Book Clubs

Find new books and new friends at our book clubs

Our book clubs meet both in person and via Zoom. Meetings are moderated by library staff. Zoom links for each club are found on the library's event calendar.

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Adult Book Club Promotional Graphic

Each year we read two mysteries, two historical novels, three general fiction novels, three nonfiction / biographies and devote two meetings to “What else are you reading?” discussions.

New members are welcome!

2023 Book Selections

Month / Meeting DayBook Selection
May 3
The Four Winds by Kristen Hannah
A rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it—the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

June 7
One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson
Recounts the story of a pivotal cultural year in the United States when mainstream pursuits and historical events were marked by contributions by such figures as Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and Al Capone.

July 6
What Else Are You Reading?

August 2
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
This story follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.

September 6
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
 Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood where even greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.

October 4
Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. This, her mother has told her, is the only way to get a 'louding voice' - the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir. When Adunni runs away to the city, hoping to make a better life, she finds that the only other option before her is servitude to a wealthy family. As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless slave, Adunni is told, by words and deeds, that she is nothing. But while misfortunes might muffle her voice for a time, they cannot mute it. And when she realizes that she must stand up not only for herself, but for other girls, for the ones who came before her and were lost, and for the next girls, who will inevitably follow; she finds the resolve to speak, however she can--in a whisper, in song, in broken English--until she is heard.

November 1
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell
A novel set in Renaissance Italy, and centering on the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici.

December 6
Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson
September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning. Mere hours later, Galveston found itself submerged in a monster hurricane that completely destroyed the town and killed over six thousand people in what remains the greatest natural disaster in American history--and Isaac Cline found himself the victim of a devastating personal tragedy.


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A Book Club for Those Who Love Classics

Classics Book Club

"Every rereading of a classic is as much a voyage of discovery as the first reading."
-Italo Calvino

Join us as we discuss some recognized classic literature.  

New members are welcome!


2023 Book Selections

Month / Meeting DayBook Selection
May 21
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
The story of mill operator Robert Moore, whose business is troubled by the economic climate; his distant cousin Caroline Helstone, for whom Robert has affections; rich heiress and landowner Shirley Keeldar; and Robert’s brother Louis, a poor tutor, whom Shirley has fallen in love with.

June 18
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
The critically-acclaimed story of Paul Morel, a second son who must discover his own identity in the shadow of his mother’s overwhelming presence and influence. A budding artist, Paul must choose between his responsibility to his mother and his desire to explore the world and fall in love. Faced with the chance for a future with two different women, Paul must decide what he truly wants and whose opinion—his own or his mother’s—matters most.
July 16
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendiá family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad and alive with unforgettable men and women—brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul.

August 20
The haunting drama of Quasimodo, the hunchback; Esmeralda, the gypsy dancer; and Claude Frollo, the priest tortured by the specter of his own damnation.

September 17
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
A searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order—all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls.

October 15
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The quintessential horror tale of the powerful, centuries-old vampire follows his bloodthirsty trail from the mountains of Central Europe to England, until the savvy Dr. Van Helsing comes up with a way to end his reign of terror.

November 19
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The story of Edna Pontellier, an attractive young wife and the mother of two sons living in the Creole south in the late 19th century. Edna feels herself trapped in a marriage where she is unable to express her passionate sensuality and as a result explores a spiritual and sexual awakening through an affair with a younger man during one summer while her husband is away. Liberated by this experience she sends her children away and is determined to live a more independent and self-determined life. This behavior would lead to her downfall as it was not seen favorably by the members of her conservative 19th century southern community.

December 17
No Meeting


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True Crime Book Club:  Sometimes Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

TrueCrime

“Each of us is a book waiting to be written, and that book, if written, results in a person explained."
-Thomas M. Cirignano

Meet with us to discuss select true crime books, examine writing style, content and overall presentation of material by the author as we try to understand whether or not the people at the heart of the stories were explained.


2023 Book Selections

Month / Meeting DayBook Selection
May 10
What are you reading/watching/listening to?

June 14The Brothers:  The Road to an American Tragedy by Masha Gessen
On April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston marathon, killing three people and wounding more than 264 others. In the ensuing manhunt, Tamerlan Tsarnaev died, and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, was captured and ultimately charged on thirty federal counts. Yet long after the bombings and the terror they sowed, after all the testimony and debate, what we still haven’t learned is why. Why did the American Dream go so wrong for two immigrants? How did such a nightmare come to pass? 
July 12American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes, and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin
Chronicles the events surrounding the kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst in 1974, discussing her participation with the Symbionese Liberation Army, her arrest and eventual pardon.
August 8Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases by Paul Holes
From the detective who found The Golden State Killer, a memoir of investigating America's toughest cold cases and the rewards--and toll--of a life solving crime.


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