The 2025-2026 book for Salisbury READS is Revolution Song: The Story of America's Founding in Six Remarkable Lives by Russell Shorto.

Scroll down for a list of events. This list will be updated as events are added.

Salibsury READS is presented in partnership with the Salisbury Association, the Salisbury Forum, and the Troutbeck Symposium.

Free copies of Revolution Song are available at the library courtesy of the Salisbury Association and the Scoville Library.
Revolution Song is also available for free in audio format. Use this link to Libby and your Scoville Library card number to listen for free.
All programs at the Scoville Library SML are free to the public, thanks to the Friends of the Scoville Library.

Salisbury READS for children and families

Mumbet's Declaration of Independence by Gretchen Woelfle and Alix Delinois

Salisbury READS for YA-book lovers of any age

A Free Woman On God's Earth: The True Story of Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman by Jana Laiz, Ann-Elizabeth Barnes, and Jacqueline Rogers

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts

Free copies of these children & families and YA books are available courtesy of the Scoville Library at the circulation desk while supplies last.

We hope you’ll read with us and join us in discussion, inquiry, events, and activities related to the history of America’s founding and the War of Independence. We'll also explore the Revolution’s local roots and its resonance today through a variety of programs.

Upcoming Salisbury READS Events  

Details and registration information are published a month ahead. New events will be added. Please check back here, visit the SML calendar, or join SML's mailing list for updates.

October 11, Salisbury READS Launch & Book Giveaway courtesy of SML and the Salisbury 

October 25, Stitch the Salisbury Canons with Beverly Army Williams & America’s Tapestry (all ages event)

November 1, Taste of the Revolution: CORN! Cooking & Baking Contest (all ages event)

November 9, The American Revolution in the Northern Colonies with Tom Key (ages 18+)

November 22, Taste of the Revolution: Fermentation & Independence (all ages event)

December 30, The Scoville Library’s annual Hidden Treasures Tour  featuring the Secrets of SML’s Revolution-Era Roots & Collections (all ages event)

January 11, Quinnetukut: Our Homeland, Our History with Darlene Kascak of the Institute for American Indian Studies (all ages event)

January 25 Revolution Song, Book Discussion with Peter Vermilyea (ages 16+)

February 22, Revolution Song, Book Discussion with Peter Vermilyea (ages 16+)

March 15, Revolution Song, Book Discussions with Peter Vermilyea (ages 16+)

March 27, Author Russell Shorto in conversation with Peter Vermilyea and Rhonan Mokriski, presented by the Salisbury Forum in partnership with the Salisbury Association, Troutbeck Symposium, and the Scoville Memorial Library, and in connection with Salisbury Commemoration 250 and CT 250, this discussion will include a special focus on Shorto’s Revolution Song. (Registration will be available through the Salibsury Forum website.)

What is Salisbury READS? 

Initiated in 2024, the Salisbury READS is an annual celebration of reading, conversation, and community. The READ encourages the entire community to read a selected book together and engage in discussions, activities, and other informative and interactive events.

More about Revolution Song

Revolution Song has been praised as ​“first-rate intellectual history” (Wall Street Journal), ​“literary alchemy” (Chicago Tribune) and simply ​“astonishing” (New York Times). Shorto takes us back to the founding of the American nation, drawing on diaries, letters, and autobiographies to flesh out six lives that cast the era in a fresh new light. Through these lives we understand that the revolution was fought over the meaning of individual freedom, a philosophical idea that became a force for conflict and change.

The six central historical figures include an African man who freed himself and his family from slavery, a rebellious young woman who abandoned her abusive husband to chart her own course, a Seneca leader who advocated for neutrality but ended up leading his warriors to fight with the British, a self-educated shoemaker and lawyer who becomes an Albany politician and anti-Federalist, and a certain Mr. Washington, a man admired for his social graces but harshly criticized for his often-disastrous military strategy.

A powerful narrative and a brilliant defense of America’s founding principles, Revolution Song makes the compelling case that the American Revolution is still being fought today and that its ideals are worth defending.

Russell Shorto is the director of the New Amsterdam Project at The New York Historical and senior scholar at the New Netherland Institute. He is the author of eight books of narrative and believes that history is most meaningful when explored through individuals in conflict. His books have been published in fourteen languages and have won numerous awards. In 2009 he was given a knighthood by the Dutch government for advancing Dutch-American historical awareness. In 2018 he was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.

To hear Russell Shorto introduce Revolution Song, click this link and scroll down to the video.

More about our children, families, and YA READS

Mumbet's Declaration of Independence, by Gretchen Woelfle and Alix Delinois, is a picture book biography of Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, who, in 1781, in Great Barrington, became the first enslaved African American woman to win her freedom in a Massachusetts court.

A Free Woman On God's Earth: The True Story of Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman by Jana Laiz, Ann-Elizabeth Barnes, and Jacqueline Rogers, tells Mumbet's story in greater detail, beautifully illustrated, for YA-book lovers of all ages.

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts, reveals the many roles women played in the war -- as soldiers, spies, nurses, and cooks, and those who fought on the home front, often defending their very doorsteps.