Discontinued Book Clubs – Page 13 – Algonquin Library Adult Services

Nite Readers (07/18/2019): The Italian Party

June 20, 2019 Nite Readers

A delicious and sharply funny page-turner about “innocent” Americans abroad in 1950s Siena, Italy. Newly married, Scottie and Michael are seduced by Tuscany’s famous beauty. But the secrets they are keeping from each other force them beneath the splendid surface to a more complex view of ltaly, America and each other.

When Scottie’s Italian teacher–a teenager with secrets of his own–disappears, her search for him leads her to discover other, darker truths about herself, her husband and her country. Michael’s dedication to saving the world from communism crumbles as he begins to see that he is a pawn in a much different game. Driven apart by lies, Michael and Scottie must find their way through a maze of history, memory, hate and love to a new kind of complicated truth. […]

Great Books (07/17/2019): Go Tell it to the Mountain

June 19, 2019 Enjoying the Classics

Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin’s first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy’s discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin’s rendering of his protagonist’s spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves. […]

Book Clubbers (07/11/2019): Dear Mrs. Bird

June 6, 2019 Book Clubbers

Emmeline Lake and her best friend Bunty are doing their bit for the war effort and trying to stay cheerful, despite the German planes making their nightly raids. Emmy dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent, and when she spots a job advertisement in the newspaper she seizes her chance; but after a rather unfortunate misunderstanding, she finds herself typing letters for the formidable Henrietta Bird, renowned advice columnist of Woman’s Friend magazine.

Mrs. Bird is very clear: letters containing any Unpleasantness must go straight into the bin. But as Emmy reads the desperate pleas from women who many have Gone Too Far with the wrong man, or can’t bear to let their children be evacuated, she begins to secretly write back to the readers who have poured out their troubles. […]

Cozy Corner (07/03/2019): By Book or By Crook

June 5, 2019 Cozy Corner

For ten years Lucy has enjoyed her job poring over rare tomes of literature for the Harvard Library, but she has not enjoyed the demands of her family’s social whorl or her sort-of-engagement to the staid son of her father’s law partner. But when her ten-year relationship implodes, Lucy realizes that the plot of her life is in need of a serious rewrite.

Calling on her aunt Ellen, Lucy hopes that a little fun in the Outer Banks sun—and some confections from her cousin Josie’s bakery—will help clear her head. But her retreat quickly turns into an unexpected opportunity when Aunt Ellen gets her involved in the lighthouse library tucked away on Bodie Island.

Lucy is thrilled to land a librarian job in her favorite place in the world. But when a priceless first edition Jane Austen novel is stolen and the chair of the library board is murdered, Lucy suddenly finds herself ensnared in a real-life mystery—and she’s not so sure there’s going to be a happy ending…. […]

Nite Readers: King Zeno

May 16, 2019 Nite Readers

King Zeno By: Nathaniel Rich Date: Thursday, June 20th, 2019 @Harnish Time: 7:00pm AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE CHECKOUT IN AUDIO FORMAT ON HOOPLA! New Orleans, a century ago: a city determined to reshape its destiny and, with it, the nation’s. Downtown, a new American music is born. In Storyville, prostitution is outlawed and the police retake the streets with maximum violence. In the […]

Great Books: A Town Like Alice

May 15, 2019 Enjoying the Classics

A Town Like Alice By: Nevil Shute Date: Wednesday, June 19th, 2019 @Harnish Time: 7:00pm Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman living in Malaya, is captured by the invading Japanese and forced on a brutal seven-month death march with dozens of other women and children. A few years after the war, Jean is back in England, the nightmare behind her. However, […]

Book Clubbers: An American Marriage

May 2, 2019 Book Clubbers

An American Marriage By: Tayari Jones Date: Thursday, June 6th, 2019 @Harnish Time: 7:00pm AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE CHECKOUT IN EBOOK AND AUDIO FORMATS ON HOOPLA! Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as […]

Cozy Corner: Theme – Pop Culture Peeps

May 1, 2019 Cozy Corner

Theme: Pop Culture Peeps Read a cozy of your choice featuring a detective who has appeared in TV or film! FOR ADULTS & TEENS (Ages 14+) Date: Wednesday, June 5th, 2019 @Harnish Time: 7:00pm

Nite Readers: Rebecca

April 18, 2019 Nite Readers

Rebecca By: Daphne Du Maurier Date: Thursday, May 16th, 2019 @Harnish Time: 7:00pm The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady’s maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at […]

Great Books: Darkness at Noon

April 17, 2019 Enjoying the Classics

Darkness at Noon By: Arthur Koestler Date: Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 @Harnish Time: 7:00pm Originally published in 1941, Arthur Koestler’s modern masterpiece, Darkness At Noon, is a powerful and haunting portrait of a Communist revolutionary caught in the vicious fray of the Moscow show trials of the late 1930s. During Stalin’s purges, Nicholas Rubashov, an aging revolutionary, is imprisoned and psychologically […]