Join a Book Club!

Expand your reading horizons this year by joining one of our four

book discussion groups. Book discussion groups are a great way for book-lovers to enjoy reading and the pleasure of each other's company. They can be a useful discipline for encouraging you to read more, to read outside the genres you normally read, or simply as a way to make new friends and meet like-minded readers.

The current book discussion groups cover a wide range of topics and cross between fiction and non-fiction books. The groups are geared towards different lifestyles and therefore meet at various times and locations. Working individuals can attend our evening book discussion group newly named All Over the Page on the second Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. alternating our meetings between Village Inn and Panera Bread.  Our newest group, Unshelved, meets on the second Wednesday of each month at 1:30 PM, and is taking book discussions to new horizons with their selected titles.  If you have free time during the day you can participate in the Bookies daytime group, which meets at 1:30 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month.  Or, join the Literary Angles book discussion group; this group meets at 1:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of the month and often has a film presentation following the discussion. 

Call 223-1309 ext. 502 to sign up for an Adult Book Discussion Group or ext. 220 for a Children's or Teen book discussion group.

What we're reading...
 

Unshelved

Meetings are held the second Wednesday of each month in the Friends of the Library Conference Room.

April 14, 1:30 PM--The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester

In sumptuous detail, Simon Winchester brings to life the story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, the world's most technologically advanced country.

Needham was a freethinking, intellectual biochemist at Cambridge, who in 1937 instantly fell in love with a visiting Chinese student, with whom he began a lifelong affair. He soon became fascinated with China, and his mistress persuaded the ever-enthusiastic Needham to travel to her home country, where he embarked on a series of expeditions to the farthest frontiers of the empire. He searched for evidence to bolster his conviction that the Chinese were responsible for hundreds of mankind's innovations—including printing, the compass, explosives, suspension bridges—often centuries before the rest of the world. His thrilling and dangerous journeys, recreated by Winchester, took him across China to far-flung outposts, consolidating his admiration for the Chinese people.

May 12, 1:30 PM-- Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray  

Ruth has always found baking cakes to be a source of relief from the stresses of life. And now-as her husband loses his job, her life-of-the-party father arrives for an extended stay (much to the dismay of her mother, who also moved in recently), and her teenage daughter perfects the art of sulking-Ruth is going to have to save the day. And let the crumbs fall where they may...

June 9, 1:30 PM--The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

In his wickedly brilliant novel, Alan Bradley introduces a most engaging heroine: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950—and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him take his dying breath. For Flavia, appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw.

Literary Angles

Meetings are held the third Tuesday of each month in the Friends of the Library Conference Room. 

April 20, 1:30 PM--Poetry (personal selections)--Please bring a favorite poem or collection of poetry to share with the group! 

Why We Should Read Poetry

By Amy Lowell (1874-1925) “We should read poetry because only in that way can we know man in all his moods -- in the most beautiful thoughts of his heart, in his farthest reaches of imagination, in the tenderness of his love, in the nakedness and awe of his soul confronted with the terror and wonder of the Universe.

Poetry and history are the textbooks to the heart of man, and poetry is at once the most intimate and the most enduring.” 

May 18, 1:30 PM--Mr. and Mrs. Prince by Gretchen Gerzina

Merging comprehensive research and grand storytelling, Mr. and Mrs. Prince reveals the true story of a remarkable pre-Civil War African-American family, as well as the challenges that faced African-Americans who lived in the North versus the slaves who lived in the South.

Lucy Terry, a devoted wife and mother, was the first known African-American poet and Abijah Prince, her husband, was a veteran of the French and Indian wars and an entrepreneur. Together they pursued what would become the cornerstone of the American dream—having a family and owning property where they could live, grow, and prosper. Owning land in both Vermont and Massachusetts, they were well on their way to settling in when bigoted neighbors tried to run them off. Rather than fleeing, they asserted their rights, as they would do many times, in court.

June 15, 1:30 PM--Plain Language by Barbara Wright

Virginia Mendenhall is thirty-three when she travels to Colorado to marry Alfred Bowen. They have met twice, and have come to love each other through letters. Now, on the isolated ranch Alfred recently bought, they must adjust to harsh ranching life and the untamed landscape, as well as the differences between them.

