This fall, Newton Public Library presents “Food for Thought,” a three-part TALK (Talk About Literature in Kansas) book discussion series.

Food is more than sustenance: it’s important emotionally and is a way to share traditions. Communities come together at events and eating places to get to know one another and to build common identities. At the same time, conflict can appear wherever people raise, cook, or eat food.

Members of the public are invited to participate in any or all of these free discussions. Each will feature a special guest.

Copies of the selected books are available for borrowing. Ask at the public service desk, email library@newtonplks.org, or call 316-283-2890. Book sets are provided thanks to support from Humanities Kansas.

• Tuesday, Oct. 6, 6:30 p.m.: Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm, by David Mas Masumoto. The author will join us via Zoom for this special book discussion! (Participants will meet in person at Newton Public Library.) Mas Masumoto grows organic peaches, nectarines, and raisins on an 80-acre family farm south of Fresno, California. He is also the author of 15 books, including Changing Season, Wisdom of the Last Farmer, Four Seasons in Five Senses, A Sense of Yosemite, and Harvest Son.

“Masumoto details his struggle to survive the rigors of modern-day grocery cold storage and distribution timetables while addressing the importance of family and learning to work with, rather than against, nature.”

• Tuesday, Nov. 3, 6:30 p.m.: Secrets of the Tsil Café, by Thomas Fox Averill. The author will join us in person for this special book discussion! Thomas Fox Averill is professor emeritus of English at Washburn University in Topeka, where he taught creative writing and Kansas studies. He is an O. Henry Award short-story winner and author of ten books. His introduction to What Kansas Means to Me: Twentieth Century Writers on the Sunflower State (1991) was titled “Afflicted with Affection,” and he remains so. In 2010 he created the Thomas Fox Averill Kansas Studies Collection at Washburn’s Mabee Library.

“Wes Hingler’s parents had one marriage, but two kitchens – his father’s Native American Tsil Café, and his mother’s European-heritage catering business. Wes’s search for his cooking style, and thus his own adult identity, comes interwoven with a number of memorable characters, family crises and secrets, and whole-world recipes.”

• Tuesday, Dec. 1, 6:30 p.m.: Empire Falls, by Richard Russo. Guest discussion leader: Kim Stanley. Kim Stanley retired as chair of the Modern Languages Department at McPherson College. For 30 years, she has served as a public scholar for Humanities Kansas, leading book discussions and workshops. Currently, she conducts workshops for writers of memoir and family stories.

“Miles Roby runs the local diner, the Empire Grill. His daily parade of customers provides him with ample evidence of both the restrictions and the forced intimacies of small-town life.”