FRIDAY NIGHT ‘OLDIE’ FILM

THE MAN WHO CAME FOR DINNER

RATED G

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 7 PM

1 hr 53 min | Rated G | Comedy, Romance | 1941

All welcome—doors open at 6:50 pm. Light refreshments provided by the Friends of WWML.

ONE DAY, EVERYONE

WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THIS

OMAR EL AKKAD, winner of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2025 for nonfiction, IN CONVERSATION WITH DAN SHEEHAN, author of Restless Souls & editor-in-chief at Literary Hub.

A WILLOUGHBY BOOK TALK CONVERSATION ONLINE

VIA ZOOM:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89296359061?pwd=gPxzZhNLdxTkD5QVVaR9R5osJm0iBf.1

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 8 PM

Call to register & reserve a copy of the book: 203.488.8702

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values.

“[A] bracing memoir and manifesto.” —The New York Times

“I can’t think of a more important piece of writing to read right now. I found hope here, and help, to face what the world is now, all that it isn’t anymore. Please read this. I promise you won’t regret it.” —Tommy Orange, bestselling author of Wandering Stars and There There.

On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times.

As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage.

This is El Akkad’s nonfiction debut, his most raw and vulnerable work to date, a heartsick breakup letter with the West. It is a brilliant articulation of the same breakup we are watching all over the United States, in family rooms, on college campuses, on city streets; the consequences of this rupture are just beginning. This book is for all the people who want something better than what the West has served up. This is the book for our time.

OMAR EL AKKAD was born in Egypt and grew up in Qatar before moving to Canada. An award-winning journalist and author, El Akkad has traveled the world covering many of the most important news stories of the last decade. His reporting includes dispatches from the NATO-led war in Afghanistan, the military trials in Guantanamo Bay, the Arab Spring in Egypt, and the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson, Missouri.

El Akkad’s debut novel, American War, is a darkly prescient tale of a country and world torn apart by war, conflicts about fossil fuels, environmental catastrophes, and a devastating plague. American War was longlisted for 2018 Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. He is also the author of the award-winning novel, What Strange Paradise.

DAN SHEEHAN is a writer and editor from Dublin, Ireland.

His debut novel, Restless Souls (Weidenfeld & Nicolson [UK], 2018) was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. It’s about young men grappling with the aftermath of tragedy. Darkly comic and deeply moving, it's an extraordinary portrait of male friendship, the power of memory and what it means to come home.

Restless Souls is set amidst the siege of Sarajevo and catches admirably the madness of those times… If I had the talents of a novelist, Dan Sheehan's book is one that I would love to have written — Martin Bell, former BBC War Correspondent

He holds a BA from Trinity College Dublin and an MFA in Creative Writing from University College Dublin. His writing has appeared in The Irish Times, GQ, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica, TriQuarterly, Words Without Borders, and AirMail, among others.

He is the Editor-in-Chief of Book Marks at Literary Hub, and currently lives in Wyoming with his wife, daughter, and dog.

FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIE

VERMIGLIO

It is a rich, enveloping film that asks viewers to approach it as if tiptoeing through the snow.

— The New York Times.

Not rated

(with subtitles)

Friday, December 5, 7 pm

1944, Vermiglio, a remote mountain village. The arrival of Pietro, a deserter, into the family of the local teacher, and his love for the teacher’s eldest daughter, will change the course of everyone’s life.

2 hr | Not Rated | Drama, History | 2024

All welcome—doors open at 6:50 pm. Light refreshments provided by the Friends of WWML.

The Library recently had some of its historical VHS tapes digitized. Among them was an ABC News Nightline story from 1996 about the Castellucci Brothers selling the granite quarry. We’ll screen it in the gallery—call to register!

Collage Club with Dorothy

Meeting monthly in the Gallery.

All Welcome!

Next meet-up: Saturday, November 29. Drop in anytime between 11 am and 1 pm.

In addition to cardstock, we will have blank cards and envelopes available for crafting.

For a reminder call prior to the event, call to register: 203-488-8702

or stop by the library.

