MAINE AUTHOR VALERIE REID – SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1 @ 2:00 PM

We hope you will join us for our first Author Talk of 2025. Local favorite, Valerie Reid, will be here at Graves Library on Saturday, February 1 @ 2:00 pm to read from her memoir, One Stop West of Hinsdale: Love Derailed in a Sixties Suburb. This debut memoir covers the years 1960 to 1974, Valerie’s ages seven through twenty, in her hometown of Clarendon Hills, Illinois, bringing the era and her own family mystery to vibrant life.

Valerie Kuhn Reid arrived in the Kennebunks back in 1976 when—fresh from the University of Minnesota—she came looking for a teaching job and a home by the sea. She began her teaching career as the librarian at Park Street School, then taught second grade at Consolidated, and when her own three children reached school-age, she returned to teaching, this time at Kennebunk High School where she spent twenty years as the KHS Theater teacher and play director with 41 productions to her credit. Writing has been Valerie’s life-long passion, and at the age of 63 she earned a masters in Writing and the Teaching of Writing through UMaine, Orono and the Maine Writing Project. While her short story “Moving On” appeared in Woman’s World Magazine, and two others received honorable mentions in Writer’s Digest Annual Competitions, One Stop West of Hinsdale is Valerie’s first published book.

Light refreshments will be provided by the Graves Library Snack Team. Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing.

The Graves Library is located at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport. Parking is available on Maine Street, Consolidated School (Route 9) and the Village Fire Station (North Street) Doors open at 1:30 pm

EVENING BOOK GROUP – FEBRUARY 27 @ 5:00 PM

Evening Book Group

Join us on Thursday, February 27 at 5:00 p.m. for this month’s book group. The book this month is “Frozen River” by Ariel Lawhon. All are welcome to attend.

Please give us a call at 967-2778 for more information on this event and other upcoming reads.

MOVIE NIGHT AT GRAVES LIBRARY – JANUARY 30 @ 6:45 PM

We hope you will join us in the Community Room for our monthly movie night! Bring your family and friends, it’s always a fun time. Enjoy beverages and popcorn. Let us know if you have any questions (967-2778).

EVENING BOOK GROUP – JANUARY 30 @ 5:00 PM

Evening Book Group

Join us on Thursday, January 30 at 5:00 p.m. for this month’s book group. The book this month is “Love Begins in Winter” by Simon Van Booy. All are welcome to attend.

Please give us a call at 967-2778 for more information on this event and other upcoming reads.

DEATH CAFE – WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15 @ 9:00 AM

Please join us for our Death Café – Community, Conversation, and Coffee. We will be meeting in the Community Room from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.

What is a Death Café? A Death Café is a safe and relaxed space to gather with people to discuss topics related to death and dying. The objective is to engage in interesting, thought-provoking, and life-affirming conversations. Please join us for this community conversation. Registration is required.

Facilitated by: Marilyn R. Gugliucci, MA, Ph.D., AGHEF, GSAF, AGSF, NAOMEF, Professor and Director of Geriatric Education and Research at the University of New England.

Hosted by: Kennebunkport Public Health Department and Graves Library. Please call (207) 967-2778 to register. Space is limited.

COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS – THURSDAY, JANUARY 23 @ 9:00 AM

We invite you to join us for our “Community Connections” session. This hour will feature coffee and conversation with Town Nurse Alison Kenneway will be here to talk about the public health department and all the benefits of having such an organization in our community. Light refreshments will be provided!

Following this event, each month will bring a new member of our Town’s government to share updates and essential information. For further details about Community Connections, please contact the Library at 967-2778. The Library is located at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport.

AUTHOR EVENT – LOU SALOME – NOVEMBER 14 @ 5:30 PM

You might know him as our “visiting professor.” News reporter and editor, Lou Salome will be at the Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library on Thursday, November 14 @ 5:30 pm to talk about his new book, Two Hundred Miles from Bagdad: Cultures, conflicts, and the lost art of hitchhiking.” Copies will be for sale and signing after the discussion. No registration is required.

