BATH

Patten Free Library will soon start a new book group exploring the 14th Amendment.

Entitled “Violence and Belonging: the 14th Amendment and American Literature,” the reading series is made possible through the Maine Humanities Council’s Maine Center for the Book in cooperation with the Maine State Library as part of the Let’s Talk About It series.

“Let’s Talk About It is a library based program that Maine Humanities has been running throughout the state for a couple decades now. It usually reaches over 40 libraries every year, and it’s free to the libraries,” said Nicole Rancourt, director of Let’s Talk About It.

“We’ve done two or three of them over the last years, and they’re always very high quality, the facilitators are excellent and attendance is good,” said Adult Services Manager Leslie Mortimer.

There are more than 30 series available for libraries to choose from as part of Let’s Talk About It.

“This one I chose because it’s just so timely. It even has become more timely since Charlottesville and some of the other things that have been happening lately in the news, so I just felt like our communities would be interested in reading these books and then talking about it,” said Mortimer.

“We created this series to kind of highlight some pieces of the 14th Amendment or issues surrounding the 14th Amendment that perhaps were not explicit to everyone,” said Rancourt. “We didn’t want a series just about the 14th, but that kind of showed how the 14th kind of plays out in the world.”

There are five books in the series: Between the World and Me by Ta- Nehisi Coates; A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar; Marrow of Tradition by Charles Chestnut; Once in a Promised Land by Laila Halaby, and The Round House by Louise Erdrich.

The reading group is limited to 25 people, and slots are filling up fast, said Mortimer. The program has five sessions, beginning September 27 at 6:30 in the library’s community room. A full list of dates and times are available on the library’s website. Discussions run about an hour and a half.

“Some people talk a lot and ask questions, and some people are more reserved,” said Mortimer. “But that’s the facilitator’s job, to not let anybody dominate it and to try to make sure that everybody who wants to speak has a chance to speak.”

The facilitator of “Violence and Belonging” will be Reza Jalali, a writer, educator, and refugee activist whose lengthy resume includes sitting on the board of Amnesty International, advising Muslim students at Bowdoin College and writing the children’s book, Moon Watchers. Jalil was named one of Maine’s 50 leaders by Maine Magazine in 2016.

Those interested in participating in the group should reach out to the library’s reference desk, where they can also pick up the books in the series.

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