“Pyro: The Quest for a Beautifully Elusive Snake”

The Community Library

How can snakes with such eye-popping colors be so maddeningly difficult to find? Despite their hues, Lampropeltis pyromelana snakes, lovingly known as pyros, are masters of secrecy. Embark on an exhilarating, swashbuckling journey with herpetologist Dallin Kohler in his attempt to locate these elusive snakes. From picturesque sandstone canyons to an unexpected stop at a local casino, Kohler encounters a delightful array of creatures. With its blend of exciting escapades, insightful natural history, and humor, "Pyro" (June 2025, Torrey House Press) promises not only to ignite a newfound appreciation for the seasoned herpetology enthusiast but to also warm the hearts of those curious about cold-blooded reptiles. Book signing to follow. Dallin Kohler is a writer and herpetologist from Boise, Idaho. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Biodiversity and Conservation from BYU. He is currently chasing amphibians as a graduate student in China. When he’s not unraveling the mysteries of nature’s most captivating creatures, he finds joy in following the NBA, playing classical piano, and appreciating a cleverly crafted pun.

Free

“You Were Watching From the Sand” with Juliana Lamy

The Community Library

Join us for a conversation with Writer-in-Residence Juliana Lamy about her debut book, "You Were Watching from the Sand," a stylistically and conceptually daring collection that winds from fantastical horror to mischievous domestic realism and always keeps in its sharp, compassionate view the material, spiritual, and emotional lives of Haitian people. Playful, kinetic, and devastating in turn, "You Were Watching from the Sand" is a collection in which Haitian men, women, and children who find their lives cleaved by the interminably strange bite back at the bizarre with their own oddities. In “belly,” a young woman abandoned by her only living relative makes a person from the mud beside her backyard creek. In “We Feel it in Punta Cana,” a domestic child servant in the Dominican Republic tours through his own lush imagination to make his material conditions more bearable. In “The Oldest Sensation is Anger,” a teenager invites a same-aged family friend into her apartment and uncovers a spate of disturbing secrets about her. Written in a mixture of high lyricism, absurdist comedy, and Haitian cultural witticisms, this is a collection whose dynamism matches that of its characters at every beat and turn. Book signing to follow. Juliana Lamy ...

Free

How Dark Is It? with UCLA Students

The Community Library

Defined as the presence of unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive artificial lighting, light pollution pervades 80% of global skies in the form of skyglow, or artificial brightening of the night sky. Its deleterious effects extend beyond astronomy — impacting the health of natural ecosystems, the behavior of energy consumption, and human circadian rhythms. So, what can we do about it? In cooperation with the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve, UCLA student researchers will share information about the impacts of light pollution in Idaho, the different ways to measure light pollution, the results of their monitoring studies throughout the Reserve since 2021, and ways you may be able to get involved in tackling light pollution!

Free
Event Series Story Time

Story Time

The Community Library

Join us on Mondays at 10:30 am for Story Time at The Community Library. Story Time is best suited for preschool age children. Story Time is followed by a special craft in the Children's Library. No unattended children in the Library, please.

Free

“The River’s Daughter” with Bridget Crocker

The Community Library

After Bridget Crocker’s parents’ volatile divorce, she moved with her mother from Southern California to Wyoming. Her life was idyllic, living in a trailer park on the banks of the Snake River with a stepfather she loved, a new baby brother, and the river as her companion—until her mother suddenly took up a radical new lifestyle, becoming someone Bridget barely recognized. The one constant in her life—the place Bridget felt whole and fully herself—was the river. When she discovered the world of whitewater rafting, she knew she’d found her calling. On the river, Bridget learned to read the natural world around her and came to know the language of rivers. One of the few female guides on the Snake River, she then traveled to the Zambezi River in Africa, the most dangerous whitewater in the world, where she faced death and learned to conquer her fears—both on the water and off. The river taught her to overcome years of betrayals and abuse, to trust herself, and, finally, how to help heal her family from generational cycles of poverty and abuse. A beautifully rendered memoir of a woman coming into her own, "The River’s Daughter" opens us to the possibilities of ...

