We READ, We TALK Book Club – November

The last discussion of House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea will take place in the Main Library on Saturday, November 9th at 2:00 p.m.

The story of Pulitzer Prize finalist is about the De La Cruzes, a family on the Mexican-American border, who celebrate two of their most beloved relatives during a joyous and bittersweet weekend.

Get ready for great conversations, good food and tons of fun!

Email bmartin@gallupnm.gov or call 863-1291 for more information.

Book Signing with Local Author

John Lewis Taylor

Join us on Tuesday, September 10th at 6:30 p.m., Main Library for a book signing of: Navajo Scouts During the Apache Wars.

John Lewis Taylor explores the question of why, so soon after the Navajo War, the Long Walk and imprisonment at Fort Sumner, young Navajos volunteered to join the United States military? The relationship between the Navajo Nation and the United States military in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries will be presented along with a book signing.

John Lewis Taylor featured in Albuquerque the Magazine, September 2019 edition.

https://www.daily-times.com/story/news/local/navajo-nation/2019/08/31/navajo-scouts-during-us-army-apache-wars-chronicled-book/2168710001/

John Lewis Taylor featured in the Farmington Daily Times, online edition

Email bmartin@gallupnm.gov or call 505-863-1291 for more information.

We READ, We TALK Book Club – October/November

Welcome to the OFPL Book Club! The saga continues with our next book:

House of Broken Angels
by Luis Alberto Urrea

Originally published: March 6, 2018

In his final days, beloved and ailing patriarch Miguel Angel de La Cruz, affectionately called Big Angel, has summoned his entire clan for one last legendary birthday party. But as the party approaches, his mother, nearly one hundred, dies, transforming the weekend into a farewell doubleheader. Among the guests is Big Angel’s half brother, known as Little Angel, who must reckon with the truth that although he shares a father with his siblings, he has not, as a half gringo, shared a life. Across two bittersweet days in their San Diego neighborhood, the revelers mingle among the palm trees and cacti, celebrating the lives of Big Angel and his mother, and recounting the many inspiring tales that have passed into family lore, the acts both ordinary and heroic that brought these citizens to a fraught and sublime country and allowed them to flourish in the land they have come to call home. Teeming with brilliance and humor, authentic at every turn, The House of Broken Angels is Luis Alberto Urrea at his best and cements his reputation as a storyteller of the first rank.

Must be able to attend one (1) of the following book club discussion meetings:

  • Saturday, October 12th at 2:00 p.m.
  • Saturday, October 26th at 2:00 p.m.
  • Saturday, November 9th at 2:00 p.m.

Deadline to register is:
Saturday, September 21st by 11:59 p.m.

Register Now for Book Club HERE

Book Talk

Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NODAPL Movement

Flyer provided by Red Nation, 2019.

Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon will be at the Octavia Fellin Public Library on Saturday, September 7 at 4:00 p.m. for a discussion of their new edited book, Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement, with two of the contributors, Will Parrish and Lewis Grassrope.

Amid the Standing Rock movement to protect the land and the water that millions depend on for life, the Oceti Sakowin (the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota people) reunited. Through poetry and prose, essays, photography, interviews, and polemical interventions, the contributors reflect on Indigenous history and politics and on the movement’s significance. Their work challenges our understanding of colonial history not simply as “lessons learned” but as essential guideposts for activism.

“As our songs and prayers echo across the prairie, we need the public to see that in standing up for our rights, we do so on behalf of the millions of Americans who will be affected by this pipeline.” —David Archambault II, from the interior

“There is no alternative to water. There is no alternative to this Earth. This fight has become my life, and it’s not over. I think this is only the beginning for me, for all of us. Do you want a future for your children and grandchildren? If you want them to have a future then stand with Standing Rock because this is just the beginning of a revolution.” —Zaysha Grinnell, from the interior

“We will put our best warriors in the front. We are the vanguard. We are the Hunkpapa Lakota. That means the horn of the buffalo. That’s who we are. We are protectors of our nation of Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires. Know who we are.” —Phyllis Young, from the interior

Read more about the book here: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/standing-with-standing-rock.