Alfred is desperate to prove his worth to his father, a successful rancher who has always belittled him, while Virginia struggles to keep a secret about her past from her new husband. As drought worsens the impact of the Depression, cattle prices plummet and neighboring ranchers adopt cutthroat tactics to keep themselves afloat. Fearful that they will lose everything, Virginia presses Alfred to ask his father for help, causing a rift in their marriage. It is her brother's arrival on the ranch, however, that sets off a chain of events with life and death consequences for them all.

All Over the Page

Meetings are held the second Tuesday of each month at 7:00 PM.  Meeting locations alternate between Panera Bread (3720 Broadway) and Village Inn (200 N. 36th St.).  

April 13, 7:00 PM at Village Inn -- The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

In his brilliant novel, Alan Bradley introduces an engaging heroine: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950—and a series of events has struck Buckshaw, the English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw.

May 11, 7:00 PM at Panera Bread --The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

In his attic bedroom, David mourns the loss of his mother. He is angry and he is alone, with only the books on his shelf for company.
But those books begin to whisper to him, and as he takes refuge in the myths and fairytales he finds the real world and the fantasy world are melding. The Crooked Man has come, with his mocking smile and his enigmatic words.

As war rages, David is violently propelled into a land that is of his imagination yet frighteningly real, a reflection of the world composed of myths and stories, populated by wolves and worse-than-wolves, and ruled over by a king who keeps his secrets in a legendary book . . . The Book of Lost Things

June 8, 7:00 PM at Village Inn --In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

They were the four Mirabal sisters—symbols of defiant hope in a country shadowed by dictatorship and despair. They sacrificed their safe and comfortable lives in the name of freedom. Their codename in the revolution was Las Mariposas, "The Butterflies," and in this extraordinary novel, Patria, Minerva, Maria Teresa, and Dedé speak across the decades to tell their own stories. From tales of hair ribbons and secret crushes to gunrunning and prison torture, they describe the everyday horrors—and the unbelievable joy—of life in the Dominican Republic under the dictator Trujillo. Through the art and magic, the martyred Butterflies come to vibrant and dramatic life in a warm, brilliant, and heartbreaking story that makes a haunting statement about the human cost of political oppression.

Bookies

Meetings are held on the first Wednesday of each month in the Library Meeting Room. 

April 7, 1:30 PM--Poets' Corner selected by Johh Lithgow

From listening to his grandmother recite epic poems from memory to curling up in bed while his father read funny verses, award-winning actor John Lithgow grew up with poetry. Ever since, John has been an enthusiastic seeker of poetic experience, whether reading, reciting, or listening to great poems.
The wide variety of carefully selected poems in this book provides the perfect introduction to appeal to readers new to poetry, and for poetry lovers to experience beloved verses in a fresh, vivid way. William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Dylan Thomas are just a few names among Lithgow's comprehensive list of poetry masters. His essential criterion is that "each poem's light shines more brightly when read aloud."

May 5, 1:30 PM--Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling (play script)

Steel Magnolias is the story of the close friendships of six ordinary Southern women, living in a small Louisiana town. The action takes place in Truvy's beauty salon, where the women who regularly gather there share in the small, humorous, every day events of life, as well as its unexpected crises. Through their joys and sorrows, the six women learn to endure hard times, and emerge from their individual struggles with confidence and grace.

Filled with humor and heartbreak, Steel Magnolias, will have you laughing and crying as you follow the realities of life.

June 2, 1:30 PM--Wildflower by Mark Seal

In January 2006, Joan Root, naturalist, wildlife filmmaker, and conservationist, was murdered by two armed men in her home on the shore of Kenya’s Lake Naivasha. Was it a robbery gone bad, or was it a contract killing carried out by enemies Root made in her efforts to protect Kenya’s wildlife? Journalist Mark Seal set out to investigate this murder–and found a story of tragic death and the remarkable life that preceded it.
With compassion, Seal lays bare the history of Joan Root, covering her early days in Kenya as a shy young woman; her whirlwind courtship with Alan Root, their marriage, and the years of adventure, romance, and wildlife filmmaking that followed; the shattering marriage and partnership; and Joan’s struggle to reinvent herself and protect the lakeshore community’s ecosystem.