Darien Library
Library Hours
Main Library Hours:
| Mon - Thurs | 9am - 9pm |
| Friday | 9am - 6pm |
| Saturday | 9am - 5pm |
| Sunday | 1pm - 5pm |
Children's Library Hours:
| Mon - Thurs | 9am - 8pm |
| Friday | 9am - 6pm |
| Saturday | 9am - 5pm |
| Sunday | 1pm - 5pm |
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Meet the Author - Douglas Kennedy
Written by Erin S on 05/12/2013
Tuesday, May 21 at 7 p.m.
Douglas Kennedy, author of Five Days, will be our featured speaker.
Forty-two-year-old Laura spends her days looking at other people’s potential calamities. She works in the radiography unit of a small hospital on the Maine coast, scanning and x-raying frightened patients. In a job where finding nothing is always the best result, she is well versed in the random unfairness of life, a revelation that has started to affect her personally. Her husband Dan has become a stranger since losing his job eighteen months ago and she feels the distance is only growing between them. Her son, a promising artist, is in college, and her vivacious seventeen-yearold daughter is set to leave home within the year. Laura begins to wonder if her impending empty nest will only deepen the disconnected state of her marriage.
So when the opportunity arises for her to spend the weekend at a radiography conference in Boston, Laura jumps at the chance. She’ll be on her own for 72 hours for the first time since her children were born—and she revels in her temporary escape.
Praise for Five Days
“With Five Days, Douglas Kennedy has crafted a brilliant meditation on regret, fidelity, family, and second chances that will have you breathlessly turning pages to find out what happened in the past and what will happen next. At once heartbreaking and hopeful, it is a powerful new work of fiction by an internationally acclaimed writer at the height of his powers.” —Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club
About the Author
Douglas Kennedy is the author of ten previous novels, including the international bestseller The Moment. His work has been translated into twenty-two languages, and in 2007 he received the French decoration of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Books will be available for purchase at this event. Refreshments will be served.
Additional parking for evening and weekend Library programs available on Thorndal Circle (behind Nielsen's).
Wednesday Mornings at 11 - Meet Us On Main Street
Written by Erin S on 05/11/2013
"You Are What You Read" goes LIVE!
Every Wednesday, 11 a.m.
Hear about the latest and greatest books, movies, apps, and articles our staff is currently digging at this weekly, informal discussion. Then share with us what you're reading!
There will be "oooohs." There will be "ahhhhs." There will be laughs. We hope to see you there.
Get Ready, Get Set, Go!
Written by Erin S on 05/09/2013
Please join us for a marathon short story adventure with Carroll Stenson, our popular discussion leader. We’ve heard your many requests for an extended season of conversations and this year we’re doing just that. Carroll will offer her program to interested participants beginning on May 28, continuing through December 17, 2013. And for anyone who wishes we’d hold an after-work series, we’ll be doing that, too. On the Tuesdays of May 28, June 4, 11 and 18 we’ll meet in the conference room from 7-8 p.m. At the completion of our evening series the program will move to Tuesdays from 3-4 p.m. Our first story, “Mr. Know-All“ by Somerset Maugham is available at the Welcome Desk. In subsequent weeks we’ll distribute the stories at the end of each session or they may be picked up on Main Street in the Library. Whenever copyright regulations allow, the stories will be posted online.
Additional parking for evening and weekend Library programs available on Thorndal Circle (behind Nielsen's).
Download eMagazines from the Library!
Written by Amanda G. on 05/01/2013
Do you love magazines? Do you wish you could read magazines on the go? Then we have great news for you!
Darien Library now offers 75 eMagazines which can be read on nearly all Internet-enabled devices. The eMagazines are brought to you through Zinio. Select titles include:
- Bloomberg Businessweek
- Consumer Reports
- Economist
- ESPN the Magazine
- Harper's Bazaar
- Martha Stewart Living
- US Weekly
eMagazines are available for Darien residents, those who work full-time in Darien, and Friends of the Library who have donated $300 or more.
Friday Night Feature - 'Hyde Park on Hudson'
Written by Erin S on 05/10/2013
Friday, May 24 at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. – Hyde Park on Hudson (2012) Starring Bill Murray, Laura Linney, and Olivia Colman; Rated R; 94 minutes. Closed captioned for the hearing impaired.
In June 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor host the King and Queen of England for a weekend at the Roosevelt home at Hyde Park on Hudson, in upstate New York – the first-ever visit of a reigning English monarch to America. With Britain facing imminent war with Germany, the Royals are desperately looking to FDR for support. But international affairs must be juggled with the complexities of FDR’s domestic establishment, as wife, mother, and mistresses all conspire to make the royal weekend an unforgettable one.
"Murray's spot-on portrayal of a man juggling myriad pressures and demands, from petty to momentous, marks one of the film's greatest strengths." -- Ann Hornaday, Washington Post
For more information, please watch the film's trailer. Check out the rest of our Friday Night Features in May.
Additional parking for evening and weekend Library programs available on Thorndal Circle (behind Nielsen's).
Foreign Films for Kids
Written by childrens library on 05/04/2013
Saturday, May 25 at 1 p.m.
Drop in and watch Trail of the Panda, a film from China, about the friendship between a boy and a panda. This film will be subtitled in English. Rated G, 89 minutes.
Ages 9 to 12.
Library Closed for Memorial Day
Written by Amanda G. on 05/19/2013
The Library will be closed on Monday, May 27th in observation of Memorial Day.
Did you know...
Next door to the Library is the Spring Grove Cemetery for State Veterans which is home to over two thousand soldiers. You can find an online listing of these soldiers or check out the book, State Veterans Cemetery at Spring Grove Cemetery Darien, Connecticut: Listing of All Soldiers. Between 1864 and 1940, Darien was home to the Fitch Home for Soldiers and their Orphans started by Darien resident and philanthropist, Benjamin Fitch. Thousands of soldiers and orphaned children spent years of their lives at the Home.
More information about Memorial Day
Veterans History Project from the Library of Congress which includes thousands of oral histories from veterans' wartime experiences.
The Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project includes more than 500 individual collections from female soldiers.
A general overview of Memorial Day on Wikipedia which discusses how the observation for fallen soldiers started organically in various communities before Congress made it an official federal holiday with the National Holiday Act of 1971.
Double-0 Darien: Kids Summer Reading
Written by childrens library on 05/21/2013
Your mission this summer, should you choose to accept it....read!
Sign up for Summer Reading!
Pre-readers can join the Read to Me Club and choose a free book to take home for every 10 books they read with a grown-up. The Summer Reading Kick-off takes place on Friday, June 21 at 1 p.m. with crafts and chalk drawing in the Library's courtyard and a concert by Dre Towey at 2 p.m. Ages 2 to 7.
Kids reading on their own can join our Summer Reading Club and earn prizes by reading and completing our weekly Quests online. Kids who complete that week's Quest will be entered into a raffle for fun spy-related prizes. Use the Summer Reading Decoder for some of the super-secret coded Quests. Kids can track the minutes they read online; for every two hours read, they will automatically be entered into our Grand Prize Raffle for an iPad Mini!
The Finale Party will take place on Tuesday, August 20 with special guest author, Wendy Mass, author of The Candymakers, a Nutmeg Nominee for 2014! The winner of the Grand Prize Raffle will be selected at the Finale Party. Registration for this party will begin on August 1.
Darien Library, 1441 Post Road, Darien, Connecticut, 06820-5419 · 203-655-1234Directions and Contact Information. Twitter: darienlibrary. AIM & Y!M: deweydarien.