Eldredge Library Launches Year-long ‘Tales In Time’ Program

CHATHAM – Always wanted to explore ancient antiquity? Curious about medieval literature? Wonder what people were reading between World Wars I and II, or what your neighbors read last year?

For the next 12 months, your friendly neighborhood librarians at the Eldredge Public Library are offering patrons the opportunity to travel through these and other periods in history, and you don’t even need a time machine.

“Tales in Time” is a year-long “epoch-making adventure through the ages” in which participants choose one or more books to read from a dozen different eras. Read a book and have your passport stamped, and at the end of the year earn a chance to win a “timely” prize.

The reading challenge was assembled by circulation supervisor Mike McCartney, who thought it would be “fun and challenging” for both patrons and the library staff. He’s assembled brochures that list books related to each time period; he estimates there are about 500 books on the lists, all of them available either in the library’s own collection or through the Cape’s CLAMS library loan system.

“It was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun,” said McCartney, who is relatively new to the Eldredge Library. “And it was a great way to get to know our holdings.”

A longtime English teacher and medievalist by training, McCartney said he’s participated in similar challenges, although most he’s seen focus on grouping books by decades. “I thought, let’s do reading across time,” starting with classical antiquity and ending with books read by library patrons during the past year.

In assembling the lists, he tried to include a variety of voices and cultures, although he acknowledges that the suggestions are very Western European-heavy. “I tried to find as many books I could for each period that had perspectives from outside looking in,” he commented.

The lists include works written during each period as well as books about the time in as many genres and styles of literature as possible: fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, mysteries, science fiction, fantasy, and on.

“One of the things that was fun was highlighting how robust our nonfiction collection is here,” he said.

January starts things off with the classic antiquity period, roughly 800 BC to 500 AD. This includes a bit of what you’d expect: Plato, Marcus aurelius and the Illustrated Egyptian Book of the Dead, as well as histories, biographies and novels set during the classical period, like “I, Claudius,” and even a graphic novel versions of “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” He even included an Agatha Christie book set in ancient Egypt, “Death Comes as the End.”

“It’s exactly what you’d expect from an Agatha Christie novel, but with different costumes,” he said.

Other time periods readers can explore in the coming months include the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, World War I, between the wars, World War II, the Cold War, and the modern era (from the end of the Old War to 2022). The November time period is “Now,” the list for which McCartney said would be drawn from books that library patrons read over the past year (whether they were new or published in previous years). The list will also likely include recent award-winners.

December’s reading will focus on “The Future,” including nonfiction works that predict the future along with fiction set in the future, from “The Time Machine” to more contemporary science fiction.

“I thought that would be a fun way to end the year,” McCartney said.

Patrons are welcome to read books that are not on the lists, he added.

“People should choose works that are exciting and fun for them,” he said. Feel free to make suggestions as well, he added. While he waded through many, many titles in compiling the lists, he acknowledges they’re not exhaustive.

“That’s the hardest part of the selection process,” he said, “reaching into an infinite barrel.”

At the end of the program, those who have read books from each time period and had their passports stamped will be entered into a drawing. But, McCartney noted, he hopes that isn’t the only incentive for participants.

“Of course, reading is our reward,” he said. Next year’s challenge?

“Around the world is what we hope to do,” McCartney said.

Reading lists and passports are available at the library’s front desk. The lists can also be found on the library’s website, eldredgelibrary.org.