Upcoming Featured Events

The 2023 Sun Valley Jewish Film Festival is presented by the Wood River Jewish Community. See three movies at The Community Library, free. No registration required.

The mission of the Wood River Jewish Film Festival is to offer outstanding world cinema that aims to educate, entertain and showcase films that portray the Jewish experience. 

June 22: Farewell Mr. Haffman

Winner of 18 Audience Favorite Awards
Paris 1942. During Nazi occupation. A jeweler, Joseph Haffman, arranges for his family to flee the city from Nazis. He offers his employee Francois Mercier and his wife the chance to take over his store until the conflict subsides. The two men agree but with dire consequences that will change the fate of all three characters. A gripping story. 
1hr. 55min. Language: French (English subtitles)

June 27: Greener Pastures

Nominated for 12 Israeli Academy Awards 
A newly widowed Israeli, low on money and friends hatches an unexpected plan to change things. Filled with endearing performances, this is a surefire crowd pleaser. Don’t miss. Nominated for Best Israeli Film.
1hr 30min. Language: Hebrew (English subtitles)

June 29: Tiger Within

Emmy Award-winning actor, Ed Asner, in his final role gives a remarkable performance in this very special film. 
Tiger Within is a tender hearted story about the growing friendship between a lonely and homeless teenage girl and a holocaust survivor. This wonderful film is filled with universal messages of forgiveness, fortitude, and healing. A must see.
1 hr. 38 min. Language: English

by Helen Hoang 

The Community Library’s Together We Read book club is hosted the third Tuesday of every other month and led by a diverse range of library staff. Books cover all genres from new fiction to classics to nonfiction, young adult, graphic novels, and everything in between. Join us for one discussion or many!

June’s pick is The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang. The discussion will be led by operations director Nicole Lichtenberg. Registration is recommended to join us.

Beginning in April, the Library will have multiple copies of The Kiss Quotient circulating in our collection. Please come in or talk to our librarians about reserving a copy. 

More/register here.

About The Kiss Quotient:

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases–a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

It doesn’t help that Stella has Asperger’s and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice–with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can’t afford to turn down Stella’s offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan–from foreplay to more-than-missionary position…

As Michael and Stella’s no-nonsense partnership takes them out of the bedroom and into a fulltime practice relationship, being together starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic…

with Susan Bauer-Wu 

When the Dalai Lama and Greta Thunberg spoke for the first time in January 2021, millions of people around the world took notice. “It is encouraging to see how you have opened the eyes of the world to the urgency to protect our planet, our only home,” the Dalai Lama wrote to Greta before their meeting.

In her new book, A Future We Can Love: How We Can Reverse the Climate Crisis with the Power of Our Hearts and Minds, Susan Bauer-Wu shares the words of these two great figures, generations apart, bringing them into dialogue with cutting-edge climate scientists, activists, and spiritual leaders to start a world-changing conversation. Readers embark on a four-part journey toward active hope in the face of the climate crisis: from knowledge of climate science through the capacity for change, to the will that is needed and the actions we can take.

In partnership with the Flourish Foundation. Registration is recommended to save your seat. Book signing to follow. This event will be livestreamed and available to view later. Link forthcoming.

Susan Bauer-Wu, PhD, RN, FAAN, is the president of the Mind & Life Institute, which serves as the primary convener, catalyst and community builder for the contemplative sciences. She began her career as a registered nurse caring for individuals with cancer and mental illness and those facing the end of life, followed by doctoral and post-doctoral training in psychoneuroimmunology and psycho-oncology. She has taught and researched mindfulness and compassion practices in health care and higher education at the University of Virginia, Emory University, Harvard Medical School and the University of Massachusetts. Susan has been teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and leading retreats and workshops for over 20 years, and is also the author of the book, Leaves Falling Gently: Living Fully with Serious & Life-Limiting Illness through Mindfulness, Compassion & Connectedness.

More/register here.

The annual Hemingway Distinguished Lecture is presented each year, honoring the month of Ernest Hemingway’s birth and death. The event celebrates the power of words and the creative spirit in a landscape that Hemingway loved.

This year, The Community Library welcomes LUIS ALBERTO URREA: hailed by NPR as a “literary badass” and a “master storyteller with a rock and roll heart,” Urrea is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph.  

A 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, Urrea is the critically acclaimed and best-selling author of 17 books, including “Good Night, Irene” (2023), “The House of Broken Angels” (2018), “Into the Beautiful North” (2009), “The Hummingbird’s Daughter” (2005), and “The Devil’s Highway” (2004).

Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, Urrea is most recognized as a border writer, though he says, “I am more interested in bridges, not borders.”

Urrea attended the University of California at San Diego, earning an undergraduate degree in writing, and did his graduate studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder.  After serving as a relief worker in Tijuana and a film extra and columnist-editor-cartoonist for several publications, Urrea moved to Boston where he taught expository writing and fiction workshops at Harvard. He also taught at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. 

The lecture will be presented outdoors on the Library’s Donaldson Robb Family Lawn.

More/register here.

Literature, lectures, art, discussions, food, and fellowship

Each year, the Ernest Hemingway Seminar focuses on a particular text or theme and its literary and historical context.

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This year’s Ernest Hemingway Seminar will be held September 7-9, 2023.

Our theme is FATHERS & SONS, and we will focus on six short stories: “Indian Camp,” “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife,” “My Old Man,” “Ten Indians,” “Fathers and Sons,” and “An African Story.”

Speakers will include Dr. Verna Kale, Assistant Research Professor in English at the Pennsylvania State University and Associate Editor of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Dr. Marc Seals, Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Baraboo, and Boise State University presenters Dr. Stacey Guill and Dr. Clyde Moneyhun.

The seminar opens Thursday, September 7, at 5:00 p.m. with a reception and our opening keynote at 6:00 p.m., then runs all day Friday and Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. with a closing reception on Saturday from 4:30-6:00 p.m. A full schedule of events will be announced in July.

Tickets to attend in person are $95. Space is limited.

Tickets to attend in a fully virtual format via Vimeo and Zoom are $30.

More/register here.

Exploring Our World

Looking for a fun way to read more during the summer? Join The Community Library for its Adult Summer Reading Program!

The Community Library, Hailey Public Library, and Bellevue Public Library are collaborating to host the 2023 Valley-wide Adult Summer Reading program. The theme, Exploring Our World, aims to expand and inspire your experience of the extraordinary and diverse world in which we live.

The program runs from Saturday, May 26 to Tuesday, September 5. In-person and on-line registration opens Saturday, May 25, 2023.

“Summer in the Northern Rockies invites each of us to enjoy the mountain lifestyle in our own way,” says Circulation Manager Pam Parker. “This year’s Adult Summer Reads theme of “Exploring Our World” leaves a lot of room for creativity—whether it’s a visit to an Idaho park or a novel set in a far-away place, the activities to encourage a journey of discovery for participants.

“I always look forward to hearing about our readers’ explorations when they drop into the library to get more summer reads and get their passports stamped.”

After registering, participants will receive a passport, which is available in either English or Spanish. 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 page to enter drawings for great prizes—including gift certificacts to the Gold Mine Thrift store. In addition, two participants will be selected from each library to enjoy a casual dinner at the historic Ernest and Mary Hemingway House on Monday, September 18, 2023.

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 6, 2023 and will be notified by telephone.

REGISTER HERE