Join us for a 2025 Overview and Update on Nebraska’s Open Meetings Act on next week’s NCompass Live webinar, on Wednesday, June 25 at 10am CT.
Public library boards for communities of all sizes in Nebraska are required to follow our state’s Open Meetings Act when holding their meetings. In this session, we’ll point out some of the major points of this state law for library boards, changes for 2025, and some of the consequences of not following Open Meeting law.
Note: This topic is very Nebraska specific. If you are attending from another state some of the things we discuss may not be applicable for your library boards.
Presenters: Scott Childers, Executive Director, Southeast Library System, Lincoln, NE; Christa Porter, Library Development Director, Nebraska Library Commission.
Upcoming NCompass Live shows:
July 2 – Creative Aging Outreach Opportunities for Libraries
July 9 – Printing, Scanning, and Faxing at the Library
July 30 – Pretty Sweet Tech
Aug. 13 – Ditching 1000 Books: A New Initiative
To register for an NCompass Live show, or to listen to recordings of past shows, go to the NCompass Live webpage.
NCompass Live is broadcast live every Wednesday from 10am – 11am Central Time. Convert to your time zone on the Official U.S. Time website.
NOTE:This episode of NCompass Live will be presented online using Zoom. Login instructions will be sent to registered attendees after registration has closed. The Registration End date is listed on each session page, but usually closes on the Monday night before the date of the session.
If you’re a fan of America’s greatest pastime or you just love a slow afternoon at the ballpark check out this week’s #BookFaceFriday, “The Southpaw” by Mark Harris and Henry W. Wiggin (Bobbs-Merrill, 1953) it would be a great choice for your next read. This novel revolves around a left-handed pitcher on a fictional New York baseball team, it is a part of the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse, which receives documents every month from all Nebraska state agencies, including the University of Nebraska Press (UNP). UNP books, as well as all Nebraska state documents, are available for checkout by libraries and librarians for their patrons.
“As the temperature warmed up in recent days, there was no better way to prepare for the season than to reread Mark Harris’s “The Southpaw, ” one of the finest sports books I know. . . . Harris loves the game itself, and he never loses sight of its value to America.” —George Vecsey, “The New York Times”
This week’s #BookFace model is Bruce Oorlog, NLC’s Mail/Material Specialist and avid baseball fan!
Many years ago, whilst scrolling through the 5 over the air TV channels, I settled on a show called Alone in the Wilderness. This was one of the rare occasions when PBS actually came in. Most of the time they were fiddling around with the tower, and the picture was unwatchable, unless you like snow and static. At any rate, the episode I started watching was during their annoying pledge drive and every so often they paused to try and get you to buy, via a “donation”, the DVD’s of this off the grid dude doing off the grid things in the Alaskan wilderness. The guy’s name was Dick Proenneke. The video came from Dick himself (he shot over 3,000 feet of 8mm film), around 1968, and was later edited by his friend, Bob Swerer. The obvious question is, if this guy lived, as advertised, Alone in the Wilderness, how did he charge his cameras? Well, the likely answer is back then, many cameras didn’t need batteries (or they had longer lasting Mercury batteries). Dick’s video camera (a Bolex) was likely a wind-up style.
Oftentimes, I think someone like Dick had it figured out allright. Usually, these thoughts occur when driving home in traffic, through multiple construction zones, or just plodding along only to be cut off by some jackass who then proceeds to execute a brake check maneuver. When things of these sorts occur, the notion of dealing with catching or foraging for food, wandering around, naps on demand, and fixing stuff with your hands, seems like it might be attractive. Then the notion passes, given the thought of sub-zero temperatures, and lack of civilization on just a basic level such as having a radio. The lack of politics might, however, be attractive. So maybe the solution is somewhere in between, surrounding ones self with like minded individuals, and living in a community, as Agent Cooper describes Twin Peaks, where a yellow light means slow down instead of speed up.
