Brooks Memorial Library - Brattleboro VT

From Overthrow to Blowback: How U.S. led Regime Change Has Historically Sown the Seeds of Instability and Backlash
2025-05-15 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | 118 Elliot, 118 Elliot Street, Brattleboro, 05301, United States
“Global Blowback: Understanding the Long Tail of U.S. Intervention and Regime Change.” Happening at 118 Gallery, Elliot Street, Brattleboro.
As part of the America 250 series, Windham World Affairs Council in collaboration with Brooks Memorial Library, Vermont Independent Media and the Vermont Humanities is creating a two-year series around the theme of global blowback.
The first speaker in the series will be esteemed author and journalist – Stephen Kinzer.
Kinzer is an award-winning foreign correspondent who has covered more than 50 countries on five continents. His articles and books have led the Washington Post to place him “among the best in popular foreign policy storytelling.”
Kinzer spent more than 20 years working for the New York Times, most of it as a foreign correspondent. His foreign postings placed him at the center of historic events and, at times, in the line of fire.
This event is happening at 118 Elliot Gallery. There is a $10 suggested donation. No one, however, will be turned away for lack of funds.
Registration link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/global-blowback-the-long-tail-of-us-intervention-and-regime-change-tickets-1305915230609?aff=oddtdtcreator

More about the Global Blowback series:
“Why do they hate us?” That’s the question that many US citizens express in response to political and terrorist attacks on the U.S. Many students and citizens do not understand the ways that U.S. foreign policy, particular during periods of aggressive military intervention and regime change, have sowed long seeds of instability, authoritarianism, migration, and resentment. While we in the US have a short-term historical memory or lack knowledge of historic interventions, the rest of the world has a long memory for 20th century U.S. intervention and regime change.
Central to deepening a global understanding of these events is the concept of “blowback.” The US intelligence community defines blowback as the “unintended consequences resulting from covert or direct action.” In his 2000 book, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, the late Chalmers Johnson, who was a eminent scholar of Asia, former CIA consultant and self-described “cold warrior,” described the blowback concept:
Officials of the Central Intelligence Agency first invented [the term blowback] for their own internal use… [It] refers to the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people. What the daily press reports as the malign acts of ‘terrorists’ or ‘drug lords’ or ‘rogue states’ or ‘illegal arms merchants’ often turn out to be blowback from earlier American operations.”
For example, the US covertly aided in the overthrow of a democratically-elected government in Iran in 1953, which led to the 1979 Iranian revolution and taking of the U.S. embassy and hostages –and two generations of instability.
Over the next two years, WWAC will host conversations around significant anniversaries of U.S. intervention and examples of long-term consequences or “blowback.” We propose a series of educational events, some tied to these anniversaries (but not rigidly).

District 8 Meeting
2025-05-17 10:30 - 12:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Please join Brattleboro District 8 Chair Gary Stroud and District 8 RTM member Cristina ShayOnye for an important community discussion about the town budget and how it will affect property taxes. This meeting is a chance for Brattleboro residents—especially those in District 8, represented by Rep. Mollie Burke—to learn about and share their views on the newly revised Town Budget coming before Representative Town Meeting at the end of May. Come to ask questions, share your thoughts, and ensure your voice is heard! This is a valuable opportunity to connect with your Town Meeting representatives before the town budget is voted on.

Brattleboro Planning Commission's Town Plan 2026 Community Conversation
2025-05-17 12:00 - 12:45 | VT
Immediately after the morning’s District 8 Informational Meeting, RTM members – and any interested community members – are invited to remain in the room to join and participate in this 30-45 minute Community Conversation.
The Brattleboro Planning Commission is updating the Town Plan. This plan will lay out a vision for Brattleboro’s future. There will be opportunities to get involved, including open monthly meetings of the Planning Commission, community surveys, community conversations, and workshops.
See https://brattleboro.gov/town-plan-2026 for more info and other ways to be involved.
If you are part of another group that would like to have their own Town Plan Community Conversation conducted by a Planning Commissioner, please contact the Planning Services Department (802-251-8154, planning@brattleboro.gov).

