Atwater Library and Computer Centre

Join us on THURSDAY, June 11 at 12:30 pm for DUBLIN: SONGS & STORIES.

It’s the opening concert of Festival Bloomsday Montreal celebrating the great James Joyce and all things Irish.

Atwater Library in our Adair Auditorium (accessible by elevator).

Performers include:

– Kathleen McAuliffe, Dublin-born chanteuse
– Chris Crilly, Celtic music specialist, Genie-award winner
– Kathleen Fee, Bloomsday Artistic Director

Come and sing along to old-time Irish favourites!

First come, first seated. No advance registration.

FREE ADMISSION and EVERYONE WELCOME!

NOTE: The concert is IN PERSON ONLY.

Elmo and Spider Man visited the Atwater Library team – volunteers Freda Colquhoun and Lorna Townson with Executive Director Lynn Verge – at Westmount Family Day in Westmount Park on Saturday, May 30.

Winners of the draw for bags of books were Dora Koop (1st prize), Peter Hoffmann (2nd prize) and Elias Banesé Betaré (3rd prize).

As warm weather beckons and long weekends approach, immerse yourself in these books and films that our librarians recently added to our collections.

FICTION
— a thriller with a cast of writers on a private Scottish island competing for a literary deal; by Evelyn Clarke aka V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke
— French philosopher and writer Vincent Delecroix’s devastating novel about the 2021 capsizing of a dinghy carrying migrants to England; translated by Helen Stevenson
— the BBC full-cast narration of excerpts from some of Nobel laureate Doris Lessing’s most powerful writing with a bonus documentary about her life and career
— Scottish writer Tom Newlands’ debut about the coming of age of a young woman born into hardship, hailed by The Guardian’s reviewer as “exuberantly memorable”

NONFICTION
— the memoir of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who as a teenager was lured and abused by Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, published after her death by su***de at age 41
— stories of English-speaking communities of Quebec by Guy Rex Rodgers, documentary film maker, co-founder of QWF and founder of ELAN

DVDs
— the 15-part BBC TV adaptation of Charles Dickens’ great novel with interwoven stories of a protracted legal case about inheritance and the mystery of an orphan’s origins
— Martin Scorsese’s 2023 epic film set in 1920s Oklahoma about the murders of Indigenous people after oil was discovered on tribal land

Link for our catalogue:

https://atwater.insigniails.com/Library/Home

Members can access our eBooks and audiobooks any time at all:

https://atwaterlibrary.overdrive.com/

For information and help:

514-935-7344

[email protected]

THURSDAY, June 4 at 12:30 pm our Lunchtime Series features author MARK ABLEY discussing his new book NUMB with writer Bryan Demchinsky.

In his book, Mark Abley explores the idea of numbness in the context of today’s avalanche of shocking, frightening and depressing news.

The event is hybrid and it’s taking place with financial assistance from the Canada Council through The Writers’ Union of Canada.

For in-person attendance, there’s no registration process. It's first come, first seated. Atwater Library’s Adair Auditorium (accessible by elevator).

Publisher Livres Baraka Inc. will be selling copies of the book in our Auditorium.

To REGISTER for the Zoom link, please fill out and submit the online registration form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-hTSkxnCAqPKSdBigc0lMPoJWz89e6drLlv2CcWUoCc/viewform?edit_requested=true

Have a look at these additions to our library collections.

FICTION
— Rabih Alameddine’s darkly funny account of several generations of a Lebanese family; winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction
— a novel about poetry by Scottish poet Sally Evans; the pick for the June 14th session of the St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal book club
— William Boyd’s well-crafted 2025 international espionage book set in 1963 in which a travel writer cm amateur spy is the hapless hero
— Daniyal Mueenuddin’s vibrant epic about Pakistani society, hailed by The Guardian’s reviewer as “set to be a standout novel of 2026”

NONFICTION
— popular and witty classicist Mary Beard’s latest book on the value of knowing about ancient Greece and Rome, read by the author
— The Broad (Los Angeles) museum’s catalogue for an exhibition of Keith Haring’s exuberant and colourful art by curator Sarah Loyer

DVDs
— Ari Aster’s 2025 neo-Western thriller examining turmoil in a New Mexico town during COVID and the George Floyd protests
— Season 2 of the sci-fi comedy-drama TV series basic on a comics series about an extraterrestrial who crash-lands in Colorado

Link for our catalogue:

https://atwater.insigniails.com/Library/Home

Members can access our eBooks and audiobooks any time at all:

https://atwaterlibrary.overdrive.com/

For information and help:

514-935-7344

[email protected]

Maison Dunham House is our Lunchtime Series topic on THURSDAY, May 28 at 12:30 pm.