Free

“The River’s Daughter” with Bridget Crocker

The Community Library

After Bridget Crocker’s parents’ volatile divorce, she moved with her mother from Southern California to Wyoming. Her life was idyllic, living in a trailer park on the banks of the Snake River with a stepfather she loved, a new baby brother, and the river as her companion—until her mother suddenly took up a radical new lifestyle, becoming someone Bridget barely recognized. The one constant in her life—the place Bridget felt whole and fully herself—was the river. When she discovered the world of whitewater rafting, she knew she’d found her calling. On the river, Bridget learned to read the natural world around her and came to know the language of rivers. One of the few female guides on the Snake River, she then traveled to the Zambezi River in Africa, the most dangerous whitewater in the world, where she faced death and learned to conquer her fears—both on the water and off. The river taught her to overcome years of betrayals and abuse, to trust herself, and, finally, how to help heal her family from generational cycles of poverty and abuse. A beautifully rendered memoir of a woman coming into her own, "The River’s Daughter" opens us to the possibilities of ...

Free
Event Series Story Time

Story Time

The Community Library

Join us on Mondays at 10:30 am for Story Time at The Community Library. Story Time is best suited for preschool age children. Story Time is followed by a special craft in the Children's Library. No unattended children in the Library, please.

Free

Hemingway Distinguished Lecture: PERCIVAL EVERETT

The Community Library

The annual Hemingway Distinguished Lecture is presented each July, honoring the month of Ernest Hemingway’s birth and death. The event celebrates the power of words and the creative spirit in a landscape that Hemingway loved. This year, The Community Library welcomes PERCIVAL EVERETT, a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. His latest novel, JAMES, was published in March of 2024 to critical acclaim. His other titles include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The lecture will be presented outdoors on the Library's Donaldson Robb Family Lawn. Chairs will be set up for this event, so attendees do not need to bring their own. A book signing will follow. This program will be livestreamed, ...

Free

“Believing in Indians” with Tony Tekaroniake Evans

The Community Library

Coming of age during an era of assimilation and cultural erasure, Tony Tekaroniake Evans was told by his third-grade teacher that Indians no longer exist. How could this be when his grandmother spoke Mohawk in the house? Thus begins a comical, informative, and heartbreaking literary journey in search of his Indigenous identity. From childhood fantasies to altered states of consciousness, studies in cultural anthropology, and travels in Indian Country, Evans takes an uncle’s invitation to learn the deeper significance of his Iroquois traditions, yielding a personal philosophy based on Indigenous values that resist the excesses of consumer culture and could renew the American Dream. Tony Tekaroniake Evans is an enrolled member of the Kahnawake Mohawks of Quebec, and an award-winning reporter and columnist for the Idaho Mountain Express. His stories have also been published in High Country News, A&E Networks’ History.com, Atmos, Mountain Gazette, The Smithsonian’s American Indian Magazine and other publications. He earned a degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Colorado and won the Expatriate Scholarship to the Prague Summer Writer’s Workshop in 1996. He is the author of Teaching Native Pride: Upward Bound and the Legacy of Isabel Bond and other books. His work is supported ...

Free
Event Series Story Time

Story Time

The Community Library

Join us on Mondays at 10:30 am for Story Time at The Community Library. Story Time is best suited for preschool age children. Story Time is followed by a special craft in the Children's Library. No unattended children in the Library, please.

Free

“Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue”

The Community Library

A Community Speaker Series event, in partnership with the Sun Valley Writers Conference. Registration is required to attend. When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, she was often written off as a courtesan and social climber known for her glamorous life and many erotic adventures. But in her delicious and comprehensive new biography, prize-winning author Sonia Purnell helps set the record straight in the captivating story of a woman who was at the center of power over five decades and two continents. In conversation with The Community Library's director of programs and education, Martha Williams, Purnell will share the details of Harriman’s glittery and strategic life: how at age 20, as Churchill’s beloved daughter-in-law, she became a “secret weapon” during World War II, and how, later in the United States, she hand-picked Bill Clinton and helped propel him to the presidency.

Free
Event Series Story Time

Story Time

The Community Library

Join us on Mondays at 10:30 am for Story Time at The Community Library. Story Time is best suited for preschool age children. Story Time is followed by a special craft in the Children's Library. No unattended children in the Library, please.

Free

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