In Dick’s case, he became a diesel mechanic, moving further up the Pacific coast, and then eventually working on an Alaskan Navy base. An eye injury nearly cost him his vision, so after that he decided to re-focus his life and visited a cabin from a Navy friend near Twin Lakes, Alaska. He was fortunate enough to live in the existing cabin of the friend while he built his own (during the summers of 67 and 68). Dick used hand tools for the build, foraging for wood and other supplies. Philosopher Dick kept meticulous journals, and the book provides just some of his journal writings, loaded with gems like this one:
“Why worry about something that isn’t? Worrying about something that might happen is not a healthy pastime. A man’s a fool to live his life under a shadow like that. Maybe that’s how an ulcer begins.”
And this one:
“I have found that some of the simplest things have given me the most pleasure. They didn’t cost me a lot of money either. They just worked on my senses. Did you ever pick very large blueberries after a summer rain? Walk through a grove of cottonwoods, open like a park, and see the blue sky beyond the shimmering gold of the leaves? Pull on dry woolen socks after you’ve peeled off the wet ones? Come in out of the subzero and shiver yourself warm in front of a wood fire? The world is full of such things.”
The journal excerpts in this book are an easy read. If you don’t want to invest the time in that, or your library doesn’t have it, Dick’s video clips are readily available online.
Keith, Sam and Proenneke, Richard. One Man’s Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey. Alaska Northwest Books. (1999)
Charles B. Washington and Angela Davis are sitting together on a television studio set in this 3-1/2″ x 3-1/2″ color photograph. “At Omaha” is visible on a red framed object on the wall behind them. The time stamp on the Kodak photographic paper reads “May 75”.
This image is published and owned by the Omaha Public Library. They have a large collection of 1,100+ postcards and photographs of the Omaha area, as well as the Charles B. Washington Collection, comprising items relating to the life of Washington, a local civil rights activist.
The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.
Most of us are familiar with the once-every-decade census count conducted by the federal government, but did you know that the U.S. Census Bureau conducts surveys and collects data on a continuous basis in between the years that end in zero? These tasks are performed by Regional Census Offices, including the Denver Regional Office that covers Nebraska.
These regional offices are looking for temporary part-time field representatives and supervisors. This effort has been made possible through a temporary hiring waiver to support the Bureau in conducting various surveys and special censuses.
These positions are crucial in helping fulfill the Census Bureau’s mission. Field representatives and supervisors engage directly with their communities, gathering valuable data that reflects the makeup and needs of our nation.
Immediate openings are available across the country, and interested individuals are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. The current job postings below are open until August 8, 2025.
For more information and to apply, please visit:
🔹 Jobs in Your Community – more information about field representative duties and responsibilities. 🔹 USAJobs.gov– apply for positions across all regions. Nebraska is served by the Denver Regional Office:
Have you been contacted by the U.S. Census Bureau to participate in a survey? If you have questions about the legitimacy of a census mailing, phone call, or field representative, you can get help here: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/surveyhelp.html
The recording of the Nebraska Library Commission’s ‘Public Library Accreditation 2025’ online workshop is now available on the Accreditation webpage.
What is Nebraska Public Library Accreditation? What are the benefits of accreditation? How does my library become accredited? What’s a Community Needs Response Plan? Why does my library need one?
The purpose of Nebraska Public Library Accreditation is to encourage excellent library service in Nebraska communities. The guidelines used to evaluate libraries and their services are community-based, so libraries need to know their communities’ needs in order to provide appropriate library services that meet those unique needs. That’s where Community Needs Response Planning comes in!
In this workshop, Christa Porter, NLC’s Library Development Director, will guide you through Community Needs Response Planning and applying for Public Library Accreditation.
Public Library Directors, Staff, and Library Board Members are encouraged to attend.
If you have any questions or need any assistance with your Public Library Accreditation or Community Needs Response Planning, please contact Christa Porter, 800-307-2665, 402-471-3107.
This Thursday, State and Federal offices across the country will be closed in observance of our newest official federal holiday, Juneteenth! 160 years ago on June 19th, 1865- 250,000 enslaved people were finally emancipated two years and a war after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Despite this, Jim Crow laws continued until the mid-1960s, another hundred years after the liberation. Today’s Book Club Spotlight, The Nickel Boys, (also a 2024 movie) takes place during the tumultuous 1960s at the end of the Civil Rights Movement inside of a Florida reform school. The 2019 book by author Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Whitehead one of four authors to have won the award twice.
