As this new year begins so does a new Reading Challenge. The 2024 Missoula Reads reading logs are in, folks! Swing by your local library to pick up your copy. If you can’t wait, check out the new categories online on the Missoula Public Library main website (programs & events, ongoing programs, Missoula Reads).
I was so impressed by the number of people who completed last year’s challenge! Way to go everyone. Prizes for completed 2023 logs should be arriving very soon. If you haven’t received yours yet please call the library at 406-677-8995.
To accompany the 2024 challenge the Seeley Reads podcast will begin a new season this month. Check out our recent episodes from the 2023 challenge wherever you get your podcasts.
While you’re listening to podcasts, wouldn’t working on a puzzle be delightful? Come by the library and take home a puzzle or two. You can keep them, pass them along, or bring them back and exchange them for new ones.
This month’s Book Club pick is Aviary by Montana author Deidre McNamer. The story takes place in a Montana senior residence, the run-down Pheasant Run, where plenty of residents hold their secrets and sadness behind closed doors. After a fire breaks out in one of the resident’s apartments, many secrets begin to emerge.
The Chicago Review of Books states, “Aviary is as questioning as its characters, heart-haunted, buoyant, and rich with the wonders that make life worth living.”
Deirdre McNamer is the author of four previous novels: Rima in the Weeds, One Sweet Quarrel, My Russian, and Red Rover, which was a winner of the Montana Book Award and was named a best book of the year by Artforum, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Her essays, short fiction, and reviews have appeared in the New Yorker, Ploughshares, the New York Times, and Outside, among other venues. McNamer chaired the fiction panel of the National Book Awards in 2011 and was a judge for the 2015 PEN/Faulkner Award. She has taught writing at Cornell University, Williams College, the University of Ohio, the University of Oregon, the University of Alabama, the University of Montana, and the Bennington Writing Seminars, where she currently holds a faculty position in the low-residency MFA program. She lives in Missoula, Montana.
The library book club meets the first Thursday of every month at 11 a.m. at the library. A generous patron/participant typically brings gluten-free snacks. Coffee and tea are always available.
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