This year’s Banned Books Week theme draws attention to the benefits of unrestricted reading and the harms of censorship. Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular. 

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Papercut podcast is back for season 2! In our first episode we discuss The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving and even have a reading from a local storyteller! If you have not read it before - or in a long time - we encourage you to check it out! It is short! It is satirical! For all things Sleepy Hollow click here.

Special thanks to our guests Christina Orban-La Salle, Director, Visitor Services and Sales at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and Jonathan Kruk, Master Storyteller. You can learn more about both at:
https://jonathankruk.wixsite.com/legendofsleepyhollow

http://sleepyhollowcemetery.org

The brilliant work, personal struggles, and cultural impact of two of the most important American writers of the 20th century, Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, explodes onto the screen In Truman & Tennessee, a masterful collage of archival material, including talk show appearances with Dick Cavett and David Frost, with clips from some of the duo’s memorable movie adaptions: A Streetcar Named Desire,
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and In Cold Blood. 
For more information about the film and to purchase tickets, click HERE.

Join the discussion on Monday, June 28 at 7:00 PM with Nick Norwood, director of the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians, and Karen Clark, a board member of River River Writers Circle, moderated by writer and filmmaker Juliana Roth. Register for the discussion HERE.

Want to learn more? Check out this selection of books and films
by and about Truman Capote & Tennessee Williams.
Portraits and Observations: the essays of Truman Capote
Too Brief a Treat: the letters of Truman Capote​
In Cold Blood
​The Early Stories of Truman Capote
Breakfast at Tiffany's DVD
Lost Friendships: a memoir of Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, & Others
Tennessee Williams: mad pilgrimage of the flesh
Notebooks
The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams
The Collected Plays of Tennessee Williams
Collected Stories of Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire DVD

June is Pride Month! We felt it was best to come up with a book list that reflects the current topics being discussed when it comes to LGBTQIA rights and awareness so many of these books reflect transgender and gender nonconforming experiences.

Becoming a Visible Man
Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex
Don't Call Us Dead
Fairest: A Memoir
​Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children
Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us
Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York
The Last Time I Wore a Dress
Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993
My Husband Betty: Love, Sex and LIfe with a Crossdresser
Neplantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color
The Right to Be Out: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in America's Public Schools
She Called Me Woman: Nigeria's Queer Women Speak
Stone Fruit
​This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color

Interested in learning about Juneteenth and what it means? Check out our recommendations below! For additional material and resources check out our Combating Racism Page!

On Juneteenth
Juneteenth
​Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America
Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery

May is National Asian Pacific Heritage Month. This book list contains novels, poems, nonfiction pieces, and even graphic novels written by Asian-Pacific authors about their experiences. 

Please check out the books we discussed in our newest episode of our Papercut Podcast!

The Big Bad Book of Botany
Botany of Desire: a plant's eye view of the world
Braiding Sweetgrass
The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: a new understanding of plans intelligence and behavior
Marriage of the Sun and Moon
Wicked Plants: the weed that killed Lincoln's mother and other botanical atrocities
This is Your Mind on Plants
My Garden Book 
Contemporary Botanical Artists
Gardening for the Birds: how to create a bird-friendly backyard
Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: a natural approach to pest control
Raising Butterflies in the Garden
Essential Native Trees and Shrubs for the Eastern United States: the guide to creating a sustainable landscape
Gardening for Butterflies
The Pollinator Victory Garden: win the war on pollinator decline with ecological gardening
Natures Best Hope: a new approach to conservation that starts in your yard
The Nature of Oaks
Bringing Nature Home: how you can sustain wildlife with native plants
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Check out all of the wonderful Mystery Series that we talked about in this episode of the Papercut Podcast! 

 The American Library Association tracked 156 challenges to library, school and university materials and services in 2020. A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials or services based on content. Overall, 273 books were targeted. Here are the top ten most challenged books along with the reason why they were challenged. Click on the photo to check out the book!

Piermont based writer and director Kathleen Collins (1942 – 1988) made two groundbreaking films, both available for streaming: The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy (50 minutes; 1980) and the feature film, Losing Ground (1982), which was just selected for the prestigious National Film Registry for their permanent collection and was the opening night film in the Film Society of Lincoln Center series, “Black Independents in New York, 1968-1986”. Both films are set in Rockland County.

Read the excellent article about Kathleen Collins and her films in the February 19 edition of Nyack News and Views.

​Losing Ground and The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy will stream from February 19 through 25, for the single price of $10. Click here for more information! 

Check out her books from the Library:
Our New Fish Tank
​Notes from a Black Woman's Diary
​Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?