There are three versions of Elwood Curtis. The young, intelligent Elwood dreams of attending college and making something of himself beyond his segregated Tallahassee home. The Elwood of the authoritarian Nickel Academy Reform School, is a righteous young man striving to follow the words and ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But the Academy is stronger and crueler than love can conquer; torturing him and his peers to either submission or death.Finally, there is the Elwood who escapes and lives on. A haunted man, trying to find his way in the world with nothing but his name. How was this goodhearted boy with a bright future ahead of him sentenced to such a life? The truth lies with the bodies of young men hidden on the grounds of Nickel.
“Like justice, it existed in theory.”
– Colson Whitehead
The Nickel Boys is, unfortunately, based on a real reform school in Florida that was shut down in 2011. The Dozier School for Boys, much like Residential Schools, was a state-sanctioned way to force children into submission and assimilation under the guise of civility and patriotism. After the school was closed there was an outpouring of stories from former students who told of the horror faced there, including beatings, sexual assault, and murder. Dubbed “America’s Storyteller”, Whitehead doesn’t shy away from our tragic history, and his influence in writing The Nickel Boys came from a need to make sense of the world and fight back against the “larger culture of impunity”. Book Club groups can discuss the influences of thought and worldviews found in the novel, especially in how they play out between our main characters Elwood and Turner as they must adapt to the school’s barbaric rule of law and its lasting consequences. How do we cope in a world without justice?
To read more about Juneteenth and related topics, The National Museum of African American History & Culture has curated a “Juneteenth Reading List”, which features titles from our Book Club Collection!
If you’re interested in requesting The Nickel Boys for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 7 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Whitehead. Colson. The Nickel Boys. Doubleday. (2019)
Below is a list of free training opportunities coming up this week and some recently recorded webinars! There is also a monthly list of free training resources which is compiled each month by the Maine State Library and WebJunction.
Many webinars are recorded and can be watched later.
Beth Nawalinski, Executive Director of United for Libraries, the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations, a division of the American Library Association, and Jillian Wentworth, Deputy Director, Strategy and Engagement, will share ideas about United for Libraries’ mission and vision, and how Nebraska and its libraries can benefit and fully use the resources available through this dynamic ALA division.
Upcoming NCompass Live shows:
June 25 – Nebraska Open Meetings Act: 2025 Overview and Update
July 9 – Printing, Scanning, and Faxing at the Library
July 30 – Pretty Sweet Tech
Aug. 13 – Ditching 1000 Books: A New Initiative
To register for an NCompass Live show, or to listen to recordings of past shows, go to the NCompass Live webpage.
NCompass Live is broadcast live every Wednesday from 10am – 11am Central Time. Convert to your time zone on the Official U.S. Time website.
NOTE:This episode of NCompass Live will be presented online using Zoom. Login instructions will be sent to registered attendees after registration has closed. The Registration End date is listed on each session page, but usually closes on the Monday night before the date of the session.
Nothing catches my attention quite like seeing my own first name on a book cover, so naturally, I picked up Aimee Pokwatka’s “The Parliament” when I spotted it at my local library. I supposed I should feel lucky to have been able to leave my local library, unlike the characters in this novel, whose library is swarmed by thousands of tiny, murderous owls as the tale begins. This is the titular Parliament, a parliament of owls.
Pokwatka’s novel has been described as “The Birds” meets “The Princess Bride” – it’s a tale within a tale. First, the birds: we soon learn that Madigan (aka Mad), our protagonist, is only at her hometown library as a favor to an old friend. She has reluctantly agreed to come back to town to teach a group of tweens how to make bath bombs. She’ll teach the class and head back to her condo in the city, away from the traumatic past she left behind after high school. The owls, however, have other ideas; one owl breaks through the window of the classroom, sending glass flying and kids diving under tables.
It doesn’t take long for the library’s occupants to realize that the building is completely surrounded by the birds, and that they’ve lost all connection to the outside world – no cell phones, landline, or internet. One patron tries to exit…but is quickly consumed by the flock when she steps outside. With no way to leave and no way to call for help, Mad does her best to help her students stay calm. She locates her favorite childhood book, “The Silent Queen”, and reads aloud.