Brattleboro in Stitches
2025-05-17 13:00 - 16:00, 2025-05-24 13:00 - 16:00, 2025-05-31 13:00 - 16:00, 2025-06-07 13:00 - 16:00, 2025-06-14 13:00 - 16:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Bring a work in progress to sew, knit, crochet, embroider, or mend. Sewing machines, irons, and companionship will be provided.

Multigenerational Civics Class
2025-05-19 10:15 - 11:30, 2025-06-02 10:15 - 11:30, 2025-06-09 10:15 - 11:30 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Who has power over us? What power do we have to create the world around us? The Vermont Village School welcomes villagers of all ages to participate in a people’s Civics class with us this spring at Brooks Memorial Library. We will be untangling the different institutions that exert power over us, past and present, official and unofficial, and brainstorming how we move forward together.

Join us Monday at 10:15am @ Brooks Memorial Library, Brattleboro. This will be the first of a series–we will plan future gatherings based on collective interest and energy.

Sci-Fi Reading Group
2025-05-19 19:00 - 20:30 | Meeting Room D – Quiet Reading Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The Sci-Fi Reading Group will meet in the Quiet Reading Room from 7:00pm – 8:30pm to discuss To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers:
At the turn of the twenty-second century, scientists make a breakthrough in human spaceflight. Through a revolutionary method known as somaforming, astronauts can survive in hostile environments off Earth using synthetic biological supplementations. They can produce antifreeze in subzero temperatures, absorb radiation and convert it for food, and conveniently adjust to the pull of different gravitational forces. With the fragility of the body no longer a limiting factor, human beings are at last able to journey to neighboring exoplanets long known to harbor life.
A team of these explorers, Ariadne O’Neill and her three crewmates, are hard at work in a planetary system fifteen light-years from Sol, on a mission to ecologically survey four habitable worlds. But as Ariadne shifts through both form and time, the culture back on Earth has also been transformed. Faced with the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten those who have left, Ariadne begins to chronicle the story of the wonders and dangers of her mission, in the hope that someone back home might still be listening.
The Sci-Fi Reading Group meets the third Monday of every month and is open to curious minds, whether or not they’ve read this month’s selection.

Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission Flood Regulation Lunch & Learn
2025-05-20 11:00 - 14:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
A lunchtime meeting with zoning administrators and floodplain administrators to discuss Act 121, Vermont’s new Flood Safety Act. Topics covered will include new regulations coming down the pike, how to step into regulations, and how to administer these changes.

The Resplendent Quetzal: Tourism and Land Use in Costa Rica - with Dr. Alan Poole
2025-05-20 19:00 - 20:30 | Main Reading Room
This joint program, co-sponsored by Brooks Memorial Library and Southeastern Vermont Audubon Society (SVAS), provides an accessible, well-illustrated look at the life history of the Resplendent Quetzal — a dazzling, legendary bird of the highland forests of Central America. Aztec and Mayan cultures revered this quetzal, and today’s bird-watchers, thousands of whom visit quetzal forests each year, are only slightly less in awe.
Dr. Alan Poole, the author of a recently published book on Resplendent Quetzals (Cornell Univ. Press, 2023), will describe through the nesting ecology of this bird, its role in Mayan and Aztec religions, and how it fits into the increasingly threatened cloud forests that sustain it. The talk will also take a look at what lies ahead for this (and other) quetzals — how conservation efforts are giving them a boost, and what threats Mesoamerican cloud forests are facing.
Above all this talk will examine land use in Central America, especially Costa Rica, through a quetzal lens — no species does more to bring current land use trends in this region into focus. Understanding these trends is key to maintaining the viability of highland tropical forests in the Americas, and the quetzals that depend on them.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ALAN POOLE, an Associate of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, was editor of the Birds of North America life history series (18 volumes, 18,000 pages) for 22 years. He lives along the coast of southeastern Massachusetts, and spends winters in the highlands of Costa Rica, where quetzals are a highlight.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Note: This program will be at 7PM on Tuesday, May 20 in the Main Reading Room, and will take place instead of the monthly SVAS meeting.

