This program will take place over-the-phone as well as in-person at our Glenview office. 

Please direct all program inquiries and RSVPs to Melissa Wittenberg at T: (847) 510-2060 or melissa.wittenberg@chicagolighthouse.org.

CALL-IN INSTRUCTIONS: After you RSVP for any/all programs that you’d like to participate in, here’s how to call into each of the programs – we will use the same call-in number for all programs: To join any of the programs over-the-phone, dial 872-242-7995. It will then ask you to enter the Conference ID  737 107 407 followed by #. It will ask if you are the meeting organizer and since you are not, continue waiting and shortly after that you will be admitted into the program.

Most participants will use the free Talking Books player. The audio book player will be mailed to you at no cost, as well as all audio books. We can help you complete an application if you are not yet enrolled in the program. Please RSVP to Melissa in advance at: (847) 510-2060.

This month we will discuss the novel, I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger, listening time 12 hours. TBBS Book #DB120825.

A storyteller “of great humanity and huge heart” (Minneapolis Star Tribune), Leif Enger debuted in the literary world with Peace Like a River which sold over a million copies and captured readers’ hearts around the globe. Now comes a new milestone in this boldly imaginative author’s accomplished, resonant body of work. Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of a bereaved and pursued musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. Rainy, an endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs and remote islands of the inland sea. Encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, Rainy finds on land an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure and a lawless society. Amidst the Gulliver-like challenges of life at sea and no safe landings, Rainy is lifted by physical beauty, surprising humor, generous strangers, and an unexpected companion in a young girl who comes aboard. And as his innate guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his strengthening wake. I Cheerfully Refuse epitomizes the “musical, sometimes magical and deeply satisfying kind of storytelling” (Los Angeles Times) for which Leif Enger is cherished. A rollicking narrative in the most evocative of settings, this latest novel is a symphony against despair and a rallying cry for the future.

RSVP to Melissa at: (847) 510-2060.