The library’s Annual Fourth of July Book Sale is in full swing. Thousands of books of all genres are priced to sell and waiting for book-loving buyers at the library (131 N. Hemlock, in downtown Cannon Beach).
Sale hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, July 5 and 6, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday July 7. Sunday is the traditional bag sale. Patrons can fill a bag to the top for only $8.00 (bags are provided).
July is Ocean Animals Month at the library. All children, pre-k to young adult, can learn about ocean animals by coming to the library at 2 p.m. on Friday, July 12, for a presentation by the staff of the Seaside Aquarium. During the month of July, they can also win a prize by completing an ocean-animal-themed scavenger hunt in the library.
The talk and scavenger hunt are part of the library’s Summer Reading Program, “Read, Repeat, Renew,” but are open to all children, not just Summer Reading Program participants. Children can find out more about, and still enroll in “Read, Repeat, Renew,” either in-person or through the library’s website at www.cannonbeachlibrary.org. Stay tuned for more events in August.
The Cannon Beach Reads book club will meet at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 17, to discuss “Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life,” by Sherwood Anderson.
This will be a hybrid meeting with participants able to take part in the discussion in-person at the library, or virtually from home (contact book club coordinator Joe Bernt at berntj@ohio.edu for the Zoom link).
“Winesburg, Ohio” is a collection of 22 short stories about the inhabitants of that fictional, small Midwestern town. George Willard, a journalist who, as a young man, wrote for the local paper, knows their stories, and now, as an old man, remembers those unhappy, lonely souls.
When it was published in 1919, the book was panned by critics for its dark tone; depiction of small-town life as suffocating and lonely; and inclusion of sexual themes. Today “Winesburg, Ohio” is considered an American classic, taught in many English classes and, though technically not a novel, appearing on Modern Library’s list of the 100 best American novels.
“Winesburg, Ohio” is considered Sherwood Anderson’s masterpiece; his other short story collections, novels and nonfiction works were neither praised by most critics nor greatly admired by the public. His novel “Dark Laughter” was his only bestseller.
Anderson is, however, known for influencing younger writers like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe and John Steinbeck with his simple writing style and emphasis on the problems of ordinary people. William Faulkner claimed that he and his contemporary American writers were “all of us children of Sherwood Anderson.”
Duane Clukey will lead the discussion, which will begin at 7 p.m., on Wednesday, July 17. Coffee and cookies will be provided at the library. New members, whether in person or online, are always welcome.
The period during which Sherwood Anderson wrote–the years between World War I and World War II–was an immensely interesting and challenging time. Not only did it include the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression and a failed experiment with temperance, it also saw enormous social changes, both in the United States and in Europe, when it came to questions of class and gender.
It isn’t surprising, then, that so many current writers choose to write about that interwar period, including two authors whose recent books have been added to the library collection.
“The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club,” by Helen Simonson, is a novel that tells the story of Constance Haverhill, a capable, sensible young Englishwoman who had successfully run a large estate during World War I while the estate manager was off fighting in the trenches.
It’s now 1919; the war is finally over; a new British law is requiring organizations to replace women workers with returning soldiers; and Constance has no good options. Her parents are dead, and she has no claim to the family farm. Thanks to a family friend with social connections, Constance has a temporary position as a companion to a genteel, elderly woman recuperating from influenza in the seaside town of Hazelbourne.
By lucky happenstance, Constance meets Poppy Wirrall, the daughter of a local baronet. Poppy, who had been a motorcycle dispatch rider during the war, now manages a club for women motorcycle riders and runs a motorcycle-based taxi service staffed by female drivers and mechanics. To help her brother Harris, a wounded pilot, recuperate from his physical and emotional injuries, Poppy hopes to add flying lessons for women to her list of activities, if she is able to keep operating her all-female business.
Constance, Poppy and arris accept a challenge that will test the limits of what is possible, and acceptable, for men and women in Britain in 1919. “The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club” is worth reading. The characters are for the most part well-developed; the plot is fast-moving, with a couple of unexpected twists; and the novel provides a perceptive look at a British society on the cusp of great social change, especially for women.
Set a decade later and on the other side of the Atlantic, “Little Underworld,” a mystery novel by Chris Harding Thornton, revisits the gritty world of Prohibition-era Omaha, Nebraska. Far from the picture of a wholesome city built on Midwestern values, Thornton’s Omaha in 1930 is a mini-Chicago, filled with stockyards, speakeasies, brothels, illegal gambling establishments, crooked cops and gangsters.
Jim Beely, a former cop who is now a minimally successful PI, goes too far in punishing the low life who molested his daughter. To cover up his crime, Jim needs the cooperation of Frank Tvrdik, a nattily dressed, well-spoken, but crooked cop.
In return for his help, Tvrdik involves Jim in a scheme to discredit the Independent Federation, a group of cross-burning, anti-immigrant politicians who hope to take over the city by playing on the voters’ fear of crime. What results are a series of deaths, misunderstandings and violence that make Jim and Frank both question how far they are willing to go to protect themselves and their families.
With its dark humor, snappy dialogue and quick moving plot, “Little Underworld” is an entertaining read for lovers of the noir detective novel and for those with an interest in the history of Prohibition.
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