The FOPSL Book Club meets on the third Friday of the month at 2:00 p.m. (September-June) on Zoom and is open to everyone. Members of the club read the selected book for the month and join in lively discussions.

To participate, please contact David Kelly by email DavidJaxKelly@gmail.com to get the Zoom meeting ID and password. People who send David an email will be added to the FOPSL Book Club email newsletter list.

For more information about the FOPSL Book Club, including summaries of past book discussions and additional notes about the titles selected, please visit the Friends of Palm Springs Library Book Club Page.

September 18, 2020

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm.

While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women-all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in-have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they've ever known or should they dare to escape?

Based on real events and told through the “minutes” of the women's all-female symposium, Toews's masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.

Assisted Listening Devices (ALDs) are instruments designed to amplify sounds to make it easier for persons who are hearing‑impaired to enjoy a library program.

Anyone who requires an auxiliary aid or service for effective communication, or a modification of policies or procedures to participate in a program, service, or activity of the City of Palm Springs, should contact the ADA Coordinator, as soon as possible but no later than 48 hours before the scheduled event.