Friends of the Library Annual Meeting
2025-05-21 16:30 - 18:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Annual meeting of the Friends of the Library. Community attendance and commentary is welcome!
Friends of the Library

LIBRARY CLOSED
2025-05-26 10:00 - 21:00 | Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The library will be closed in observation of Memorial Day.

Town Arts Committee
2025-05-27 17:00 - 19:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The monthly meeting of the Town Arts Committee members invites guests and the public to discuss town arts!

Brattleboro 250 Planning Sessions
2025-05-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Come and connect with others who are interested in working on plans to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States in 2026.
This monthly meeting space on the 4th Wednesdays is dedicated for those who would like the opportunity to connect, collaborate, and work on projects that align with Vermont’s 250th Anniversary Commission’s mission to “…inspire all Vermonters to learn from the history, legacy, and context of the past to build strong Vermont communities for the future.”
The space is being hosted by Brooks Memorial Library, Vermont Independent Media (The Commons) and Windham World Affairs Council, with support from the Vermont Humanities Council. We are already working together on a collaboration entitled, ‘Examining American Identity and Leadership in a Changing World – and have joined America 250, a national initiative asking communities to plan for how to commemorate the 250th year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Its mission is to provide opportunities for all Americans to pause and reflect on our nation’s past & present, honor the contributions of all Americans, and look to the future we want to create for the next generation and beyond.

Vermont Women and The Civil War - with Howard Coffin
2025-05-29 16:00 - 17:30 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
“Vermont women enlisted for the duration.” So said a Vermont historian assessing the war years 1861-1865. Vermont’s remarkable Civil War battlefield record is well documented, but little is known of how Vermont women sustained the home front. Historian Howard Coffin explains, with nearly 35,000 of the state’s able-bodied men at war, how women took on farming, worked in factories, served as nurses in the state’s military hospitals, and more. And at least one Vermont woman appears to have secretly enlisted and fought in a Vermont regiment! Drawing from letters and diaries, Coffin tells their story in their own words, describing life during the Civil War in the Green Mountain State. This is a Vermont Humanities event hosted by Brooks Memorial Library.
…
A seventh-generation Vermonter, Howard Coffin is the author of four books on the Civil War: Something Abides: Discovering the Civil War in Today’s Vermont; Full Duty: Vermonters in the Civil War; Nine Months to Gettysburg; and The Battered Stars, as well as Guns Over the Champlain Valley, a book on military sites along the Champlain Corridor.

Community Movie Screening - Counted Out: Math is Power
2025-06-02 18:00 - 20:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Counted Out investigates the biggest crises of our time through an unexpected lens: math.
In our current information economy, math is everywhere. The people we date, the news we see, the influence of our votes, the candidates who win elections, the education we have access to, the jobs we get—all of it is underwritten by an invisible layer of math that few of us understand, or even notice.
But whether we know it or not, our numeric literacy—whether we can speak the language of math—is a critical determinant of social and economic power.
Through a mosaic of personal stories, expert interviews, and scenes of math transformation in action, Counted Out shows what’s at risk if we keep the status quo. Do we want an America in which most of us don’t consider ourselves “math people”? Where math proficiency goes down as students grow up? Or do we want a country where everyone can understand the math that undergirds our society—and can help shape it.
This event is sponsored by WSESU and the Brooks Memorial Library; more information and registration can be found, here.

Brattleboro Great Books Group
2025-06-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Meeting Room D – Quiet Reading Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Monthly discussion of “Great Books”

Mineralogical Society
2025-06-03 18:00 - 20:45 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join the Brattleboro Mineralogical Society to discuss Minerals and other Geological topics!

Moments in Time - Art Exhibit
2025-06-04 - 2025-06-24 | Main Reading Room
June is recognized by the Alzheimer’s Association as “Alzheimer’s and Brain Health Awareness Month” (ABAM) and the Brooks Memorial Library and the VT Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association are collaborating to raise awareness in Brattleboro. From June 4-24, Moments in Time, a collection of works by Vermonters with Dementia, will be on display in the library. The exhibit displays (23) pieces from (13) individual artists and two collages created from art submissions from Residences and Adult Day centers in Vermont. The collection includes a variety of visual art, a wood carving, quilts and a mobile, highlighting the diversity and creativity of Vermonters with dementia.
“Close to 13,000 Vermonters over the age of 65 are living with dementia,” said Meg Polyte, Policy Director at the Vermont Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association and Co-curator of the exhibit. “This show seeks to foster understanding, spark conversation, and bring attention to the far-reaching effects of dementia on patients and their loved ones.”

