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

For millenia, storytelling has been part of human nature. The books in this series celebrate the art of storytelling and the fundamental role stories play in our lives.

Members of the public are invited to participate in any or all of these free discussions. Each will be led by 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. 7, 6:30 p.m.: “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” by Anthony Doerr. Discussion leader: Kevin Rabas, Emporia State University professor and past Poet Laureate of Kansas.

Five strangers living in different centuries and lands are bound together by a single manuscript: the story of Aethon. From 15th-century Constantinople to a library in Idaho and then to an interstellar ship, the characters are connected through their love of storytelling.

• Thursday, Nov. 6, 6:30 p.m.: “The Dictionary of Lost Words,” by Pip Williams. Discussion leader: Raylene Hinz-Penner, writer and retired teacher of English and creative writing at Washburn University and Bethel College.

Esme’s father and a team of lexicographers are assembling the first Oxford Dictionary. As a child, she begins to collect stray slips of paper with words written on them that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men. She hides them in a box of “lost words.”

• Tuesday, Dec. 2, 6:30 p.m.: “Haroun and the Sea of Stories,” by Salman Rushdie. Discussion leader: Kim Stanley, retired professor of English and chair of the Department of Modern Languages at McPherson College.

“What’s the point of stories that aren’t true?” Haroun, the son of a master storyteller, can’t get the question out of his head. When his father loses the gift of storytelling, Haroun sets off on an adventure through fantastical worlds to reclaim his father’s gift of gab and vanquish a powerful enemy, the Prince of Silence.