Upcoming Featured Events

Foyer Exhibit: Tiny Art Show

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In November 2024, the Children’s Library hosted a Tiny Art Show for children and teen patrons, which included 28 entries from artists two-fifteen years of age. Patrons browsed the exhibit and voted on their favorites in several categories. All the artists received an award certificate and five were selected for special honors.

The exhibit was moved to the Library’s foyer in December, to further celebrate the creative inspiration of these young artists. The Art Show will be on display through January 2025.

More here.

Gold Mine Fall/Winter Opening 2024

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October 3, 2024. Now including cashmere, as well as gear and apparel for the cool-to-cold seasons, the Gold Mine Thrift store has new inventory in clothing for men, women, and kids, plus sporting goods, fleece, hats & scarves, shoes & boots, electronics, housewares, and more. Gold Mine Consign has all new apparel for men and women! Unbeatable selection at incredible prices. Easily one of the top sales of the year.

The Gold Mine Thrift store and drop-off will CLOSE AT NOON on October 1 and be CLOSED October 2.

The Fall/Winter Opening begins with a Summer Clearance Progressive Sale. Here’s the schedule…

  • September 27: 20% off everything
  • September 28: 40% off everything
  • September 30: 60% off everything
  • October 1: 70% off everything, Hours: 9-12 (Same for Drop-off)
  • October 2: Closed for set up (Drop-off also closed)
  • October 3: FALL/WINTER OPENING

Doors open at 10:00 a.m. Gold Mine Thrift is located at 331 Walnut Avenue in Ketchum. Proceeds from the Gold Mine stores help support books, literacy, and programs at The Community Library.

View/download our Seasonal Sales Schedule here.

See what’s new on our Facebook page.

The Community Library Book Club

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Together we read! And we invite YOU to join our book club…

Every other month, a different Community Library staff member will choose a book and host a book discussion. Our book club features a wide array of genres, including popular fiction, science fiction, narrative nonfiction, literary fiction … even graphic novels.

There’s something for every reader, and participants can drop in for one session or attend them all!

Book Clubs are intellectually stimulating and a great way to connect to your library and community. To become a member, sign up here. You’ll receive reminders about upcoming sessions and updates on future dates and book selections.

Upcoming Events

Events are held in the Programs Studio inside the Children’s entrance to the Library on 4th and Walnut. Unless otherwise noted, they will be held on the first Wednesday of even numbered months.

book The Sound of Wild Snail Eating

5:30pm, February 5, 2025
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
Hosted by Programs and Education Director Martha Williams


In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Tova Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her encounter with a Neohelix albolabris—a common woodland snail. While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own place in the world. This short book is a remarkable journey of survival and resilience, showing us how a small part of the natural world can illuminate our own human existence, while providing an appreciation of what it means to be fully alive.
Find it in our collection here.

5:30pm, April 2, 2025
Title
Hosted by Executive Director Jenny Emery Davidson

Title to be announced.
Find it in our Collection in print, eaudiobook, and CD here.

Click Here to Join the Club!

Sign up above to be part of one or all of our bi-monthly book discussions at The Community Library.
By joining the Book Club, you will receive one email reminder of an upcoming discussion three weeks before the event, and one “Save the Date” email announcing the next book shortly after every event.

Questions? Email Librarian Andrea Nelson here.

Want more? Read staff book reviews of Book Club titles here.

Exhibit – Hemingway’s Grave: A Year of Offerings

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The Community Library opened a new exhibit this week in its Foyer that displays objects that were collected from the gravesite of Ernest Hemingway, the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Hemingway died by his own hand in 1961 in his home in Ketchum, Idaho.* He was buried in the the Ketchum Cemetery and his funeral ceremony was attended by close friends and family.

Curated by prominent Broadway director Les Waters, Hemingway’s Grave: A Year of Offerings, brings together select tokens from hundreds that were left at Ernest Hemingway’s grave in Ketchum over the course of one year. The exhibit features all the liquors bottles left there, plus the coins and paper money, an assortment of ephemera, a rose, and a deeply personal letter.

Waters also selected items he found most interesting, and surprising, for the exhibit, including a brand new red lipstick, a fly fishing lure, a bullet casing, a shiny silver bracelet, and a cat collar. These are displayed in a collection with other ephemera found at the gravesite. One of the most poignant items left behind was a letter from a woman who found encouragement and hope in Hemingway’s work during in a particularly difficult period of her life.

Ernest Hemingway’s Final Refuge 

Hemingway Portrait by Yousef Karsh 1957
Portrait by Yousef Karsh, 1957

Ernest Hemingway died by suicide in Ketchum, Idaho, on July 2, 1961. He had been coming to Idaho for twenty-two years, when he was at the height of his literary powers and when he was his most vulnerable. He developed deep friendships here, and he had an abiding affection for the landscape.   