“The Silent Queen” is the tale of Princess Alala, the ruler of the mining kingdom of Soder. Every year on Enrichment Day, the 8-year-old girls of Soder journey up the mountain to trade some part of themselves to the monster, in exchange for a magical endowment, such as the ability to heal, or fly, or talk to plants. The monster takes what it wants – eyes, entire limbs, even the ability to speak. But this year, the monster is taking more and giving less, and Alala is forced to confront the beast to save the girls of Soder from it’s wrath.
Pokwatka alternates between the distraction of the Silent Queen’s journey, the escalating crisis in the rest of the library, and the resurrection of childhood memories Mad would rather leave buried. The author does an excellent job of joining these very distinct narratives into one cohesive tale of courage, loss, and healing. And her name is Aimee too, so I’ll add a star for that.
Pokwatka, Aimee. (2024). The Parliament. Tor Books.
If you’re looking for a summer beach read without the beach, this #BookFace has you covered. “The Garden of Small Beginnings” (Berkley, 2017) by USA Today bestselling author Abbi Waxman is a slice-of-life romance following widowed Lilian Girvan as she’s starting to get back into the swing of life, starting with a vegetable-gardening class her newest boss has signed her up for. With help from her two daughters and her supportive sister, she faces a botanical challenge and discovers a group of quirky gardeners. It’s available as an eBook through Nebraska OverDrive Libraries and is currently featured in the “Beach Reads” curated collection that’s filled with captivating reads to fill your summer days.
“Waxman’s skill at characterization…lifts this novel far above being just another ‘widow finds love’ story. Clearly an observer, Waxman has mastered the fine art of dialogue as well. Characters ring true right down to Lilian’s two daughters, who often steal the show. This debut begs for an encore from Waxman.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 194 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 26,898 audiobooks, 36,794 ebooks, and 5,133 magazines. As an added bonus it includes 130 podcasts that are always available with simultaneous use (SU), as well as SU ebooks and audiobook titles that publishers have made available for a limited time. If you’re a part of it, let your users know about this great title, and if you’re not a member yet, find more information about participating in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries!
The Nebraska Arts Council is pleased to announce special funding, provided by the Medica Insurance Company, for Creative Aging Arts Programs (CAAP) in Nebraska public libraries beginning in summer 2025.
NAC’s Creative Aging Arts Program (CAAP) provides older adults with creative and educational activities along with opportunities for socialization. CAAP’s core programming involves interactive artist residencies that are comprised of sequential workshops for participants who are 55 or older. Residencies are led by CAAP artists (painters, printmakers, writers, musicians, etc.) who have completed training in creative aging program development.
One of CAAP’s primary goals is to address the problem of isolation and loneliness that many older adults experience. There is a growing appreciation for how creative endeavors can invigorate communities and bring people together. CAAP serves to enhance the lives of our older adults and can help libraries achieve community outreach goals.
Apply for CAAP grants at least six weeks ahead. Grants cover most or all expenses. Funds are limited, and grants are processed first-come, first-served.
This black and white stereoscopic photograph is on a postcard, and pictures an old man standing in front of a farmhouse by the gate of a fence. Dated 1907-1917.
This image is published and owned by the History Nebraska. They digitized content from the John Nelson and the J. A. Anderson collection. John Nelson came to Nebraska with his parents at the age of seventeen from Sweden. His photographs tell the story of small town life in Nebraska during the first decades of the twentieth century.
The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.
The Nebraska Library Commission has purchased statewide registration! All library directors/staff, Trustees/board members, and Friends of the Library and Foundation representatives receive FREE live registration and/or on-demand viewing – a value of $149 per person.
Registration includes live attendance and on-demand access to three full days of programming, expert speakers, microlearning sessions, and the “Virtual Gala Author Tea.” Programming runs from 10:00 am CST to approximately 3:00 pm CST daily with scheduled breaks. Registrants may participate in some or all program sessions live, and/or watch recordings on-demand.
