenience.