Nonfiction Book Club: Symphony for the City of the Dead

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Program Type:

Book Club, Authors & Books

Age Group:

Adult
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This event is part of a combined series. If you register for this event, you will be automatically registered for all of the following events in the series.
Registration for this event will close on December 16, 2024 @ 1:00pm.
There are 43 seats remaining.

Program Description

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The library's Nonfiction Book Club meets the third Monday each month at 1 PM. All are welcome.

Whenever possible, copies of each month's title will be available for checkout with a library card.

Registration is optional - register to receive reminders!

This club will be held in hybrid format. Come in person at the library, or attend online! Click this link to connect via Zoom. Password: 3GWdHC

For more book groups, visit cityofportsmouth.com/library/book-discussion-groups.

Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad  by M. T. Anderson

In September 1941, Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what was to become one of the longest and most destructive sieges in Western history—almost three years of bombardment and starvation that culminated in the harsh winter of 1943-1944. More than a million citizens perished. Survivors recall corpses littering the frozen streets, their relatives having neither the means nor the strength to bury them. Residents burned books, furniture, and floorboards to keep warm. They ate family pets and—eventually—one another to stay alive. Trapped between the Nazi invading force and the Soviet government itself was composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who would write a symphony that roused, rallied, eulogized, and commemorated his fellow citizens—the Leningrad Symphony, which came to occupy a surprising place of prominence in the eventual Allied victory. This is the true story of a city under siege: the triumph of bravery and defiance in the face of terrifying odds. It is also a look at the power and layered meaning of music in beleaguered lives.


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