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 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, December 16 at 7:00 pm, we will be discussing via Zoom Trust Exercise by Susasn Choi. Please email Library Director Marija Skoog at mlskoog@mclinc.org for Zoom credentials. All are welcome!

In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes.
When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,” two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.
The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down.
What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.
As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, and about friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults. (From the publisher.)

Book Discussion Questions

Discussion questions:

1. Any one of these talking points could relate to your own life. As you consider each question with regards to Susan Choi’s novel, also consider it in terms of your own experiences and what you recall of your adolescent years. Ask yourself how reliable your own memory is, and how others might remember those same events.

2. Start your discussion off with the central couple, Sarah and David. Talk about each as a character and the degree to which Choi enables us to get inside them, to know them. Also, talk about their love for one another. What is it that draws the couple together? Does their attachment feel true; is it deeply felt as, say, a more mature adult’s?

3. Talk about Mr. Kingsley. In what ways does he overstep bounds? How does he use his students’ own confusion and anxiety to bolster his lessons? Have you ever known teachers/professors like Kingsley?

4. Do the students have any concept of how transgressive, even dangerous, Kingsley’s lessons are? How do they view these intimate dynamics?

5. Choi writes of “the excruciating in-betweenness of no longer being children, yet lacking those powers enjoyed by adults.” How does her novel depict that line between adolescence and adulthood? In what ways is the line blurred and confusing, thrilling and dangerous?

6. What is the significance of the novel’s title, Trust Exercise? Consider that each section of the novel uses the phrase as its title, focusing on a different set of betrayals. Is Choi’s novel itself a “trust exercise”? Are all novels? (Now we’re in the realm of meta fiction.)

7. At what point in the novel do you first begin to realize that perhaps you’ve misunderstood what you originally thought was happening?

8. Fast forward 15 years, to the second half of the novel. How have characters and their lives been altered?

9. Follow-up to Question 8: High school years, especially, can be transforming as well deforming, with the scars of betrayals and hurts carried forward, well into adulthood. What are the scars that Choi’s characters bear (or perhaps bare)?

10. Related to Question 5: At one point, David talks with Sarah’s old friend, recalling students who, they believe, slept with the director. David insists, “We knew what we were doing. Remember what we were like?” “We were children,” Sarah’s friend points out.” But David retorts, “We were never children.” What does he mean? How aware are teens to the issues of abuse? Should they know better—are they capable of knowing better?

11. How does the play in the second half reveal what actually happened in the first half?

12. Is Sarah’s book betrayal, revenge, or is it art?

13. Discuss the ways in which Trust Exercise takes aim at a number of cultural issues, including the cult of the “Great Man” and the “Elite Brotherhood of the Arts.” In what other ways is the book satirical?
(Questions by LitLovers.)

Evening Book Discussion List

Evening Book Discussion List 2019 – 2020

September – Transcription by Kate Atkinson
October – An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
November – Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
December – Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
January – The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea
February – My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
March – Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
April –
May – Snow in August by Pete Hamill
June – Empire Falls by Richard Russo
July – The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
August – The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
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

Afternoon Book Discussion Group

On Tuesday, December 15 at 12:30 pm, we will be discussing via Zoom Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl. Please email Reference librarian Barbara Loewengart at bloewengart@mclinc.org for Zoom credentials. All are welcome!

When Conde Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America’s oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, and had no inclination to be anyone’s boss.
Yet Reichl had been reading Gourmet since she was eight; it had inspired her career. How could she say no?
This is the story of a former Berkeley hippie entering the corporate world and worrying about losing her soul. It is the story of the moment restaurants became an important part of popular culture, a time when the rise of the farm-to-table movement changed, forever, the way we eat.
Readers will meet legendary chefs like David Chang and Eric Ripert, idiosyncratic writers like David Foster Wallace, and a colorful group of editors and art directors who, under Reichl’s leadership, transformed stately Gourmet into a cutting-edge publication.
This was the golden age of print media—the last spendthrift gasp before the Internet turned the magazine world upside down.
Complete with recipes, Save Me the Plums is a personal journey of a woman coming to terms with being in charge and making a mark, following a passion and holding on to her dreams—even when she ends up in a place she never expected to be. (From the publisher.)

Book Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions:

1. What made Ruth Reichl’s decision to accept the position of editor-in-chief of her favorite magazine a difficult choice: why was she hesitant to take the job? Why did she end up accepting it?

2. How would you describe the inside world of Conde Naste? Talk, for instance, about the perks of Reichl’s job— the country club memberships, hairdressers, and much more. Does it all seem outlandish or just down right wonderful, even enviable?

3. How did Reichl manage to juggle the ever-difficult job of being a working mother? What do you make of her comment that “Children… need you around even if they ignore you. In fact, they need you around so they can ignore you”?

4. There is a good deal of humor in Reichl’s memoir. Which episodes delighted you most? Ann Patchett’s turtle … or David Foster Wallace’s lobster festival? Point to some other incidents you found particularly funny or rich.

5. And the food? Which of the many descriptions made your mouth water?

6. At a book signing, Reichl was confronted by a chef who was fired from his job after her restaurant review talked about his “Mushy sole. Cottonly bread.” He was unable to find work ever since, he told her. What do you think about the power a single restaurant critic can wield over the lives of people in the food industry? Fair? Unfair?

7. Talk about the ways that Reichl was able to reinvent Gourmet magazine, all the revisions she made in terms of hiring and firing staff, as well as stylistic changes like reinventing Gourmet‘s covers. What did you find most impressive about her vision and her management style?

8. After an incident while ordering lunch in France at the onset of the 2008 recession, Reichl tells us, “The more stars in your intinerary, the less likely you are to find the real life of another country.” What does she mean? How has she finally come to see the outsized perks of magazine life?

9. Talk about the end of Gourmet and, in Reichl’s own words, her “terrible sense of failure.” What brought about the magazine’s closure?

(Questions by LitLovers.)

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, December 15 at 7:00 pm, the club will be discussing One Day in December by Josie Silver. Meets on the 3rd Tuesday of each month. All are welcome to join. Please email Debra Duffy at deblrduff@gmail.com to receive a Zoom invitation or for more information.

Holiday Card Making

Monday, December 14
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 holiday cards. Card materials and design sheet MUST be picked up at the library between 12/7—12/12.
14 and older please. Registration required.

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. Once a 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

Do you have questions about Medicare? Need assistance with what Medicare options are available? Need to know what plan is right for you? Please call 610-834-1040 ext.120 to discuss your Medicare concerns and questions with an APPRISE counselor. APPRISE is a program funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Aging and other agencies designed to help Medicare beneficiaries understand their Medicare and health choice options.