Come along to our Slow Summer Read, Robertson Park, Orange on Thursday 12 February from 6.30pm.
Be inspired to bring along your favourite Summer Read, your own picnic and relax in this central park for a lazy literary evening. Orange City Library's Pageturners book discussion group will be there talking about holiday reading, as well as participants in the Summer Reading Club. Enjoy music, refreshments and catching up with friends over your favourite Summer Read. We hope to see people lazing about in the park reading – parents reading to children, children reading with parents, friends and family. Everyone welcome.

The Classics Book Club resumes next week to talk about Brontes: January meetings will be held at the Blayney branch on Tuesday 20 January from 11am to 12 noon to discuss Shirley by Charlotte Bronte. Orange day group meet on Thursday 22 January from 12.30pm  1.30pm to talk about Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. The Orange evening group meet on Thursday 22 January from 5.30pm for early birds or 6pm  7pm to chat about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte and Cowra meet on Tuesday 27 January from 12.30pm to 1.30pm to talk about Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Elizabeth Gaskill wrote about this Bronte sisters' portrait by Branwell (he painted himself out but you can see him in faintly in the middle) in her biography of Charlotte Bronte:
“there could be no doubt about Branwell's talent for drawing. I have seen an oil painting of his, done I know not when . . . It was a group of his sisters, life size, three-quarters' length; not much better than sign-painting, as to manipulation; but the likenesses were, I should think, admirable. I could only judge of the fidelity with which the other two were depicted, from the striking resemblance which Charlotte, upholding the great frame of canvas, and consequently standing right behind it, bore to her own representation, though it must have been ten years and more since the portraits were taken. The picture was divided, almost in the middle, by a great pillar. On the side of the column which was lighted by the sun, stood Charlotte, in the womanly dress of that day of jigot sleeves and large collars. On the deeply shadowed side, was Emily, and Anne's gentle face resting on her shoulder. Emily's countenance struck me as full of power; Charlotte's of solicitude; Anne's of tenderness. The two younger seemed hardly to have attained their full growth, though Emily was taller than Charlotte; they had cropped hair, and a more girlish dress. I remember looking on those two sad, earnest, shadowed faces, and wondering whether I could trace the mysterious expression which is said to foretell an early death. I had some fond superstitious hope that the column divided their fates from hers, who stood apart in the canvas, as in life she survived. . . . They were good likenesses, however badly executed.”

The November meetings of the Classics Book Club will be held as follows:
Blayney on Tuesday 18 November from 11am to 12 noon to discuss The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.
Orange day group meeting on Thursday 20 November from 12.30pm  1.30pm to discuss the Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.
Orange evening group meeting from 5.30pm (earlybirds), 6pm  7pm to talk about The Professor by Charlotte Bronte.
Cowra meeting on Tuesday 25 November from 12.30pm to 1.30pm to talk about Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte.
New members are always welcome and there will be a break in December with meetings resuming in January.

The Classics Book Club have discovered Bronte and Austen have the weather in common. I seem to recall not too long ago reading about the weather as a vehicle for the plot in Austen's works. Now members of The Classics Book Club are discovering the Brontes also used the weather and astronomical occurrences to serve the plot and mood of their novels. The Classics Book Club groups meet in Orange at 12.30pm on Thursday 16 October to discuss Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte and from 5.30pm to talk about Shirley by Charlotte Bronte. The next Cowra meeting will be held on Tuesday 30 September from 12.30pm to 1.30pm to discuss Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and the Blayney group meets on Tuesday 21 October from 11am to 12noon to also talk about Wuthering Heights. For more information about the Classics Book Club contact your branch or download a form from the Reading and Writing page on the CWL website.