In September, 1958, Lou Salome hurried past Barney McNeil’s blacksmith shop to the town’s blinking traffic light and began hitchhiking to college. He was seventeen. Decades later his hitching experience led Salome through deserts and hostile zones in Asia, Europe, and Africa. At the end of his International life, he thumbed in the New Hampshire woods to gauge how times had changed. This is his story of the adventures, risks and fun he embraced while engaging in a lost art.

A New Englander by birth, Lou Salome holds a bachelor’s degree from Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts where he was a classmate of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s. He also has a Master’s Degree in American History from Boston College, and a Ph.D in hitchhiking and news reporting on four continents. Mr. Lou, as he was known in foreign climes, hitched to college for two years in the late fifties, hitched into and out of battle zones in Asia, Africa, and Europe in the nineties, and hitched for fun, but with little success, in the New Hampshire woods in 2004 while writing books. A newspaper reporter and editor for thirty-five years and an author since 2010, Lou has written three books, the latest about his hitching experiences, the lost art of hitchhiking, and the social and economic changes that doomed the art. As the editorial page editor of The Miami (FL) News, Lou Salome won numerous journalism prizes. In 1981 and 1984, he won the National Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for Editorial Writing. In 1984, he won the Jamaica Daily Gleamer Editorial Writing Award given by the Inter-American Press Association, In 1987, he won the first annual Thomas Jefferson First Amendment Award given by the Cultural Action Network.

The Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library is located at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport. Please call is for details (207-967-2778).

AUTHOR EVENT – DAVID ROHDE – NOVEMBER 9 @ 4:00 PM

We are pleased to welcome Pulitzer Prize Winning Author and Maine native David Rohde to the Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library on Saturday, November 9 @ 4:00 p.m. Mr. Rohde will be interviewed by author and associate editor for the Washington Post, David Maraniss. Rohde’s book (published August 2024), Where Tyranny Begins: The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War Against Democracy will be featured in the discussion.

A suggested donation of $25 would be appreciated. Please stop by the Library or call (207) 967-2778 to reserve your seat. You may also purchase your ticket through our website (www.graveslibrary.org/support). A wine and cheese reception and book signing will follow. The Library is located at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport, Maine. Parking is available at Consolidated School (School Street) or the Village Fire Station (North Street).

A ride shuttle will be provided by Kennebunkport Recreation from Consolidated School from 3:15 to 3:45 p.m. and return from 6:00 to 6:30 pm after the program.

David S. Rohde is an investigative journalist and American author. He is the former news director for The New Yorker and now serves as Senior Executive Editor, National Security for NBC News. While a reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, he won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1996 for his coverage of the Srebrenica massacre. From 2002 to 2005, he was co-chief of the New York Times’ South Asia Bureau. He later contributed to the newspaper’s team coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan that received the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, and was a finalist in his own right in the category in 2010. He is also a global affairs analyst for CNN.

While in Afghanistan, Rohde was kidnapped by members of the Taliban in November 2008 but managed to escape in June 2009 after seven months of captivity. His publications include Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica, Europe’s Worst Massacre Since World War II; A Safe Area: Srebrenica – Europe’s Worst Massacre Since the Holocaust, 1997; A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides; In Deep: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth about America’s “Deep State” and Where Tyranny Begins: The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War Against Democracy.

David Maraniss is a New York Times bestselling author and associate editor at The Washington Post. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and was a finalist three other times. Among his bestselling books are biographies of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Roberto Clemente, Jim Thorpe and Vince Lombardi, and a trilogy about the 1960s. He currently lives in Washington D.C. and Madison, Wisconsin.

MOVIE NIGHT AT GRAVES LIBRARY – DECEMBER 19 @ 6:45 PM

For the month of December, we usually show a classic holiday film. We hope you will join us on Thursday, December 19th at 6:45 pm in the Community Room for some holiday cheer and the viewing of an old favorite! Bring your family and friends. Enjoy beverages and popcorn. Let us know if you have any questions (967-2778).

MOVIE NIGHT AT GRAVES LIBRARY – NOVEMBER 21 AT 6:45 PM

Monthly Movie Night! Join us for a great night of theater, snacks, and friends in the Community Room.

One night a month, the Library’s Community Room will transform into a movie theater. Meet up with your friends, and snack on some popcorn!

Graves Library