LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Library will host several events during October and November in honor of Toni Morrison, the celebrated author who passed away earlier this year.

All events are free and open to the public.

Each library will present a special display about Toni Morrison and her works. The public is invited to learn more about this powerful author.

The library is offering copies of Morrison’s book, “The Source of Self-Regard,” while supplies last.

Lakeport Library’s Evening Book Club will meet in the library at 1425 N. High St. at 2 p.m. Oct. 26 and put on a special presentation about Morrison’s works.

The Happy Bookers club will discuss Morrison’s works on Oct. 24 at 2 p.m. at Redbud Library at 14785 Burns Valley Rd. in Clearlake.

At the Middletown Library Book Club, 21256 Washington St., there will be a discussion of Morrison’s book “Beloved” on Nov. 13 at 3:30 at Middletown Library.

Chloe Anthony Wofford, better known now as Toni Morrison, was born in 1931 in Ohio. She and Harold Morrison married in 1958 and were divorced in 1964.

Morrison drew her inspiration from black life in America, especially the lives of black women.

Her novels often explore the same themes – a sense of loss, roots, community and identity, ancestors, extreme situations, freedom and “bad men,” responsibility, good and evil, and loss of innocence.

As a child she gained an appreciation for heritage, language and music from her parents and it makes itself heard in her poetic prose.

She graduated from Howard University and attended graduate school at Cornell University before working as an editor at Random House.

In 1970 her first novel, “The Bluest Eye” was published. All told, she produced 11 novels, nine non-fiction works, five children’s books, two plays and a libretto in a writing career that spanned nearly 40 years. She also worked in publishing and taught at more than half a dozen colleges and universities.

“Beloved,” published in 1987, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1988.

Morrison’s many awards and honors include the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Lake County Library is on the Internet at http://library.lakecountyca.gov and Facebook at www.facebook.com/LakeCountyLibrary .

Jan Cook is a library technician for the Lake County Library.