Hemingway is buried in the Ketchum cemetery, now surrounded by the gravesites of his immediate family members and close friends. His gravesite has become a pilgrimage site, and many people leave offerings at his grave. The objects accumulate daily, throughout all the seasons.  

In September 2022, the theater director Les Waters came to Ketchum through the Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency to collaborate with monologist David Cale on Blue Cowboy, a piece about Ketchum,  a dog, a certain cowboy, and the annual Trailing of the Sheep.  

Waters knew little about Ketchum before that visit—only that people skied here, that Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich were associated with the town; that perhaps a famous writer lived and died here. . . . While he was in Ketchum, Waters visited Hemingway’s gravesite, and he became fascinated by the tokens that people left there and what they might represent.  

Waters was inspired to develop a project with The Community Library (with the permission of the Ketchum Cemetery) to collect and log these objects over the course of one year. He did so with the help of local literary scholar Lauren Allan, who also worked on the Hemingway Letters Project. Over one year, hundreds of objects were collected from the gravesite of this complex man who shaped modern literature. 

The exhibit, Hemingway’s Grave: A Year of Offerings, presents a collection of these tokens. It will be on display in the Library’s Foyer through December 2024.

*The Historic Ernest Hemingway House and Preserve, which Ernest shared with his fourth wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway, is managed by The Community Library Association as a private residence for visiting writers, and the site of ongoing preservation efforts.

Adult Summer Reads 2024

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Adventure Begins at Your Library!

Looking for a fun way to read motivate your summer reading? Join the Valley-wide Adult Summer Reads 2024 at The Community Library.

The Community Library, Hailey Public Library, and Bellevue Public Library are collaborating once again to host a summer reading program for adult library users. Our theme for the year is Adventure Begins at Your Library, which aims to expand and inspire your reading choices.

The program will run from Friday, May 24 to Tuesday, September 3, 2024. In-person and on-line registration opens Friday, May 24, 2024, and will continue through late August so that new readers can join in throughout the summer.

“Summers are the perfect time to read diversely and expand your choices to include things you might not normally choose to read,” says Director of Library Operations Pam Parker. “This year’s Adult Summer Reads theme of Adventure Begins at Your Library aims to inspire your imagination around travel-themed reads and the many adventurous activities that we participate in locally. Whether it’s a novel turned vacarious vacation or a hiking guide to area trails you’ve never visited, this is your chance to Read Fearlessly with a flair for adventure.

“I always look forward to adult summer readers coming in to have their passports stamped. We’ve had some amazing participation in this program since it started up three years ago. Summer reading is truly just not for kids anymore!”

The passport is available in both English and Spanish. It can be picked up at any of the three participating Valley libraries after you’ve registered.

For each book read or activity completed, readers will get a page in their passport stamped at their ‘home’ library and receive one ticket per stamp to enter drawings for great prizes—including gift certificates to the Gold Mine Thrift store. In addition, two participants will be selected from each library to enjoy a casual tour and dinner at the historic Ernest and Mary Hemingway House.

Participants must be 18+ and will need a library card with The Community Library — visit Get a Library Card to get started. Children and Teens should register in the Children and Teen programs.

Drawing: Prize winners will be drawn randomly on September 24, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. and winners will be notified by telephone.

REGISTER HERE

2024 Distinguished Lecturer: Joy Harjo

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Celebrating the power of words and the creative spirit. . .

. . .in a landscape that Hemingway loved.

The annual Hemingway Distinguished Lecture is presented each July, honoring the month of Ernest Hemingway’s birth and death.

Wednesday, July 31, 2024
7:00pm – 8:00pm
Donaldson Robb Family Lawn at the Library

This year, The Community Library welcomes JOY HARJO, who in 2019 was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate: the first Native American to hold the position and only the second person to serve three terms in the role.

Harjo’s ten books of poetry include Weaving Sundown in a Scarlett Light, An American Sunrise, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, and She Had Some Horses. She is also the author of two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior, which invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her “poet-warrior” road. She has edited several anthologies of Native American writing including When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through — A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, and Living Nations, Living Words, the companion anthology to her signature poet laureate project.

Her many writing awards include the 2022 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2019 Jackson Prize from Poets & Writers, the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is artist-in-residence for the Bob Dylan Center. A renowned musician, Harjo performs with her saxophone nationally and internationally; her most recent album is I Pray For My Enemies. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Registration opens on Monday, May 6, 2024. Click here to register or watch online.

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