THE FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY
The Friends of New Brunswick Free Public Library have made significant contributions to the library and to the services we provide for the community. The Friends is an active service organization promoting library activities and raising funds. Through the efforts of the Friends, the library is provided with additional materials, programs and equipment.
The Goal of the Friends group is to stimulate awareness and use of the library, and promote reading and life long learning. Become a Friend, and with your membership, enable the library to share with the community the wealth of knowledge in a speaker or a book.
You can become a Member of the Friends, or simply make a donation, by filling out the Friends brochure (available for downloading in English and en español) and mailing it in, or by visiting the Library.
MEMBERS
Executive Board
Marilyn Herod, President
Jennie Fischer, Vice-President
Charles L. Renda, Secretary
George Dawson, Treasurer
Robert Belvin Marie Borbely Cecilia Claflen Eudora Mason
Carl McClean Harvey Schrier Pam Sheinman Teresa Vivar
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FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY EVENTS
The Friends' Book Club
Mondays (the last Monday of the month) at 1:30 p.m. in the Library's Carl T. Valenti Community Room. The only requirements are to have read the book and be willing to discuss it.
Download a copy of the Friends' Book Club Schedule.
2011-12 BOOK CLUB LIST:
Sept. 26 Cleopatra: a life by Stacy Schiff.
A lively biography of Cleopatra, a shrewd and competent monarch who was Egypt’s last queen.
Oct. 31 Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland.
A recreation of the lives of 7 of the 14 Parisians in Auguste Renoir’s famous painting.
Nov. 21 City of Thieves by David Benioff.
The Nazi siege of Leningrad in WWII is the backdrop for this gripping adventure story. Two young men must find a dozen eggs in the besieged city in order to save their lives.
Dec. 19 Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross.
A riveting retelling of the legend of a 9th century woman scholar - disguised as a man, she became Pope.
Jan. 30 Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks.
A vividly imagined story of the interaction of Puritans and Wampanoag Indians on Martha’s Vineyard in the mid 1600s.
Feb. 27 The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.
A detailed depiction of the decades-long migration of black people from the American South to the promise of a better life in the north and west.
Mar. 26 Zeitoun by Dave Eggers.
The true story of what befell Abdulrahman Zeitoun after he decided to ride out Hurricane Katrina in his home.
Apr. 30 Sister of my Heart byChitra Banerjee Divakaruni.
2 cousins in Calcutta, India are inseparable as children, and remain devoted to each other even as their lives take them apart.
- AND -
She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems by Caroline Kennedy.
A collection of poems that pays tribute to the joys and challenges that face all women.
May 21 Room by Emma Donoghue.
The devotion of a mother to her little boy - She is able to provide a satisfying life for him even as both are imprisoned in a small room for many years.
June 11 Freedom: a Novel by Jonathan Franzen.
Modern day family life in an ever more confusing world.
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"Brown Bag Lunch" Programs
Wednesdays (the first Wednesday of the month) at 12:15 pm in the Library's Carl T. Valenti Community Room. Admission is free; coffee and tea will be served.
September 7, 2011
Children’s book author Linda Bozzo, a Piscataway resident, will be featured at the Friends of the New Brunswick Free Public Library's first Brown Bag Program of the 2011 Fall season.
Linda Bozzo has published 30 books since she began writing ten years ago. This past February, she introduced two new non fiction series for elementary school readers. One was a six book series for grades 3-4 about different kinds of working dogs. Each title tells a true story of a working dog and describes its history, breed and training for its job. The other series is called Imagining the Future, and is for grades K-4. It invites readers to imagine what houses, schools, communication, etc. will be like for future generations.
October 5, 2011
Richard M. Kaplan, Superintendent of the New Brunswick Public Schools, will speak.
Mr. Kaplan is a graduate of Seton Hall University and was Superintendent of both Eatontown and Boonton Public Schools before coming to New Brunswick in 2004. His focus is to enhance student achievement for all of New Brunswick's children.
In 2008, Mr. Kaplan received the Administrators Award for Distinguished Support of Music Education. Under his leadership, a plan was developed to provide all New Brunswick schoolchildren with access to music education. Mr. Kaplan has noted, "Research literature well documents that youngsters exposed to the structure of music perform better in math, science, and language art. Since revitalizing our music curriculum, we have seen our students become more engaged in school."
November 2, 2011
Ignorance can be the cause of great folly as will be illustrated in this talk titled Mad Hatters, the Radium Girls, and the Asbestos Hotel: Tales of Industrial Medicine in New Jersey by Dr. Sandra Moss. Moss is a retired internist who practiced at Rutgers Community Health Plan and later at St. Peter’s Medical Center. She was clinical assistant professor of medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and earned a masters degree on the history of medicine in 2005. Dr. Moss has published over thirty works on the history of medicine, with a focus on medicine in New Jersey in the nineteenth century. In 2011, she taught a course on the history of medicine at the Rutgers lifelong learning program (OLLI-RU). She is past-president and current program chair of the Medical History Society of New Jersey.
December 7, 2011
A string trio from Mason Gross School of the Arts will perform a program which will include J S Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring, Haydn Trios 1 and 5 for two violins and cello, and Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D. The musicians will be Lindsey Gamble, violin; Mischa Shapiro, violin; and Sara Bennett Wolfe, cello.
Lindsey Gamble received a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Music, and Performer Diploma in violin at Indiana University and is working on a Doctor of Musical Arts at Rutgers. Mischa Shapiro has a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Performance from Indiana University and is a violin and viola instructor at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Extension Division. Sara Bennett Wolfe is a doctoral candidate in Cello Performance at Rutgers University and is on the Cello Faculty at Mason Gross School of Arts, Extension Division and at the Westminster Conservatory of Rider University.
January 4, 2012
The original event planned for this date has been postponed/canceled. In its place, the Friends will present "A Century of Change: New Brunswick, a Photographic Journey."
Between 1896 and 1920, Isaac Van Derveer took a series of photographs from the top of the steeple of the Reformed Church and the National Bank of New Jersey building. These pictures created a panorama of what a small industrial city looked like at the start of the Twentieth Century. At the beginning of 2011, our library director was able to go up on the scaffolding that surrounded the steeple and take a series of photos to show the contrast between then and now.
February 1, 2012
Local folk songwriter and singer Spook Handy performs with his trio. Spook has played over 3000 concerts in the United States and Canada, and has performed many times with Pete Seeger. He sings of contemporary America and has been called "a messenger of peace, hope, and understanding."
(The rest of the programs are TBA.)
Special Evening Program for Black History Month
On Thursday evening, February 16 at 7:00 p.m., New Jersey General Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver will speak. She is the first African-American woman to lead a legislative house in New Jersey. As Speaker, she has spearheaded property tax reform measures and sponsored bills to create jobs and economic development including the Back to Work NJ program to provide job training to the unemployed.
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