Historical Book Club

Important Update Regarding Meeting Usage During Library Renovation

During 2026, we will be undergoing a renovation to better serve the people of Dearborn County. 

During Phase 2 of the renovation access to Youth Services, Genealogy and the Innov812 Workshop will only be available via the High Street entrance.You will still be able to use the Ewbank Meeting Room during Phase 2, but our procedures for using the room have been modified:

  • Please enter the library via the High St. entrance. This entrance provides access to the Ewbank Meeting Room, Youth Services, Genealogy, and the Innov812 Workshop only. To access other areas of the library, you must use the Parking Lot entrance.
  • Once inside, please check in with the Youth Services Department so we can give you the clipboard and key to the room.
  • If you need any assistance at any time during your meeting, please call 812-537-2775 Ext. 1125 and a staff member will come to help.
  • When your meeting has finished, please check out with the Youth Services Department where you can return the clipboard and key.

We are excited to share our upgraded spaces with you once renovations are complete. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to improve your library.

Program Type:

Book Club, Genealogy/Local History

Age Group:

Adults
Please note you are looking at an event that has already happened.

Program Description

Take a book back in time!  This month we will be reading "Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens,” by Jane Dunn.

The political and religious conflicts between Queen Elizabeth I and the doomed Mary, Queen of Scots, have for centuries captured our imagination and inspired memorable dramas played out on stage, screen, and in opera. But few books have brought to life more vividly the exquisite texture of two women’s rivalry, spurred on by the ambitions and machinations of the forceful men who surrounded them. The drama has terrific resonance even now as women continue to struggle in their bid for executive power.

Against the backdrop of sixteenth-century England, Scotland, and France, Dunn paints portraits of a pair of protagonists whose formidable strengths were placed in relentless opposition. Protestant Elizabeth, the bastard daughter of Anne Boleyn, whose legitimacy had to be vouchsafed by legal means, glowed with executive ability and a visionary energy as bright as her red hair. Mary, the Catholic successor whom England’s rivals wished to see on the throne, was charming, feminine, and deeply persuasive. That two such women, queens in their own right, should have been contemporaries and neighbours sets in motion a joint biography of rare spark and page-turning power.