Cricklereaders September 2023 Stella Maris
September’s book is Stella Maris, the sequel to July’s The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy. The two books are the last works by McCarthy before his death aged 89 in June this year.
Change to Summer Opening Hours
We’ve had to think about reducing our opening hours over the summer holidays to compensate for so many volunteers being away. Until the first week in September, we will now open on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday only. Our Thursday morning story time will resume in September, as will our Friday afternoon 7-11 year old book group, and we’ll be back to normal opening hours at that point. Watch out for signs at the library to keep you updated, or sign up to our newsletter for more details.
If you’d like to sign up as a volunteer, to help us stay open more hours, we’d love to have you. Please see our volunteer page for more details.
July’s Last Friday is Bow Django Swing Jazz
We’re super excited to welcome Bow Django, Bow’s finest swing jazz proponents to the library next Friday (28 July) for an evening of latin-infused toe-tapping rhythms.
Bow Django comprises guitarists Ienne and Chris, bassist Casper, clarinettist Jenny, violinist Peter, and vocalist Annie.
The band was formed when a group of friends got together to play gypsy jazz in an African cafe in Bow in about 2018. However, it really got going in the ‘tween and post-Lockdown periods when the group met in Victoria Park each Friday for a couple of hours to play for themselves and a dedicated group of distanced audience.
The natural choice for parks, street parties, cafe culture and libraries, their music – uptempo and infectiously optimistic – can’t fail to get your feet tapping.
Last Fridays will be taking a break in August but will resume again in September. Watch out for details of our new programme shortly.
Tickets on sale now – here. And as ever, pizzas available!
Cricklereaders July 2023 The Passenger
The group has chosen Tennessee-born author Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger for their July meeting.
A sunken jet, a missing body, and a salvage diver entering a conspiracy beyond all understanding. The Passenger is a dark, hallucinogenic novel from Cormac McCarthy, the legendary author of Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men and The Road.
‘What a glorious sunset song . . . It’s rich and it’s strange, mercurial and melancholic’ – Guardian
1980, Mississippi. It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wet suit and plunges into the darkness of the ocean. His dive light illuminates a sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flight bag, the plane’s black box – and the tenth passenger.
Now a collateral witness to this disappearance, Bobby is discouraged from speaking of what he has seen. He is a man haunted: by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima, and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul.
Traversing the American South, from the bars of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness.
‘The Passenger shows that McCarthy belongs in the company of Melville and Dostoevsky, writers the world will never cease to need’ – New Statesman
JUNE’S LAST FRIDAY IS BARBERSHOP NIGHT!
Doors 1900, music starts 1930. Seats are not reserved, so come early!
Barbershop comes to Cricklewood! Experience the sublime close harmonies of the Peridot Quartet.
Peridot is Héctor, Aurélie, Duncan and Matthew, who hail from Spain, France, Australia and Britain respectively, and came together as a quartet in March last year. They sing a capella – that is, with no instrumental accompaniment, and usually without amplification – representing music in its oldest and primeval form. They have more years of chorus and quartet singing experience between us than they care to add up, and share a small but treasured haul of gold, silver and bronze medals from a number of chorus contests.
For this event, Peridot is looking forward to explaining to you how four-part vocal harmony works and demonstrating lock and ring, overtones (and possibly some undertones), illustrated by songs from the quartet’s repertoire, ranging from barbershop settings of popular songs from the 30s up to arrangements of chart toppers from this millennium. And there’ll be an opportunity to learn a “tag” (tags are short phrase of music sung by barbershoppers all over the world) – audience participation not compulsory, but encouraged!