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Book Groups

Headquarters Book Group
Reading Room Blog, Book Groups
11/13/2009 - 5:18pm

Meets the second Monday of the month at 7:30 p.m. in the 3rd floor conference room

Current Selection:
 

December 14: The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck – 3rd Floor Conference Room

Ethan Allen Hawley, the protagonist of the novel, works as a clerk in a grocery store that his family once owned. With the decline in their status, his wife is restless, and his teenage children are hungry for the tantalizing material comforts he cannot provide. Then one day, in a moment of moral crisis, Ethan decides to take a holiday from his own scrupulous standards.

Future Selections:

 

Brown Bag Book Group (Headquarters)
Reading Room Blog, Book Groups
11/17/2009 - 3:43pm

Meets the second Tuesday of the month from 12-1 p.m. in Room 2 at Headquarters. Bring your lunch and join us!  (Please note:  we will not meet in December 2009.)

Current Selection: 

January 12: Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival by Velma Wallis

Wallis's award-winning, bestselling novel is about two elderly Native American women who must fend for themselves during a harsh Alaskan winter.

Future Selections:

February  9: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
March 9: Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee
April 13: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson
May 11: The End of Food by Paul Roberts
June 8: Heyday: A Novel by Kurt Anderson
July 13: Reader's Choice
August 10: The Increment by David Ignatius
September 14: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
October 12: Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls
November 9: Choose a book by Louise Erdrich
December 14: While I'm Falling by Laura Moriarty
 

A Classical Idea! Book Group (Headquarters Library)
Reading Room Blog, Book Groups
10/25/2009 - 9:58pm

Rediscover the timeless, treasured delights of the classics. Read, savor, and engage in lively discourse with our newest Book Group. Meets the 3rd Monday of every month. For more information, please call the Adult Reference Desk at 372-1144 ext. 232.

Current Selection:

November 16: The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane 

Crane set out to create "a psychological portrayal of fear." Henry Fleming, a Union Army volunteer in the Civil War, thinks "that perhaps in a battle he might run....As far as war was concerned he knew nothing of himself." And he does run in his first battle, full of fear and then remorse. (catalog summary)

Future Selections:
January 18: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
February 22: Beloved by Toni Morrison
March 15: The Stranger by Albert Camus
April 19: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
 

Porter Book Group
Reading Room Blog, Book Groups
11/08/2009 - 9:37pm

Meets the first Thursday of the month at 7:30 pm.

Current Selection:

December 3: The Good Earth by Pearl Buck

This moving, classic story of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his selfless wife O-lan is must reading for those who would fully appreciate the sweeping changes that have occurred in the lives of the Chinese people during this century. Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life: its terrors, its passions, its ambitions and rewards. Her brilliant novel -- beloved by millions of readers -- is a universal tale of the destiny of man.

Future Selections:

Jan. 7: Blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
Feb. 4: A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
Mar. 4: March by Geraldine Brooks
Apr. 1: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
May 6: The Glass Castle: a Memoir by Jeannette Walls
June 3: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
July 1: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet
Aug. 5: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
Sept. 2: The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Oct. 7: The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
Nov. 4: The Shack by William P. Young
Dec. 2: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Salem Church's Second Sunday Book Group
Reading Room Blog, Book Groups
11/08/2009 - 9:32pm

Join other readers to talk about books. The group meets the second Sunday of each month from 2-3 pm. 

Current Selection:

December 13: The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan

"Timothy Egan's searing history of the economic and ecological collapse of the southern Great Plains during the 1930s is an epic cautionary tale. Intertwining the stories of roughly a dozen individuals and families with a grim overview of the region-wide disaster, Egan's fluent narrative chronicles the terrifying consequences of a reckless hubris that in a few decades stripped the earth of prairie grass that for centuries had protected it from erosion." (Washington Post's Book World.)


Future Selections:

 

Snow Book Group
Reading Room Blog, Book Groups
11/17/2009 - 4:12pm

Join a lively and fun discussion of the month's selected title. Refreshments served. Meets the third Tuesday of every month at 10:30 a.m.

Current Selection:

December 15: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

A ruined mansion in the English countryside, secret illegitimate children, a madwoman hidden in the attic, ghostly twin sisters—yep, it's a gothic novel, and it doesn't pretend to be anything fancier. But this one grabs the reader with its damp, icy fingers and doesn't let go until the last shocking secret has been revealed.

Future Selections:

January 19: Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo
February 16: Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
March 16: Prayers for the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno

Snow's Book of the Month
Reading Room Blog, Book Groups
11/01/2009 - 10:07pm

Recommendations for enticing monthly reading.

Current Selection:

November 30: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
This collection's five powerful stories and haunting triptych of tales about the fates of two Bengali families in America map the perplexing hidden forces that pull families asunder and undermine marriages.  (Booklist review)

Future Selections:

December 31: The Secret Between Us by Barbara Delinsky
January 31: That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
February 28: The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks
March 31:  The Associate by John Grisham
April 30:  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
May 31:  East of Eden by John Steinbeck
June 30:  Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
July 31:   Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult
August 31:  The Defector by Daniel Silva
September 30:   The Help by Kathryn Stockett
October 31:  Return to Sullivan’s Island by Dorthea Benton Frank
November 30:  A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
December 31:  Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner
 

 

Readers of the Round Table (Montross)
Reading Room Blog, Book Groups
11/13/2009 - 5:14pm

Meets at 12:30 on the second Friday of each month.

Current Selection:

December 11: Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

As London is emerging from the shadow of World War II, writer Juliet Ashton discovers her next subject in a book club on Guernsey--a club born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi after its members are discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island. 

Future Selections:
January 8: Turning Angel by Greg Iles
February 12: The Girls From Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow

The Reading Guild (Cooper)
Reading Room Blog, Book Groups
03/19/2009 - 1:04pm

The Reading Guild meets the third Tuesday of each month at 6:00 p.m. The group's members pick a theme like Shakespeare or travel every other month; the other months are open discussions of your favorite book or current reading. Everyone brings a dish to share! Call the branch or check our program listing for this month's topic.

Let's Talk About Books (Newton)
Reading Room Blog, Book Groups
03/19/2009 - 1:05pm

Join Bobbie Borman, staff, and other readers to talk about books. There is no required reading; different types of books are explored like science fiction or just your favorite book. The group meets the third Monday of each month from 2-4 PM.