CANCELLED: Evening Book Group Discussion Rising by Elizabeth Rush

Due to the State of Emergency in Rhode Island and advice from Governor Raimondo and the RI Department of Health, this program has been cancelled. We will not be scheduling any programs that are likely to draw large crowds, especially for the senior population. We apologize for any inconvenience. 

This year's Reading Across Rhode Island book is Rising Dispatches from the New American Shore.  

"Harvey. Maria. Irma. Sandy. Katrina. We live in a time of unprecedented hurricanes and catastrophic weather events, a time when it is increasingly clear that climate change is neither imagined nor distant--and that rising seas are transforming the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways. In this highly original work of lyrical reportage, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place. Weaving firsthand accounts from those facing this choice--a Staten Islander who lost her father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped slaves hundreds of years ago--with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of the communities both currently at risk and already displaced, Rising privileges the voices of those usually kept at the margins."