SUSAN STICKNEY: Eating Memories

Mixed Media

Art opening reception: Sunday, November 23; 4 to 6 pm. All welcome.

On exhibit in the Keyes Gallery: November 21 through December 15

FRIDAY NIGHT ‘OLDIE’ FILM

PAUL NEWMAN in NOBODY’S FOOL

RATED R

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 7 PM

1 hr 50 min | Rated R | Comedy, Drama | 1994

All welcome—doors open at 6:50 pm. Light refreshments provided by the Friends of WWML.

SUNDAY CONCERTS AT THE LIBRARY

DUST DEVIL HEART

SUN | NOV 16 | 2 PM

Indie folk music, featuring singer-songwriters with big hearted lyrics and close harmonies.

Free. Join us. All welcome!

Tildé Café

A café with an accent on science & the world

My Virus, My Professor

What Do Viruses Tell Us About Biology?

Saturday, November 13, 3 pm

Visit the Tildé Café here for details.

The Geologic History of Stony Creek Granite and the Connecticut Shoreline

Presented by Jay Ague

Thursday, November 13, 7PM

Event Eleven of a year-long series to mark the publication of the book, Flesh & Stone.

This event is graciously sponsored by the Friends of the Willoughby Wallace Memorial Library.

Jay Ague is the Henry Barnard Davis Memorial Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences at Yale University and Curator-in-Charge of Minerology and Meteoritics, Yale Peabody Museum. He studies fluid flow, chemical reactions, and heat transfer in the Earth’s crust and upper mantle with a focus on the metamorphic and igneous rocks comprising the deep roots of mountain belts. He contributed the “Earth Forces” chapter to Flesh & Stone.

A new monthly book club for "romantasy" books (a genre that blends romance and fantasy)

First Meeting: Wednesday, November 12, 7PM.

Discussing The Cottage Around the Corner by D. L. Soria.

All are welcome, but registration is required. Call 203-488-8702 or stop by Willoughby Wallace Memorial Library to register and pick up a copy of the book. Come to one, or come to all!

Join us for our annual Holiday Centerpiece workshop with Donna Rapino of Diva Fiore.

Please bring your own vessel for the arrangement. We encourage everyone to bring greens and roadsidia to share. Donna will guide you in creating a wonderful holiday centerpiece to take home.

Space is limited. Registration required. Call 203-488-8702.

This program is provided by funding from the Friends of WWML.

Apologies, this event has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We WILL reschedule!

Award-winning local author Sara Levine will read her book Fossil by Fossil: Comparing Dinosaur Bones. Followed by exploration of real animal bones and dinosaur themed crafts. All welcome!

Wednesday, November 12th at 2:30pm—Branford Public Elementary Schools Early Release Day

Call to register: 203-488-8702

STEAM Dreamers LLC will lead a lava lamp making workshop for children. Learn about the science of solubility and density and take home a colorful creation.

Sunday, November 9, 2:00-3:30PM

Free and open to all, but registration is required.

Call to register: 203-488-8702

StoryCreek 2025

An evening of storytelling and music in Stony Creek

Theme: If Only…

live music | wine and cheese | good fun

Venue: The Keyes Gallery at the Library

Date: Friday, 7 November, 7 pm.

This is a free but ticketed event.

Register here to reserve your space.

To tell a story, or for more information on how we do it, please call 203.488.8702

For storytelling guidelines, see below.

Guidelines for Storytellers

• Your story will be true and yours to tell.

• No scripts. No notes. You will know it and tell it from the heart.

• It will connect , whichever, way you like to this years theme: If Only…

• You will tell the story in 7 minutes!

For helpful storytelling tips, courtesy of The Moth: https://themoth.org/share-your-story/storytelling-tips-tricks

For more information or questions, contact Rabia: rali@wwml.org | 203-488-8702

Pelli Clarke & Partners: Stony Creek Granite in Four Buildings

Presented by Fred Clarke

Thursday, November 6, 7PM

Event Ten of a year-long series to mark the publication of the book, Flesh & Stone.