Rapid Reviews - Adult Summer Reading Program Kick-Off
2025-06-04 18:30 - 20:00 | Main Reading Room
We are kicking off the Adult Summer Reading Program with Rapid Reviews of 50 books in 50 minutes! Experience a wide range of book recommendations from our well-read library staff to get ready for a spectacular summer of reading.
Ellen Martyn (Circulation), Jeanne Walsh (Information Services), Lindsay Bellville (Children’s Room), Anna Monders (Accounts), and Max Newirth (Teen Services) will review some of their all-time favorites.
Each reviewer will give 60-second reviews of each book and you will have the opportunity to check out these books right away! Cookies and milk will be served. All ages are welcome.
Check out the list of books reviewed here: Rapid Reviews – June 4, 2025.

LEGO-Palooza
2025-06-05 15:00 - 17:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Join us on the first Thursday of every month after school from 3-5pm to play with LEGOs!
We provide the LEGOs. You build. Do not bring your own LEGOs.
Children cannot keep LEGOs, but if there is enough room, we will display them in the window.
Free and open to the public!

Moments in Time - Opening Reception
2025-06-06 15:30 - 17:30 | Main Reading Room
All are invited to an opening reception for Moments in Time, a collection of works by Vermonters with Dementia, on display in the library from June 4th through June 24th. Featuring remarks will be presented by Jeremy Aldridge, a Brattleboro resident who has four pieces in the exhibit and Representative Mollie Burke, a former art teacher.

Community Conversations with State Legislators
2025-06-07 10:30 - 12:00 | Main Reading Room
All are welcome to these monthly conversations with our Brattleboro State Legislators. Topics change monthly. At present, June’s main discussion will center on any pending legislation and highlights from the session. There will also be time for Legislators to respond to any general questions or concerns about current happenings in the state house.

Library Board of Trustees
2025-06-10 16:30 - 18:00 | Meeting Room A – Community Meeting Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
Monthly meeting of the Brooks Memorial Library Board of Trustees. Citizen attendance and commentary welcome!
Board of Trustees

What's Cooking at Brooks?
2025-06-12 18:00 - 20:00 | Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The Friends of Brooks Memorial Library invite you to join us for a special after hours spring party where guests will explore the Library of Things collection by experiencing live cooking demonstrations and enjoying a grand selection of sweet and savory treats and refreshments.
The Library of Things is a collection of non-traditional items which can be borrowed from the library, such as kitchen and gardening tools, technology and electronics, memory kits, and even a telescope!
Take home some seeds for the garden and vote on new items to purchase for the Library of Things!
Admission is by donation. Everyone is welcome.

Sci-Fi Reading Group
2025-06-16 19:00 - 20:30 | Meeting Room D – Quiet Reading Room, 224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301, United States
The Sci-Fi Reading Group will meet in the Quiet Reading Room from 7:00pm – 8:30pm to discuss The Resisters by Gish Jen!
The time: not so long from now. The place: AutoAmerica, a country surveilled by one “Aunt Nettie,” a Big Brother that is part artificial intelligence, part internet, and oddly human—even funny. The people: divided. The “angelfair” Netted have jobs and, what with the country half under water, literally occupy the high ground. The Surplus live on swampland if they’re lucky, on water if they’re not.
The story: To a Surplus couple—he once a professor, she still a lawyer—is born a girl, Gwen, with a golden arm. Her teens find her happily playing in an underground baseball league, but when AutoAmerica faces ChinRussia in the Olympics, Gwen finds herself in dangerous territory, playing ball with the Netted even as her mother battles this apartheid-like society in court.
The Sci-Fi Reading Group meets the third Monday of every month and is open to curious minds, whether or not they’ve read this month’s selection.
