CHECK IT OUT: Evening book group comes to Newport

Newport Beach Public Library readers requested an evening book group, and now it’s here.

The all-new Manuscripts Evening Book Discussion Group will meet on the third Tuesday of each month from 7 until 8:30 p.m. in the Friends meeting room at the Central Library.

The group will provide a fun and intellectually stimulating challenge while discussing titles old and new.

The theme for the first season is: “Finding Ourselves in American Books.”

The group is free, open to the public and sponsored by the Newport Beach Public Library Foundation.

As a special treat, Kirwan Rockefeller will speak at the library Monday at 7 p.m.

Rockefeller’s new book, “Visualize Confidence: How to Use Guided Imagery to Overcome Self-Doubt,” focuses on the ways people use communication and how that affects desired outcomes.

The book will be available for purchase and signing after the lecture. This is free, open to the public and will take place in the Friends meeting room at the Central Library.

The Manuscripts Evening Book Discussion Group’s reading selections for the 2007-08 season are listed below with dates and titles. Reserve your copies at the library, and join in the fun.

“Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War” by Nathaniel Philbrick (Oct. 16): : Using previously unpublished material, Philbrick recounts the true story of the pilgrims’ settlement in America. Discover the 55-year unfolding drama of encounters with various native populations: the English in England, the French, the Spanish and each other.

“Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Nov. 20): The Puritans stamped their mark on modern-day America and made manifest by moral-superiority claims, intertwining human relationships and socially-sanctioned punishments. Discover why this classic tale is still relevant today.

“Red Badge of Courage” by Stephen Crane (Dec. 18): Experience the American Civil War through the eyes of a frightened infantryman and the consequences of the “fog of war.”

“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain (Jan. 15): Read and appreciate Samuel Clemens’ great American novel about poor white, illiterate Huck and black slave Jim as they form a bond escaping from oppression and brutality.

“The Rise of Silas Lapham” by William Dean Howells (Feb. 19): America’s capitalist economy rises during the Gilded Age. Ex-newspaperman, past Atlantic Monthly editor and prominent proponent of realistic fiction, Howells features a paint-sales businessman as protagonist in this influential novel.

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (March 18): The 20th century hosts the Jazz Age in this gripping classic tale of flappers, new money and the power of self-promotion.

“Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison (April 15): Essential reading composed around a coming-of-age story involving racism, collective identity and individualism.

“Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” by Neil Postman (May 20): Does the television do our thinking for us? Have we trivialized culture at the expense of reason?

“The Color Purple” by Alice Walker (June 17): Pulitzer Prize-winning Walker’s book stirs the emotions and intellect in this tale of two sisters, separated by time, geography and silence.

“The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World” by David Abram (July 15): Wrap up the season’s end with the exploration of diverse philosophies as reflected in our natural world and choice of words.