Community Calendar

The Bethel Pride book club meets the third Saturday of each month in person at Rainy Day Paperback at 3PM or online via Discord (see below).
March: Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique
April: Nicked by M.T. Anderson
May: Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes
June: Man O'War by Cory McCarthy
July: Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity
August: Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

If you cannot attend in person, book club is also hosted via text chat on Friday & Saturday via Discord. Please visit store website for a link!

Join us for an educational and culturally artful afternoon featuring both a lecture and a musical performance:

1:45 PM: Wine and Cheese Reception

2:00 PM: "How do cultural landscapes shape our shared public memory?"
A Lecture by Charles A. Birnbaum

Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, is the president, CEO, and founder of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF). He spent fifteen years as the coordinator of the National Park Service Historic Landscape Initiative and a decade in private practice in New York City, focusing on landscape preservation and urban design. Birnbaum currently serves as a Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design.

3:15 pm: A musical performance, Living Space: Exploring the Intersection of Music & Cultural Landscapes.

A performance of original work inspired by spaces meaningful to the award-winning jazz quintet, DARUMA

Support for Bruce Presents is generously provided by Berkley One, a Berkley Company.

On June 23, 2025, at 6:00 PM, Hamptons Observatory will present a free lecture, in-person at Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton, by Dr. Jonathan Schachter, a member of the original Chandra creation team. In the talk, “The Chandra X-ray Observatory: An Insider’s Perspective,” Dr. Schachter will discuss Chandra’s history, its pivotal discoveries, and touch on the history of X-ray astrophysics and its key personalities. Details and registration info may be found on: https://HamptonsObservatory.org Note: This lecture will be recorded and later posted on Hamptons Observatory’s YouTube channel.

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, launched in 1999, was named after the esteemed Nobel laureate and pioneer white dwarf theoretical physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar of U Chicago. It had only a five-year expected lifetime, but Chandra is now in its 25th year and is still making momentous discoveries. This telescope was specially designed to take X-ray images and spectra from collapsed compact objects with strong gravity (e.g., neutron stars, and black holes, including at galaxy centers). It can also observe extremes of temperature and pressure in planets, stars, supernova remnants, galaxies, and galaxy clusters. Chandra has traced the separation of dark matter from light matter in the collision of galaxies and has contributed to studies of both dark matter and dark energy. As its mission continues, Chandra will continue to discover startling new science about our high-energy Universe.

The TRW Inc. engineering firm collaborated with scientists from Harvard, MIT, and Penn State to design and build Chandra. Key testing of the X-ray optics was performed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Harvard and MIT then deployed the satellite and served as mission control. Dr. Jonathan Schachter, the only Harvard astronomer on the TRW software test team, joined the project in 1996; although he left the team in 2000, he has continued to follow Chandra as it takes observations in its elliptical orbit around the earth. Dr. Schachter will discuss the development and history of Chandra, as well as touch on the history of X-ray astrophysics and its key personalities. He will also present some of Chandra’s pivotal discoveries, many of which have resulted from collaborations with Hubble and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope.

A reexamination of Benedict Arnold's 1781 raid on New London, Connecticut, dispelling myths and offering a balanced military study. The Traitor’s Homecoming uses dozens of newly discovered British and American primary sources to weave a balanced military study of an often forgotten and misunderstood campaign. Indeed, Reardon achieves a major reinterpretation of the battle while dismantling its myths. Thirteen original maps and numerous illustrations and modern photographs flesh out this provocative and groundbreaking study.

Registration is suggested.

Matthew Reardon is a native of northeastern Connecticut. He earned his BA in history and an MA in education from Sacred Heart University. He served as executive director of the New England Civil War Museum & Research Center for more than 15 years. He currently works as a middle school teacher in Vernon, Connecticut, and serves as a command historian for the Connecticut Military Department.

Explore the fascinating world of honey! This engaging talk covers the history of honey harvesting and beekeeping, from ancient practices to modern hives. Discover the unique composition of honey, why it crystallizes, and what influences its color, from dark to light. We'll delve into the many varietals of honey and explore why pasteurization isn't necessary. Join us to learn the answers to these questions and more, plus enjoy a tasting of five different honey varietals, including honey from The Humble Bee Honey Company.

Catherine Wolko is a second-generation Beekeeper and owner of The Humble Bee Honey company and The Hive @ The Pin, A Farm Store and Honey House located in Oakville, CT.

Free! Registration is required.

Register here: https://danburylibrary.events....

The Connecticut historian John Cilio at the Seymour Library as he regales us with the story of New England's love affair with ice cream.

It's a well-known fact that New England as a region LOVES its ice cream. Statically, New Englanders eat 22.8 quarts per year compared to the national average of 15.1 quarts. 22.8 actually makes New England a leader in ice cream consumption worldwide. Why?

Join John Cilio as he delves into the history of ice cream in Connecticut and why it's so popular.

Call the Library at 203-888-3903 for more information on this program. Registration is not necessary for this program.

Teens! Come play games and have fun while learning to manage money! Honors student and teen entrepreneur Natalie Klemm will share her expertise with fellow students.

The session will cover:

Financial services, including savings plans and payment accounts

Budgeting and saving strategies to build smart financial habits early

Insurance and taxes, with a focus on what teens should know about financial protection and tax basics

Investing and retirement, including how to start early with investing, 401(k)s, and long-term financial planning

For students in Middle School and High School.

FREE!
Everyone is welcome!
Registration is required.

Register here: https://danburylibrary.events....

Learn about optimizing nutrition, balancing hormones and brain chemistry, reducing inflammatory foods, improving digestion, and stress reduction techniques from a Certified Wellness Instructor.

Presented by Dr. Edward Markowitz, Clinical Director at the Advanced Wellness and Injury Center.
Registration Required.

Register here: https://danburylibrary.events....

For more information, please contact the Innovation and Sustainability Librarian, Julia Dennen, at (203) 797-4505 ext. 7747 or jdennen@danburylibrary.org

The Westport Library welcomes business executive, government official, academic, and author Fred Hochberg in conversation with Westporter Steve Parrish for a discussion of global trade policy, including President Trump’s tariff strategy, and other current events.

During a career that has spanned almost 50 years, Fred Hochberg has served as: Chairman and CEO of the Export Import Bank of the United States during the Obama Administration; Acting Administrator of the Small Business Administration during the Clinton Administration; Dean of the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy at The New School University; and President and Chief Operating Officer of the Lillian Vernon Corporation. Fred is also the author of Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word, published by Simon & Schuster and described as “a rousing, well-argued defense of global trade in a time of isolationist entrenchment."

Steve Parrish is the retired Senior Vice President of Global Corporate Affairs at Altria Group, Inc. and the founder of Steve Parrish Consulting Group, LLC. Additionally, Parrish is the co-chair of the Library’s Common Ground Initiative.

The Common Ground Initiative is The Westport Library’s forum for public discourse on topical issues of importance to the community. The goals of the Initiative are to: host a positive, productive conversation on how we work together to move forward as a civil society; encourage respectful, constructive dialogue; and build capacity to tackle challenging and/or controversial issues.

The Bethel Pride book club meets the third Saturday of each month in person at Rainy Day Paperback at 3PM or online via Discord (see below).
March: Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique
April: Nicked by M.T. Anderson
May: Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes
June: Man O'War by Cory McCarthy
July: Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity
August: Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

If you cannot attend in person, book club is also hosted via text chat on Friday & Saturday via Discord. Please visit store website for a link!