Before she passed away in 1974, Felicia Bornstein Lubliner wrote about her internment in Polish ghettos and two Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen. Her powerful stories have recently been published by her son, Irv Lubliner, an emeritus Southern Oregon University professor and OLLI instructor. He will share excerpts from Only Hope: A Survivor’s Stories of the Holocaust, shedding light on his mother’s experiences and indomitable spirit, as well as his experience as a child of Holocaust survivors and his process in bringing the book to fruition. This is followed by a Q & A session. 

• In case you are interested, here is an interview that aired on NPR radio stations in Southern Oregon and Northern California. Irv Lubliner teaches math, music, and literature classes for the OLLI program at Southern Oregon University, where he also serves on the Council of Directors.  An emeritus professor specializing in mathematics education, he taught for 40 years and led seminars for math teachers in 39 states. In 2019, he published his mother’s writing about her experiences during the Holocaust, the book that will serve as the theme for this presentation.

OLLI AT UVA IS INTRODUCING SHARED INTEREST GROUPS (SIGs) An OLLI Shared Interest Group is formed by a nucleus of OLLI members with a shared interest in the same subject, and who are willing to participate as active, rather than as passive, learners. SIGs provide ongoing learning, friendship and support around the shared interest. Each group is different depending on its focus, and all provide interesting lifelong learning opportunities as well as a fun social experience that is ongoing through semesters and class cycles.

Why Fish Don't Exist is a "remarkable" (Los Angeles Times), "seductive" (The Wall Street Journal) debut from the new cohost of Radionlab.  Why Fist Don't Exist is a dark and astonishing tale of love, chaos, scientific obsession, and-possibly-even murder.  Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don't Exist is a wondrous fable about how to perservere in a world where chaors will always prevail. 

Once you regster be sure to order the book right away.  Our book discussion(s) will be held in early march, just before the Book Festival begins.  The discussion group(s) will be scheduled after registration so that they can be small groups.  Why Fish Don't Exist is available to order locally at New Dominion Books, 434-295-2552.  They will make home deliveries with an 8-mile radius of Downtown. 

A signature program of Virginia Humanities and the Virginia Center for the Book, the Virginia Festival of the Book brings readers and writers together for a program of mostly free events including author readings, book signings, panel discussions, programs for children, and more. The 2021 Festival will be held virtually, from March 13-26. To learn more, visit VaBook.org.

For this book study, the author begins with a look at America’s first leadership crisis: a “deficit of adequate statesmen,” according to James Madison in 1780. Two Virginia Founding Fathers stepped up to the plate to fill the leadership void when Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson appointed his law teacher, George Wythe, as the nation’s first professor of law at the College of William & Mary in 1779. At Wythe’s death in 1806, his former pupils were virtually running the country. In this biography of George Wythe, Suzanne will also explore his strong influence as Thomas Jefferson’s mentor on Jefferson’s greatest lifetime achievements. Readers of the book will be encouraged to share their questions and comments about these Founding Fathers, the challenges of forging a new nation, and other insights. Wythe was signer and “Godfather” of the Declaration of Independence, champion of the Constitution, Revolutionary patriot, leading legislator, groundbreaking judge, abolitionist, and the most influential teacher in American history. Suzanne lectures frequently on the Jefferson-Wythe legacy. Venues include William & Mary, University of Richmond, and Virginia Tech lifetime learning affiliates, the Chautauqua Institution in New York, and numerous historical societies. She holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland and a MEd from Virginia Commonwealth University and attended The Executive Program at UVA’s Darden School of Business. 

The book can be found on Amazon, click HERE.

Author Caroline Cocciardi focuses on a facet of Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci’s artwork that has been overlooked for centuries but visible to the naked eye. Leonardo’s placement and use of inspired knots throughout his artwork as seen in such iconic works as Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. The intertwining knot Leonardo invents tells the story of a hidden message unlocked by Cocciardi and revealed in Mona Lisa’s embroidery pattern. This lecture is based on Caroline’s book, Leonardo’s Knots. For more information visit her website www.leonardosknots.com. 

Her debut novel, Haunting Paris, published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, has been praised as “elegantly wrought” by The New York Times Book Review and “a heart-wrenching love letter to Paris” by Publishers Weekly. Marilynne Robinson called “this fine first novel . . . a small parable, pondering the nature of civilization itself,” and Russell Banks described it as “powerful and moving . . . with a heartbreaking, profoundly adult love story at its center.” Learn more at MamtaChaudhry.com 

His earlier books—all works of nonfiction—include Thunder on the Right: The New Right and the Politics of Resentment (Pantheon), Unwise Passions: The True Story of a Remarkable Woman and the First Great Scandal of Eighteenth-Century America (Simon & Schuster) and Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson (Random House). His next book, to be published by Knopf, is the story of the American Revolution in the South and the events leading up to the British surrender at Yorktown. Crawford has written for The Wall Street Journal for more than 25 years. He has also been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Atlanta Constitution, as well as such magazines as Vogue, National Review, The American Conservative, The Weekly Standard, and the Progressive. His books have been reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, the New York Review of Books, Fortune, the Economist and Newsweek. He has spoken at the Union League Club and the Cosmopolitan Club of New York, Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C., the Virginia Center for History and Culture (formerly the Virginia Historical Society), Harvard University, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, the International Center for Jefferson Studies, the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira, N.Y., Freedom Fest in Las Vegas, the Virginia Festival of the Book, and many historical societies and book groups. He has been interviewed on the Motley Fool podcast, Coast to Coast AM, and C-Span’s Book TV, and has had residential fellowships at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, and the Boston Athenaeum. 

Patrick Henry was enormously popular during the American Revolution. Yet today, Patrick Henry is ill-remembered, most Americans might recall at best perhaps a snippet from his famous speech: "give me liberty or give me death." Patrick Henry, who helped to ignite a revolution, deserves better. This course will explore how Patrick Henry overcame challenges to reach the pinnacle of Virginia politics and unite Americans behind a challenge to Britain-the 18th century's super-power; why he opposed the U.S. Constitution; and why he then came out of retirement to defend the people's Constitution against the attacks of Jefferson and Madison.

This course will explore the Presidency, assassination, and lasting legacy of President John F. Kennedy. November 22, 1963 was so powerful a moment that in the more than 60 years since the assassination, virtually every U.S. President that followed JFK has used Kennedy's words and actions in an effort to craft their own political image. Why does Kennedy's influence persist, and will it continue? What are the effects?

This course will provide a case study introduction to physics in the context of everyday objects. The goal of the course is to make physics useful, and to help you understand and manage the physical world around you.

 Join us on Zoom weekly at 10:00 a.m. starting on January 18^th to connect with other members. This five-part series is purely social. In addition to being fun, it is a great way for Zoom newbies to get comfortable so you are ready for spring courses. Note: Registration is limited to Spring 2021 members.