This event is graciously sponsored by the Friends of the Willoughby Wallace Memorial Library.

Fred W. Clarke, AIA, RIBA, JIA, Founder and Partner Emeritus of Pelli Clarke & Partners, has transformed cities and communities worldwide through people-centered placemaking. He is an active member of the architecture community and shares his ideas through publications and speaking events.

NEW! COMICS CLUB with Bella

AGES, 0-200.

Meeting monthly in the Conference Room.

All Welcome!

A fixed project every time. Make art, draw comics, chat. Snacks on offer. All ages are invited, even adults! This is an art club for everybody, no matter age or skill. We do make comics together, but welcome all arts and crafts to sit and work together. Make new friends and have fun! No registration necessary, just come on in!

Reading the classics

WILLOUGHBY BOOK TALK

FATHERS AND SONS

by IVAN TURGENEV

THU, 30 OCT, 7 PM

Call to register | 203.488.8702

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ivan Turgenev (1818 -1883), the first Russian author to achieve international fame, is ranked with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as the three great Russian novelists of the nineteenth century. 'Fathers and Sons' is his most enduring work.

Collage Club

We meet monthly on the last Saturday of every month from 11am-1pm. Open to all ages and no registration or prior experience is required.

Saturday, October 25, 11am-1pm

HALLOWEEN PARTY AT THE LIBRARY

FRIDAY, 24 OCT, 4-7 PM

ALL ARE INVITED! PLEASE REGISTER: 203-488-8702

LOADS OF FUN ACTIVITIES.

• Costume competition.

• Crafts and games

• Spooky snacks and witches brew

• Hocus Pocus watch party, starting 6.30 pm

Tildé Café

A café with an accent on science & the world

Professor Theodore Kim, Department of Computer Science, Yale University

Saturday, October 18, 3 pm

Visit the Tildé Café here for details.

Oldie Movie Night

The Others

Starring Nicole Kidman

Rated PG-13 | 1 hour, 44 minutes

In 1945, immediately following the end of Second World War, a woman who lives with her two photosensitive children on her darkened old family estate in the Channel Islands becomes convinced that the home is haunted.

7:00 pm Showtime. Doors open at 6:50 pm. Light refreshments served. Sponsored by the Friends of the Library.

The Labor Movement at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Presented by Cecelia Bucki

Thursday, October 16, 7 pm.

Event Nine of a year-long series to mark the publication of the book, Flesh & Stone.

Cecelia Bucki, Ph.D., has taught American labor and working-class history at Fairfield University for twenty-five years. She is the author of Bridgeport’s Socialist New Deal, 1915-1936 (University of Illinois Press, 2001).

SUNDAY CONCERTS AT THE LIBRARY

MIXED COMPANY OF YALE

SUN | OCT 12 | 2 PM

An undergraduate a capella* group with a diverse repertoire: R&B, Jazz, Rock, Pop, Oldies, and more.

*a capella: vocal music performed without instrumental accompaniment.

Free. Join us. All welcome!

NEW! ARTS, CRAFTS & COMICS CLUB with Bella.

AGES, 0-200.

Meeting monthly in the Conference Room.

All Welcome!

Call to sign up: 203-488-8702

A fixed project every time. Make art, draw comics, chat. Snacks on offer.

Willoughby Book Talk

Making democracy work again…?

THE DISPERSION OF POWER

A CRITICAL REALIST THEORY OF DEMOCRACY

by Samuel Bagg

Oxford University Press, 2024

Samuel Bagg in Conversation with James Boyce on Rethinking Democracy

Wednesday, October 8, 7 pm

This is a virtual discussion.

Click here to log in via ZOOM

About the book

The Dispersion of Power is an urgent call to rethink centuries of conventional wisdom about what democracy is, why it matters, and how to make it better. Drawing from history, social science, psychology, and critical theory, it explains why elections do not and cannot realize the classic ideal of popular rule, and why prevailing strategies of democratic reform often make things worse. Instead, Bagg argues, we should see democracy as a way of protecting public power from capture-an alternative vision that is at once more realistic and more inspiring.