Sessions include:
Tuesday, July 29th – Trustee Day
Get Familiar with Freedom of Information Laws
Meetings That Matter: Driving Results, Not Just Discussions
Public Official Basics for Trustees: Introduction to Public Administration and Public Finance
Top 10 Things Library Board Members Should Know – But Often Don’t
Why Is It Always a Battle?: Concerns of Public Library Trustees in the United States
Keynote – Austin Channing Brown
Wednesday, July 30th – Foundation/Fundraising Day
Library Storytelling: How to Find Memorable Library Stories to Use for Marketing and Promotion
Let Your Impact Ring! Sharing Your Library’s Successes so Funders Will Listen
Overcoming the Barriers to Library Fundraising Success
Strengthening Library and Foundation Relationships: The Role of the Memorandum of Understanding and Relationship Committee
Virtual Gala Author Tea
Thursday, July 31st – Friends Day
Friends for Everyone: Inclusivity and Accessibility Best Practices
Get Strategic: Creating a Strategic Plan for Your Friends Group
Gnomes Need Homes: A Different Type of Silent Auction!
Lessons from a New Board President
Library Funding 101: Understanding How Things Get Paid
Special Events:
Keynote – Tuesday, July 29th (3:30 pm CST)
“Austin Channing Brown is an author and speaker providing inspired leadership on racial justice in America. She is the New York Times bestselling author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, a Reese’s Book Club pick. Her work has been featured by outlets such as On Being, Chicago Tribune, and WNYC. Her new book, Full of Myself, releases in August 2025.”
Virtual Gala Author Tea – Wednesday, July 30th (3:30 pm CST)
Join United for Libraries for our 2025 Virtual Gala Author Tea. Bring your beverage of choice and enjoy authors talking about their writing experience and latest books. Moderated by Donna Seaman, Editor of Adult Books, Booklist.
Invite your library staff and patrons! More details coming soon.
Registration Options – Choose one of the options below to register:
Below is a list of free training opportunities coming up this week and some recently recorded webinars! There is also a monthly list of free training resources which is compiled each month by the Maine State Library and WebJunction.
Many webinars are recorded and can be watched later.
Discover how partnerships can shape organizational views of rural public libraries on next week’s NCompass Live webinar, ‘Sparking Community Connections: Rural Public Library Partnerships’ on Wednesday, June 11 at 10am CT.
Why do local organizations, schools, and businesses partner with rural public libraries? Do these partnerships change the partner’s view of the library? After an initial partnership, are community organizations more likely to partner with the library again? These questions have preliminary answers backed by research findings. While public libraries have been shown to benefit from community partnerships, there is little data available on whether the partners also benefit. Discovering how partnerships can shape organizational views of rural public libraries grants insight into effective ways to approach possible partners.
June 25 – Nebraska Open Meetings Act: 2025 Overview and Update
July 9 – Printing, Scanning, and Faxing at the Library
July 30 – Pretty Sweet Tech
To register for an NCompass Live show, or to listen to recordings of past shows, go to the NCompass Live webpage.
NCompass Live is broadcast live every Wednesday from 10am – 11am Central Time. Convert to your time zone on the Official U.S. Time website.
NOTE:This episode of NCompass Live will be presented online using Zoom. Login instructions will be sent to registered attendees after registration has closed. The Registration End date is listed on each session page, but usually closes on the Monday night before the date of the session.
Did you know that kaiju are an endangered species? Just like pandas? It’s true! Well, in another dimension, not in our own, but they still need our help to ensure their protection and survival.
Enter ‘The Kaiju Preservation Society’, aka KPS.
Jamie Gray has just started working at a new food delivery company in New York City, but is demoted to delivery when the COVID-19 pandemic hits in early 2020. They end up making multiple deliveries to a former acquaintance, Tom Stevens, who offers them a job ‘lifting things’ with an animal rights organization, KPS. All Jamie is told is that they work with ‘large animals’ and the salary and benefits are too good to say no. So, Jamie and Tom head off first to Greenland, and then on to where KPS does their real work, an alternate dimension where life has evolved differently, and giant kaiju roam the world.
But, if they are in a different dimension, away from our own, why do we need a Kaiju ‘Preservation’ Society? Well, naturally, other nefarious folks (government types and shady billionaires) have also found there way there, and they don’t have the kaiju’s best interests at heart. Even though they were only hired to ‘lift things’, Jaime’s resourcefulness and previous education is just what might be needed to help save our world and the kaiju’s world.