Patricia Goldman, the Montreal-based Director of Admissions and Outreach for Dunham House, is our guest speaker.

Dunham House, located in Dunham in the Eastern Townships, is Quebec’s only English-language residential treatment centre specializing in addiction and concurrent mental health disorders.

There's no registration process for in-person attendance. It's first come, first seated. Atwater Library’s Adair Auditorium (accessible by elevator).

To REGISTER for the Zoom link, please fill out and submit the online registration form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-hTSkxnCAqPKSdBigc0lMPoJWz89e6drLlv2CcWUoCc/viewform?edit_requested=true

Allow yourself to be carried away by these recent additions to the Atwater Library’s collections.

FICTION
— a perceptive debut by Scott Broker about two long-married q***r men on vacation in a tourist town struggling to navigate life and loss
— immersive historical fiction by Jo Harkin involving conspiracies to unseat King Henry VII of England in the late 15th century
— Canadian Yann Martel’s brilliant new book about a classicist with marital woes discovering a previously unknown account of the Trojan War
— the audiobook of Sayaka Murata’s disturbing tale of an abused Japanese woman trying to survive outside cultural norms; translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, read by Nancy Wu
— the new novel with a new cast of characters from the sublime Elizabeth Strout, creator of Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton

NONFICTION
— Concordia University History Professor Steven High’s analysis of the failures of Bob Rae’s 1990-1995 NDP Ontario government
— Patrick Radden Keefe spellbinding account of a 19-year-old Londoner’s criminal double life and death, and his bereaved parents’ search for the truth

DVD
— the 2025 psychological thriller movie based on Freida McFadden’s bestselling novel, starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried

Link for our catalogue:

https://atwater.insigniails.com/Library/Home

Members can access our eBooks and audiobooks any time at all:

https://atwaterlibrary.overdrive.com/

For information and help:

514-935-7344

[email protected]

JANET TORGE is discussing and reading from her essays on aging at the Atwater Library on THURSDAY, May 21 at 12:30 pm.

It’s FREE and everyone is welcome.

There's no registration process for in-person attendance. It's first come, first seated. Adair Auditorium (accessible by elevator).

To REGISTER for the Zoom link, please fill out and submit the online registration form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-hTSkxnCAqPKSdBigc0lMPoJWz89e6drLlv2CcWUoCc/viewform?edit_requested=true

These recent additions to the Atwater Library’s collections offer discoveries and delights!

FICTION
— Tara Gereaux’s novel about a 1940s Saskatchewan Métis woman who “passes” as white and middle-class but at mid-life, reconnects with her Indigenous heritage and finds fulfillment in beadwork
— an enchanting book by Vancouver Island poet and novelist Marilyn Bowering about a young woman on the BC coast coming to terms with her place in the chain of civilization
— Canadian journalist and novelist Karma Brown’s first foray into horror: in the near-future, a pregnant art conservator is confronted by weird happenings apparently emanating from a painting
— the sheep detective story by Leonie Swann that was adapted into a movie with Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson (and flocks of sheep) now playing at the Forum; translated from German by Anthea Bell

NONFICTION
— a positive exploration of tasty non-meat proteins by Bruce Briedrich, founder of the Good Food Institute
— Terry Mosher’s terrific book of cartoons and reminiscences of the 1976 Montreal Olympics and Mayor Jean Drapeau

DVDs
— the 2024 sci-fi TV series set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe 10,000 years before the movies directed by Denis Villeneuve
— Chloé Zhao’s award-winning 2025 film starring Jessie Buckley, based on Maggie O’Farrell’s historical novel about Agnes Hathaway and William Shakespeare grieving the death of their young son

Link for our catalogue:

https://atwater.insigniails.com/Library/Home

Members can access our eBooks and audiobooks any time at all:

https://atwaterlibrary.overdrive.com/

For information and help:

514-935-7344

[email protected]