Despite their many shortcomings, real-world elections do prevent the most extreme forms of tyranny, and are therefore indispensable. In dealing with the vast inequalities that remain, however, we cannot rely on standard solutions such as electoral reform, direct democracy, deliberation, and participatory governance. Instead, Bagg shows, protecting and enriching democracy requires addressing underlying inequalities of power directly. In part, this entails substantive policies attacking the advantages of wealthy elites. Even more crucially, deepening democracy requires the organization of oppositional, countervailing power among ordinary people. Neither task is easy, but historical precedents exist in both cases-and if democracy is to survive contemporary crises, leaders and citizens alike must find ways to revive and reinvent these essential democratic practices for the 21st century.

Source: Oxford University Press

Reviews

"Democrats have failed to confront the realities of power, Samuel Bagg compellingly argues, frustrating their own hopes by thinking about democracy itself the wrong way. In doing so, they have helped reproduce hierarchy rather than prioritize mechanisms to counteract the risk of state capture. Few books are both important and original in their provocation, and even fewer explore an arresting insight with the generality and specifics to make it potent. The Dispersion of Power does all of this—and more." -- Samuel Moyn, Yale University

"[An] impressive and compelling contribution to realist democratic theory… The Dispersion of Power is an urgent and important reminder that protecting the democratic state against oligarchic capture should take priority in our efforts to save democracy in this time of peril." -- Simone Chambers, University of California Irvine

”One of the most important developments in recent political theory is the growth of realist accounts and defenses of democratic politics. In that exciting wave of scholarship, Samuel Bagg has written the most intellectually ambitious book. He treats the central problem of politics as the management and checking of power, not the expression of collective will….This challenging and major work sets a new standard for what it is like to put realist thought to constructive and far-reaching work." -- Jacob T. Levy, McGill University

“In an account both subtle and bracing, Bagg focuses on the dangers of concentrated power; and he shows a real path to organizing countervailing powers in order to resist capture of the state by private interests." -- Jan-Werner Müller, Princeton University

About the Author

SAMUEL ELY BAGG is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches political theory. He has also taught at the University of Oxford, McGill University, and Duke University, where he received his PhD in 2017. His research in democratic theory has appeared in the American Political Science Review; the American Journal of Political Science; the Journal of Politics; the Journal of Political Philosophy; and Dissent Magazine; among many other venues.

www.samuelbagg.com

About the Discussant

JAMES K. BOYCE is an author, economist, and senior fellow at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he is also Professor Emeritus of Economics. He is the author of several books, including Economics for the People and the Planet: Inequality in the Era of Climate Change and the creator of a seven-part video series, The Economics of War and Peace. He has written for Harper’s, Scientific American, Politico, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and numerous scholarly journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, World Development, Environmental Research Letters, and Climatic Change. Jim received the 2024 Global Inequality Research Award, the 2017 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought, and the 2011 Fair Sharing of the Common Heritage Award from Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation.

www.jameskboyce.com

Apologies, but due to illness, this film screening is cancelled.

New Movie Night

The Penguin Lessons

Starring Steve Coogan and Jonathan Pryce

Rated PG-13

ART OPENING | RECEPTION

SUNDAY, SEPT 28, 4 PM

UNFOLDING . . . FRESH

Paintings

Recent Works by

Laura Prete & Soraya Hutchinson

On exhibit in the Keyes Gallery: September 26 - October 20

Deconstructing Stone Buildings

Presented by Robert Barnett

Thursday, September 25, 4 pm.

Event Eight of a year-long series to mark the publication of the book, Flesh & Stone.

Robert Barnett, an architect, deconstructs building to discover their origin. He is the author of the book, Deconstructing Stony Building: A Journey Through New England. Barnett will discuss Stony Creek granite.

SUNDAY CONCERTS AT THE LIBRARY

NEW SEASON BEGINS

SETH ADAM & JEFF BURNHAM

SUN | SEP 21 | 2 PM

Americana Indie Rock.

Two singer-songwriters team up to trade songs and tell the stories about their songs.

Free. Join us. All welcome!