John Scalzi is one of my favorite writers. As usual, his writing is fun and the science is easy to understand. This is truly escapist science fiction at its best. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, which was something Scalzi, and all of us, needed when it was written during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2021. It does take place at the same exact time, there are references to it. But, as most of the novel takes place in the alternate dimension, we and the characters are lucky in that we don’t have to deal very much with that trauma.
Dive deep into the history of music with this #BookFace. The New York Times bestseller “Music is History” by multi-Grammy Award winner author Questlove (Harry N. Abrams, 2021) takes a look at contemporary America and its music starting from 1971. It’s available as an eBook through Nebraska OverDrive Libraries and is currently featured in the “Artistic Reads” curated collection, along with many other novels about art and artists.
“An entertaining, informative and far-reaching work, meticulously excavating American culture and history with the eye of a seasoned cratedigger.”
— The Washington Post
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 194 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 26,898 audiobooks, 36,794 ebooks, and 5,133 magazines. As an added bonus it includes 130 podcasts that are always available with simultaneous use (SU), as well as SU ebooks and audiobook titles that publishers have made available for a limited time. If you’re a part of it, let your users know about this great title, and if you’re not a member yet, find more information about participating in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries!
A man and woman stand behind the wood-paneled counter lined with bar stools in the Bismark Cafe Bar in this 8″ x 10″ acetate negative. On the wall above them is a large banner advertising: “Schlitz” “Taste Schlitz today! Smooth pale dry; the beer that made Milwaukee famous.” Several lighted signs tout “On tap Schlitz Beer.” Displays of Schlitz bottles and cans line the shelves.
This image is published and owned by the Townsend Studio, which has been in continuous operation since its foundation in 1888 in Lincoln, Nebraska. The studio holds a collection of glass plate and acetate negatives of early Lincoln and its residents.
The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.
With languorous prose and the ramblings of the rich and bored, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is just the novel to usher in a hedonistically aesthetic summer heat. Now a classic piece of Gothic Literature, Oscar Wilde’s novel is praised for its writing style and daring characters but was considered vulgar, unacceptable, and lacking moral merit at the time of its publication. Even with all its poetic euphemisms and curtain-pulling, the work was too salacious for the Victorian audience and faced censorship for its ideals and morality. In the face of his detractors, Wilde, a prominent Aesthete, included in the 1891 published edition a preface concerningthe morality and duty of art, in which he states: “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all”.
A muse is a powerful creature. Love and praise may fall on deaf ears to an unrealized man. But whisper tales of mortality, fleeting beauty, and adoration, the desperation of the damned will overtake them. As it overtakes the young man, he, in a pit of panic, pledges his soul so the burden of time will be placed upon his mirrored self in portraiture. Young Dorian Gray. A beautiful muse and love of painter Basil Hallward, and the manipulated mentee of the hedonistic fast-talking Lord Henry, tears through the polite society of London, leaving all who approach ruined in his wake. While his portrait decays in his attic, exposing the monstrous degradation of his soul.
“I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die.”
– Oscar Wilde
To the people of the Victorian era, perception was everything. The women had to be beautiful, charming, but unobtrusive. The men, stoic masculine providers with no time for frivolities or deviant behaviors. And Dorian Gray is the perfect young Victorian man. He is beautiful, charming, and has all the merits his class dictates. His impressionable mind is warped by voyeuristic Aesthete Lord Henry, into an existential crisis that leads to selfishness and cruelty all in the pursuit of pleasure. This is what made The Picture of Dorian Gray so subversive in its time. It held a mirror to society, forcing it to look at its faults and secrets, and even at Wilde’s beloved Aestheticism Movement. Book Club Groups can explore the themes of love, art, beauty, and influence through each unique character carefully crafted by Wilde, and the conflicting realities held within them. To help guide discussion, our copies include an introduction by Penguin Classics Editor, Robert Mighall, and a backmatter of notations to provide the modern reader with further context and knowledge for the novel.
I am so glad you like that strange coloured book of mine: it contains much of me in it. Basil Hallward is what I think I am Lord Henry what the world thinks of me: Dorian what I would like to be – in other ages, perhaps.
If you’re interested in requesting The Picture of Dorian Gray for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 16 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Wilde. Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Penguin Classics. (1891)
